Abstract
With schools under intense pressure to deliver high-quality instruction during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, education in the 2020–2021 school year was different than typical, especially for students with disabilities including those who are visually impaired (VI). Schools all over the world struggled to figure out the best ways to provide services for students and meet their needs, from fully online learning to hybrid education and in-person school. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the experiences of professionals who work with students with VI during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fifteen educators of students with VI participated in this study. Participants were asked to share their experiences when providing services to students who are VI during the first 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings for this study identified four major themes as follows: (1) changes in delivery of services; (2) challenges in teaching and learning; (3) opportunities for teaching and learning; and (4) learnings to apply in the future. Recommendations for professionals working with students who are VI highlighting the importance of professional development training on technologies and maintaining strong connection with families will be discussed. Suggestions for personnel preparation programs and school districts on how to support pre-service and in-service educators of students with VI will also be addressed.
Keywords
The onset of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted educational systems worldwide, leading school districts, institutions of higher education, and educators to be in uncharted territory (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, n.d.). The rapid shift from in-person instruction to online learning has disproportionately impacted students with disabilities who were already experiencing social and educational inequalities (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2020). COVID-19 also appears to have deepened disparities in access and opportunity facing many students with and without disabilities, with nearly all students reported to have experienced some challenges to their mental health during the pandemic (Office of Civil Rights, 2021).
As the pandemic is deepening pre-existing inequalities, students with visual impairments (VIs) must be guaranteed equitable access to content curricula irrespective of the shift in the learning environment. Similarly, because access to services provided for students with disabilities had been reduced or eliminated, these students are reported to be the most likely to regress during the COVID-19 pandemic (Jones et al., 2020). According to Rosenblum et al. (2020), during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 13% of school-age students with VI did not receive educational services, 61% received services remotely, and 43% of those students experienced challenges with access because of their vision loss.
The field of VI has a long history of including students with VI in general education settings. According to Marder (2009), more than half of elementary and middle school-age children with VI receive educational services in general education classrooms. The 42nd Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (U.S. Department of Education, 2021) indicated that 68% of students with VI, ages 6–21 years in the school system from July 2017 through December 2018, attended general education settings at least 80% of the time in the United States. When students with VI are included in general education settings, one common means of providing services is the use of itinerant teachers of the visually impaired (TVI). In addition to providing students with VI access to the general education curriculum, TVIs are responsible for ensuring that their students have access to the Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC). The ECC includes concepts and skills that require specialized instructions for students with VI to compensate for decreased opportunities learned by observing others (Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, 2016).
The rapid onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant challenges for TVIs to implement specially designed instructions in the ECC and to adapt the general education curriculum in hybrid, remote, and in-person schooling models. In two recent surveys conducted nationwide, researchers examined the impact of COVID-19 on students with VI ages birth to 21 years, their families, and professionals in the United States and Canada (Rosenblum et al., 2020, 2021). Results of these surveys suggested that 85% of TVIs had students in online general or special education classes and reported having at least one student with an accessibility issue (Rosenblum et al., 2020, 2021). Orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists who participated in the survey also reported that they were only working with 45% of their students and 95% of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals related to O&M had to be modified due to COVID-19 (Rosenblum et al., 2020). By November 2020, many of the TVIs reported that it was challenging to coordinate with classroom and general education teachers to make lessons accessible to their students in an equitable manner (Rosenblum et al., 2021).
The results of the surveys conducted by Rosenblum et al. (2020) and Rosenblum et al. (2021) reflected the experiences of families of students with VI and professionals who work with these students in the United States and Canada during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the education of students with VI specifically in one Western state of the United States by investigating how educators provided services in different schooling models used during the first 9 months of the pandemic (e.g., remote, hybrid, and in-person). The research question that guided this study was as follows:
RQ. What are the experiences of teachers of students with VIs in providing services to their students during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Method
Sampling procedures
Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University. A qualitative approach was used for this study. Using purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002), 15 professionals who work with students who are blind or VI in a Western state of the United States were recruited. Merriam (1998, p. 61) suggested that “Purposeful sampling is based on the assumption that the investigator wants to discover, understand, and gain insight and therefore, must select a sample from which the most can be learned”. Participants were selected deliberately to offer valuable information that could not be gathered in as much detail from other sources. The selection of the participants for this study was based on (1) their role when providing services to students with VI, (2) the area where they provided services (rural, urban, and suburban areas), and (3) their willingness to participate in the study.
