Pedagogical use of technologies for children with Specific Educational Learning Needs. A training strategy for teachers

Abstract

Studies indicate the presence of a wide number of specific needs in children who require support in different educational institutions. In Ecuador, the most common include motor, sensory and intellectual special needs, communication disorders and difficulties, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, educational compensation and high intellectual capacities. At the same time, advances in technologies applied to education show successful results in the design of several tools and creative technologies, however, their use by teachers is not always tailored to the diversity of students' needs to achieve significant learning. The aim of the study was to expose the limitations of teachers to make an adequate pedagogical use of technologies adjusted to the diversity of students’ needs in classrooms. The research was carried out under a non-experimental quantitative design and a descriptive scope. A web questionnaire was conducted to a non-probabilistic sample of 263 teachers who were studying for an educational master's degree at an Ecuadorian university, they agreed to the publication of the results under informed consent, those between 25 and 40 years old prevailed. The results are part of a broader study on teacher attitudes, professional satisfaction and the use of teaching methodologies in children with specific learning needs. Specifically, for this study purpose, we only took into account the variables associated with: identification of the different educational needs, level of satisfaction with the profession, level of stress with the profession when working with children with Specific Educational Learning Needs; relevance of technologies in learning, knowledge of educational technologies on a whole; pedagogical use of technologies in conditions of classroom diversity and also areas of knowledge were taken into account for the analysis. The descriptive analysis of the data shows that limitations start from the coexistence of several needs in the same classroomwith an average of at least two or three different typologies. It may explain why 82.5% of teachers express high levels of stress with the profession when they have children with Specific Educational Learning Needs in classroom. In spite of this striking data, 75% consider having a high level of satisfaction with the profession. A more favorable data concerns to the significance given by teachers to the use of technologies. Although there is an overall concern about technologies that can be used in classrooms, this is not the case of the knowledge and adequate pedagogical use of those that can be used for the different learning needs and areas of knowledge. This research leads to the presentation of a training structured strategy for teachers with five actions that can contribute to mitigate the problem of adequate use of technologies in diverse educational contexts. The impact of the proposed training process will be assessed in the future.

Keywords: Educational needs, pedagogical use, teacher training, technologies

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003160