Massive Open Online Courses

Education for All: Disability, Diversity and Inclusion | Disability Inclusion in Education: Building Systems of Support | Educating Deaf Children: Becoming an Empowered Teacher | Severe to Profound Intellectual Disability: Circles of Care and Education | Teaching Children with Visual Impairment - Creating Empowering Classrooms | TEDI

Education for All: Disability, Diversity and Inclusion 

Are you passionate about education and want to make a difference in the lives of children with disabilities? Join this six-week course on inclusive education and learn how to create a more inclusive learning environment. Discover practical ways to challenge barriers to learning and gain insights from experts with experience in disability. Join us and help create a world where learning is for all children.

Disability Inclusion in Education: Building Systems of Support

Worldwide millions of children are not able to fully participate in schooling, and this is especially a problem for children with disabilities. In this course, we explore the support that teachers need in order to meet the needs of children with severe to profound hearing, visual and intellectual disabilities. We consider how this can be done by talking with a range of experts (from teachers to activists) about inclusive education as well as sharing experiences of education.

Inclusive education is only possible if teachers are supported and empowered to make the curriculum accessible to all learners. The topics in this course cover developing disability confidence and what exactly children with specific impairments need to be able to learn. This includes sharing specific classroom strategies and teaching activities for learners who are D/deaf or hard of hearing, blind or have low vision or have a severe to profound intellectual disability. By the end of the course, you will be familiar with the impairment specific needs of learners with disabilities, and how to build systems of support for inclusive education.

The MOOC is open to anyone, but will be of particular relevance to educators, school principals and education policy developers and officials who are interested in expanding access to education and the full curriculum for children with severe to profound hearing, visual or intellectual disabilities.

We place the teacher at the centre of the process of disability inclusion in this MOOC, highlighting what support teachers need and how they can be supported by education systems in ways that promote equity, equal access and dignity for learners with disabilities. We also look at what exactly children with disabilities might need in order to learn on par with their non-disabled peers and to access similar opportunities in life.

The course topics include:

·Inclusive education and special education: Equality and equity

• Supporting disability inclusion
• Systemic support for educators
• Principles and approaches for disability inclusion 
• Inclusive teaching

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Educating Deaf Children: Becoming an Empowered Teacher

Many Deaf children around the world still leave school functionally illiterate. In some cases there is no allowance made for education of Deaf children at all. This 4 week course provides you with invaluable knowledge and skills about teaching Deaf children. You will learn about the importance of Deaf culture and community, the need for a language rich environment for the Deaf child from as young as possible, and that having access to sign language can help Deaf children academically, emotionally, and socially. We also cover various accommodations and modifications that you can apply in your classroom and learning environment to create an accessible learning experience for Deaf children. You will also find that a shift in attitude will enable you to connect with Deaf children with more understanding. We hope that through this course you become an empowered teacher - for yourself, for your fellow teachers, and most importantly, for the Deaf children in your classroom.

The course topics include:

• The experience of being Deaf and how it impacts learning
• The role of teachers in developing resilience in Deaf children
• Creating an accessible learning experience
• Becoming an empowered teacher

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Severe to Profound Intellectual Disability: Circles of Care and Education

This course is about caring for and educating children (and youth) with severe to profound intellectual disability. We use the idea of 'circles' to position the child at the center of the many levels of support needed. Around the child are circles of care and education - such as the parents, family, friends, caregivers, educators, health care workers and others such as neighbors, business owners and community members. Each one has an important role to play in the life of a person with an intellectual disability and can be seen as a caregiver and educator. Although this course is aimed particularly at caregivers who work at a special centre or in a private home, each person in the circle of care and education plays a valuable role and will find the course useful.

During the course you can gain greater understanding about intellectual disability, levels of severity of intellectual disability and the history of intellectual disability. You will also start to understand how you can support children and youth with severe to profound intellectual disability so that they can reach their full potential and become participating members of society. We look at lifelong learning by exploring brain development, the learning process and how to maximise the opportunities for learning. With input from a range of experts, we consider how best learning can be facilitated. This includes looking at children’s learning support needs, how to go about planning activities for the learning programme as well as how to empower multiple people who work in a team to care and educate children with severe to profound intellectual disability. In the last week, we focus on rights, advocacy and relationships of care. Empowering and caring for caregivers themselves is a key focus of the course.

This course is aimed at parents and caregivers of children with severe to profound intellectual disability, therapists, centre managers and the broader public / community who are interested in knowing more about caring for and educating a person with an intellectual disability.

The course topics include:

• Who is the child with severe to profound intellectual disability?
• Lifelong learning
• Facilitating learning
• Rights, advocacy and relationships of care

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Teaching Children with Visual Impairment - Creating Empowering Classrooms

In the education of children with visual impairment, there is at present a global movement away from segregated special schooling, and towards inclusive neighbourhood schools. Inclusion provides an opportunity for everyone, teachers as well as learners, to become more acquainted about life with visual impairment and to overcome some of the barriers of difference which have existed in the past. But if it is to be successful, teachers and others require key skills and insights in order to create classroom environments which fully accommodate the learning needs of children with visual impairment. In this course, you will discover the visually impaired child by recognizing that there are many different eye conditions and that each affects learning and behaviour differently.

During the course, we will explore the Expanded Core Curriculum, which is a collection of content areas that teachers integrate into the core curriculum to give visually impaired learners access to knowledge that sighted learners gain through observation. You will also learn how to make your classroom, the content, your teaching, and the assessments accessible through curriculum differentiation strategies. By the end of the course you will have the necessary tools to create empowering classrooms where you can teach children with visual impairment in an inclusive, accessible, and attuned space.

The course topics include:

• Discover the visually impaired child
• The Expanded Core Curriculum for the visually impaired child
• Curriculum differentiation and assistive technology
• Becoming an empowered teacher

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TEDI MOOCs

Disability Inclusion in Education: Building Systems of Support
We place the teacher at the centre of the process of disability inclusion in this MOOC, highlighting what support teachers need and how they can be supported by education systems in ways that promote equity, equal access and dignity for learners with disabilities. We also look at what exactly children with disabilities might need in order to learn with their non-disabled peers and to access similar opportunities in life.

Educating Deaf Children: Becoming an Empowered teacher
This course explores how being Deaf impacts on children’s learning and development, and how educators can modify the learning environment and make accommodations to meet the needs of Deaf children, develop their resilience, and support them holistically.

Teaching Children with Visual Impairment: Creating Empowering Classrooms
There is a global movement towards inclusive neighborhood schools for the education of children with visual impairment. Inclusion provides an opportunity for everyone to become more acquainted about life with visual impairment. To create inclusive classrooms which fully accommodate the learning needs of children with visual impairment, teachers require skills, insights, and creativity. This course provides teachers with the tools to create fun and inclusive classrooms for children with visual impairment.

Severe to Profound Intellectual Disability: Circles of Care and Education
This course is about caring for and educating children (and youth) with severe to profound intellectual disability. It aims to inform and empower parents, caregivers, therapists and others involved in working with a person with severe to profound intellectual disability by exploring what intellectual disability entails, learning about support needs, how to go about planning learning activities and building relationships of care and respect.

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