Participants
A total of 15 itinerant TVIs participated in this study. The ages of the participants ranged from 26 to 65 years old. One participant identified as male while the other 14 identified as female. Participants reported having a minimum of 3 years, a maximum of 22 years, and an average of 10 years of experience as a TVI. Thirteen participants were full-time TVIs, one participant had an additional job responsibility of being a team leader and one other participant worked as a part-time early intervention provider. One of the participants had her own business working in a regional school program and two of the participants worked for rural school districts. Eleven of the participants were also Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists (COMSs). The number of students in the participants’ caseloads ranged from 10 to 27, with ages of students ranging from pre-school to 21 years old. All 15 participants had at least one braille or tactile learner in their caseload. Participants reported that most of their caseload consisted of students with additional disabilities including those with cortical visual impairments (CVIs). Participants had a minimum of three students and a maximum of 17 students with additional disabilities in their caseload. Table 1 presents the participants’ caseload and demographic information.
Demographics of the participants and their caseload.
O&M: orientation and mobility.
Missing data.
Data collection procedures
After reviewing the literature, interview questions were developed specifically for this study. Before data collection, two seasoned TVIs reviewed and “tested” the questions and provided feedback to the researchers. Before conducting the interviews, participants were given an opportunity to read and sign the consent form, review the interview questions, and fill out a demographic questionnaire. During the interviews, questions were elaborated upon when the interviewer or interviewee felt further clarification was necessary.
Participants were interviewed one time, and the average time for the interviews was 40 min. Interviews were conducted by both researchers through Zoom, an online meeting platform. All interviews were audio-recorded and followed a semi-structured protocol that included a set of open-ended questions. The interview protocol related to experiences during the pandemic that included questions about (1) caseload description; (2) services provided; (3) lessons learned; (4) supports received; (5) the impact on collaboration with families, team members, and other TVI colleagues; (6) role of technology; and (7) recommendations for future educators. Each recorded interview was transcribed verbatim using the Zoom transcription feature and then reviewed by the researchers for accuracy. Interview transcripts were sent to each of the 15 participants to verify the accuracy.
Data analysis
After the interview and transcription processes were completed, data were analyzed to determine systematic categories through coding. Data were coded independently by the two researchers using a constant comparison method. During this process, interview transcripts were carefully reviewed for meaning units (Merriam, 1998). The meaning units for each interview were grouped into categories based on how frequent they occurred, and then labeled with a temporary category label. Each interview was then compared with the subsequent interview, again in search of categories established through recurrence of meaning units. Only categories that emerged across most participants were kept. Comparisons were made between meaning units for different groupings to note any patterns. Finally, categories were grouped together into themes based on likeness of content.
Results
Findings for this study investigating the experiences of TVIs during the first 9 months of the pandemic identified four major themes as follows: (1) changes in delivery of services; (2) challenges in teaching and learning; (3) opportunities for teaching and learning; and (4) learnings to apply in the future.
Changes in delivery of services
During the early months of the pandemic, most of the participants in this study provided services to their students in a variety of models including remote, hybrid, in-person, combination of models, or all the models within the same caseload. Participants expressed frustration for both, themselves and for their students, when they had to go back and forth between remote and in-person learning due to quarantining of students or themselves. One of the TVIs described her frustration as, “. . . transitioning back and forth from in-person to remote . . . I think it’s hard on kids, it’s hard on families, it’s hard on us. It makes me get pretty emotional because we all feel it.”
At the beginning of the school year 2020–2021, districts were more prepared than when the pandemic first started in the spring of 2020. Some school districts used Learning Pods, where groups of students who did not have Internet access or did not have adult support at home gathered in school environments. These students were still doing remote learning, but they were supported by educational assistants, itinerant teachers, therapists, and other professionals to access their remote learning environments. TVIs reported that such Pods were easier to provide services for younger students and tactile learners in their caseload as compared to being completely remote.
Participants also reported that remote or hybrid service delivery models caused changes in the technology needs of students. One of the TVIs described how she and her students had to go through a process of trial and error in the spring 2020 just to figure out how to turn on the audio and video of the Zoom platform to access remote sessions.
Itinerant TVIs also raised concerns about providing services during the pandemic because of the lack of communication from school buildings on COVID cases. One TVI described how she felt unsafe when she was not informed about COVID cases in one of her student’s buildings. “I wasn’t told about it until after I got to school. Because I wasn’t on a contact list . . . I didn’t get notifications about COVID things.” Some school districts also restricted itinerant TVIs to travel to only one school a day to reduce the spread of the virus.
The caseload of TVIs working in rural districts has changed since the pandemic started, mostly because of students withdrawing from public schools. According to one of the participants, who is a rural TVI, two of her students with multiple disabilities withdrew from public school due to health concerns and both of them were homeschooled. The pandemic has also changed the services provided by early intervention TVIs who would normally provide home services. One of the participants described how some of the parents withdrew from early intervention services, “. . . it was a big shift then to be on Zoom, and for some families that meant that they weren’t that interested in the services anymore.”
Challenges in teaching and learning
Teaching
Participants described several teaching challenges during the early months of the pandemic. Many of them reported that addressing the needs of students with additional disabilities in virtual settings was difficult. One TVI shared, “I still don’t think these kids are being adequately served. We’re doing the best we can . . . but in the end, it’s not being adequately addressed.” Keeping 6 feet apart from tactile or braille learners and ensuring masks were worn by students took away valuable service time. One participant reported, “. . . when you normally only have maybe 20 or 30 minutes and then it feels like I’m sure it’s not half but maybe a quarter of the time is taken with those kinds of things.”
Teaching in a virtual setting means that TVIs need to be supporting unique family needs as well. Heavy reliance on family support to teach students in remote settings was perceived by one participant as “. . . parents are doing our work for us.” The culture and language differences of some families were also highlighted as challenges faced by TVIs in this study.
Many participants highlighted the importance of extensive planning before instructional lessons: “You definitely have to be more mindful and more proactive in that planning piece of it.” Some participants also expressed frustration that they had to constantly plan for lessons that they can teach students in-person, or remote, or for students to complete on their own. One TVI stated, “I feel like I constantly have to have a plan for online, a plan for in-person, a plan for something they can do totally independently that I can send them, and they can do on their own.”
Teaching problem-solving skills to students in general education settings, providing access to devices that don’t cause eye fatigue, and assessing students in virtual settings were also reported as challenges faced by TVIs during the early months of the pandemic. Related to the virtual assessment, one TVI expressed, That’s a challenge and you lean [on] a lot of the parents and information and they’ve shared some videos and but twice now I had those assessments, and then, when the child actually came to school, it was like, oh, they were more impacted than I may have thought.
IEP compliance
The majority of TVIs reported adding COVID statements to the prior written notice (PWN) of IEPs. These COVID statements included changes in service hours, goals, accommodations, and other IEP-related changes that occurred because of the pandemic. Participants shared that they wrote goals that can be taught remotely for new IEPs. TVIs also stated that some of their re-evaluations were significantly delayed, progress monitoring of IEP goals was hard, and that a few of their students’ IEP goals changed due to insufficient progress. Although some of the TVIs reported that IEP accommodations and service hours did not change due to the pandemic, a few others reported that they had to write how services would look like for each of the service models, hybrid, in-person, and remote. When students do not log in during remote sessions, a TVI expressed “I don’t know [if] that changes IEPs, but it certainly changes my ability to provide my IEP service.”
O&M services
Participants who were also COMS expressed difficulties in providing O&M services during the pandemic. Virtual O&M services were provided by the majority of participants, and these services were based on the county-level and district-level COVID-related regulations. A participant stated, “I feel like we offer virtual O&M to the best of our ability, but it’s not as good as in person.” All the participants expressed that they had to replace the current O&M goals of their students with something more creative. One participant said, “We were learning the layout of her new high school last year . . . and so now we’ve completely changed her O&M, where she is planning a vacation and is going to need to like research online.” Despite being creative with O&M, participants felt that virtual O&M services were not as meaningful for their students. Participants also reported that some parents chose to opt out their children from O&M services due to safety concerns. A few participants reported the use of gaming platforms such as ObjectiveEd as a huge positive to teach O&M concepts like directionality to younger children with VI.
Technology
All the participants in the study recognized the huge role that technology has played during the pandemic. TVIs reported troubleshooting technology issues virtually with students and implementing workarounds for accessibility issues as the hardest tasks in remote learning environments. A participant stated, We have to figure out a workaround. Last quarter our district used Edgenuity that was not accessible with the BNT. We had to spend 3 hours per day on the phone with this student reading the material to her and inputting her answers into the computer.
Many of the mainstream platforms used by school districts were not accessible to students who are blind. Pop-ups, chats, and online quizzes that are easily accessed by sighted peers, TVIs had to create workarounds for their students by collaborating with general education teachers. Most of the accessibility issues faced by students with VI were dealt with themselves with the support from other TVI colleagues or direct support from blindness technology companies such as Humanware. A TVI expressed, “We’re pretty much the ones that have to figure that out and tell the teachers.” Some TVIs embraced the idea of teaching mainstream accessibility features and troubleshooting including Zooming, VoiceOver, and JAWS as primary goals for their students. Frustrations due to inaccessible software were felt by both the TVIs and their students to a point that some students gave up learning as one TVI reported, Technology has definitely been a huge barrier like for my senior who’s deafblind . . . he has just pretty much given up. He just looks at this technology and it’s like, “I can’t do this. I am too visually fatigued, I get a headache. I don’t understand.”
Opportunities for teaching and learning: unexpected outcomes
Most participants stated that they found new ways of teaching and cited several unexpected and encouraging learning outcomes for their students.
Teaching
TVIs reported finding creative ways to teach and engage their students with VIs in remote learning environments. A participant stated, “I have to be more creative. I think it’s hard to engage over a computer for students. We have to be really creative in how we approach our lessons and what we’re providing for kids to keep them engaged.” For students with multiple disabilities, many TVIs co-taught with other service providers and homebound teachers due to limited teaching time for students who cannot be engaged in virtual settings for a longer period.
Collaboration and supports
All TVIs reported that they improved communication and relationships with some families. An increased involvement of parents and family members in the child’s education was seen by many participants in the study as a huge positive outcome. One TVI stated, I think it’s been exciting in some ways for parents to see more of what we do . . . her mom was very involved and ended up signing up for some of the Hadley braille courses and things. And so I felt like that was a big success.
Most participants also expressed that COVID has opened doors to more teaming with other TVI colleagues. A participant noted how the “Zoom” platform helped in more teaming by: What’s nice is the Western Slope we’ve started to do monthly zooms check ins . . . But we had never done that in the past. I think we had met maybe two or three times in the last like five, six years.
A plethora of resources
All participants expressed their appreciation for the state-level initiative of biweekly virtual office hours provided by the State’s Department of Education for educators of students with VI. A TVI expressed her appreciation of having virtual office hour as, “It has been very helpful to have the opportunity to meet regularly with other TVIs and COMS from around the state to share how we are all managing teaching remotely.” Many participants shared that the district-level support they received was mostly in the context of flexibility of work timings and funding that was provided to meet the technology needs of their students. Online webinars and resources from several blindness organizations including Perkins School for the Blind, American Printing House (APH), National Federation of the Blind (NFB), and the state’s Instructional Materials Center among others were reported as extremely useful and applicable professional development opportunities for participants in the study. In addition, TVIs also found connecting with other TVIs in the nation through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram beneficial during the first 9 months of the pandemic. The community of practice (CoP) with other TVI was stated by a participant as: There’s constantly conversations going back and forth . . . my district is using this and it’s not accessible. Do you have alternatives? We are able to have those professional conversations, which [are] all over the country, if not the world.
Learnings to apply in the future
All participants in the study addressed the need for educators to be flexible in how they approach their teaching in the future. Building good relationships with families was also highlighted by one participant as “Going back to that, it’s worth spending your time building those relationships. Because when things get tough, that’s going to be here to fall back on.” Building good teams and continuing the CoP with other TVIs was reported by some TVIs as a way of not having to reinvent the wheel on instructional practices. A TVI stated, Find yourself a think box team and don’t be afraid to talk about what’s not working . . . The more minds we can get involved in coming up with ways to make the curriculum accessible or even the lessons, we truly are a team, even if we are not like working in the same school, same district.
TVIs also highlighted the importance of being proficient in technology, as one participant stated, “Learn how to use JAWS, learn how to use the Braillenote, like know these technologies. Because it’s really hard to teach them virtually when you’re not proficient at yourself.” Thinking out of the box and teaching students multiple ways to access content was also recommended by some participants in the study. Finally, showing grace to others and practicing self-care were reported as extremely helpful to get through the school year during the pandemic.
Discussion
Challenges identified by Murgatrotd (2020) related to e-learning in general education including accessibility, affordability, flexibility, learning pedagogy, lifelong learning, and educational policy were discussed by participants in this study. The lack of resources such as family support, technology, and tools used for learning activities was reported as some of the biggest challenges faced by general educators during the pandemic by Midcalf and Boatwright (2020) also supported the findings of this study. However, the unique role and responsibilities of educators who work with students who are VI make some of the findings of this study very distinctive.
The participants in this study reported several challenging aspects of being an itinerant during the pandemic. They echoed similar concerns described in the study by Miyauchi and Gewinn (2021) that aimed to clarify the practices and perceptions of TVIs. Time management, flexibility, open-mindedness, and interpersonal skills that were identified by Miyauchi and Gewinn (2021) as important training needs for TVIs before the pandemic were reportedly described as essential during the pandemic by the participants in this study. Moreover, the findings of this study suggest that the significance of being affiliated with other educators in the state gave itinerant TVIs and COMS not only a sense of security and safety but also reaffirmed that they were not working alone during the uncertain and rapidly changing times of the pandemic.
Overwhelmingly, all COMS in this study reported difficulties in providing O&M services and modifying the IEP goals for their students. This finding aligns with the results of the surveys conducted by Rosenblum et al. (2020) and Rosenblum et al. (2021) who examined the impact of COVID-19 on students with VI in the United States and Canada. Participants in this study expressed how virtual O&M lessons were not as meaningful despite COMS being creative with their O&M goals and use of gaming platforms like ObjectiveEd. Furthermore, COMS in this study reported how they had to balance between the safety, county guidelines, and support the families’ and students’ unique needs while delivering O&M services during the pandemic.
Several participants in this study found it hard to teach braille and help support the use of braille technology devices such as braille notetakers in remote learning environments. Contrary to the claims of Martiniello et al. (2018) that TVIs perceived the use of technology in braille instruction as a motivator and as a tool that can generate more positive learning outcomes, participants in this study reported frustrations of students around using devices for access and instructions of braille. This finding highlights the importance of professional development training on blindness technologies as it may be difficult to teach braille virtually without TVIs being proficient in such technologies themselves.
Similar to the findings by Rosenblum et al. (2020) and Rosenblum et al. (2021), all the participants in this study acknowledged that with the support of mainstream and assistive technology, students with VI were better able to access the general education curriculum. Implementing workarounds for accessibility issues in virtual environments, frustrations around inaccessible mainstream platforms, and keeping up with constant changes in technology were reported by the participants in the study as the hardest during the pandemic. Siu (2015) found that TVIs who participated in a virtual CoP were better able to translate device-specific knowledge gained from training to implementation of technology with students and that a virtual CoP was an adequate substitution for a physically situated professional learning community. In alignment with the results of Siu (2015), all the participants in this study reported that the pandemic had opened doors to more online webinars and resources from all over the country providing them on-time professional development opportunities and access to virtual CoPs.
Despite the uncertainty and challenges faced by TVIs during the pandemic, the participants saw several opportunities for teaching and learning that can be applied in their instructional practice in the future. Most of the participants in this study expressed that the pandemic has caused them not only to have a strong connection with families but also led families to be more involved in their child’s education. This finding is similar to the literature reviewed by Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021) that the pandemic required parents and teachers to collaborate to improve online teaching methods for all children and especially those with disabilities.
Limitations and future research
While the results of this study contribute to the limited research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education of students with VI, some limitations should be addressed. First, the selection of participants was not random. This study utilized a convenience sample, and it comprised individuals who reported an interest in the study. There is no way of knowing how the perspective of other professionals who did not participate in the study may have altered the findings. Second, this study was conducted with participants from only one state of the United States. Suggestions for practitioners cannot be assumed to apply across other states or countries. In addition, since the collection of data for this study, professionals working with students with VI may have developed new strategies for mitigating the challenges around remote and/or hybrid learning or improved their approaches that support students with VI. An extension of this study to investigate the perspectives of students with VI and their families might incorporate some of the insights about the findings that emerged from this study. Future studies in understanding the perspectives of general education teachers on accessibility will help to meaningfully include students with VI in general education classrooms.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the education of children all around the world, including students with VI. The results of this study provide information on the experiences of professionals working with students with VI during the first 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in one state of the United States. The TVIs and COMSs who participated in this study perceived some positive outcomes and challenges when providing services to their students in ways that they have not done so before (e.g., remotely and/or hybrid). University training programs for teachers of students who are VI should provide more opportunities for pre-service teachers on how to incorporate technology in their teaching, including how to teach online and how to use different technology platforms. In addition, school districts and state departments should provide support, in the form of professional development and/or virtual “office hours” to in-service teachers on how to support the needs of students with VI, including those with additional disabilities, remotely. Future research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students with VI and their families should be conducted to gain a better understanding of their needs, from their personal experiences and perspectives.
