Teaching Chronically Ill Children With Video conferencing: What Does It Take Of Teachers?

Author(s):

Nadira Saab(presenting / submitting)Silvia Klunder(presenting)Wilfried Admiraal

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

Format:

Paper

Session Information

06 SES 10, Opening Up Schools and Bridging Gaps

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

K6.15

Chair:

Sandra Aßmann

Contribution

A growing number of chronically ill children attend primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands (Mokkink, 2004). In the Netherlands, about 350.000 students in primary and secondary education have a long-term illness. About 40% of these students have school problems, due to their illness and absence in school (Te Meerman & Demoulin, 2005), with less success in school and relatively high drop-out rates (De Ridder et al., 2013; Van Heesch et al., 2012); Many chronically ill students experience a lower level of autonomy, competence and relatedness with their school compared to their healthy peers (Kirkpatrick, 2013). This can be explained by their dependence on others because of the illness and school absence. In the Netherlands, an IT-tool has been developed and implemented to connect chronically ill students with their mainstream schools, named KlasseContact. With KlasseContact the chronically ill students can attend class with their own peer group by using video conferencing (VC) and a remote controlled camera (Ziezon, 2015). The objectives of this KlasseContact tool are to connect chronically ill students with their peers and school and to support continuity of education by online synchronous learning.

Empirically supported school re-entry programs ensure a smoother reentry of students (Canter & Roberts, 2012). The limited number of studies evaluating the use of VC with chronically ill students show that students are positive about attending classes via VC (Fels & Weiss, 2001; Bresser, 2010; Zhu & Van Winkel, 2014). In particular the contact with their peers and their participation in the daily classroom activities were reported as the most positive outcomes.

In order to understand, optimise and utilise the full potential of VC in education in general, it is necessary for teachers to adjust their pedagogy (Andersen et al., 2006). What exactly is demanded of teachers using VC to connect chronically ill students, is yet unclear. Because the individual needs of chronically ill students differ from their classmates and the classroom setting influences the involvement of students, special knowledge and skills of teachers is demanded (Schuit, de Vrieze & Sleegers, 2011). With the rising number of chronically ill students connected to their classes, and the limited knowledge how to use VC in an effective way, there is a need for in depth research.

In the current study, we examined what it takes of teachers to use this tool in their teaching and how they support and scaffold their chronically ill students when using the tool. The research questions of this study are:

(1) How do teachers perceive the goals of the use of VC for their chronically ill students?

(2) How do teachers experience teaching chronically ill students with VC ?

(3) What special skills or knowledge do teachers of chronically ill students need to support interaction and collaboration in class?

Method

To answer the first two research questions, 15 teachers who taught chronically ill students with VC participated in semi structured interviews. In addition an online survey was administered to 63 other teachers in a similar situation. The interviewed teachers (N=15) were teachers of somatic chronically ill students (aged 9 – 17 years) who were connected with their mainstream schools via the KlasseContact project in the period February–June 2013. 63 teachers were contacted via consultants, teachers of palliative students were excluded of which 15 teachers participated. The interview questions were based on literature on factors that are related to the use of VC (Muilenburg & Berge, 2001). Some questions were added that refer to teaching chronically ill students with VC. The latter covered the following subjects: the provided support by consultants and parents, the use of so called buddy’s (who are peers of the chronically ill student who assist them in using VC) and the impact on teachers themselves, being confronted with sometimes very ill students and being watched via VC by parents. To answer the third research question, 63 teachers of primary and secondary schools who used KlasseContact completed an online survey. The online survey was based on the results of the interview and the main themes: aim for using VC and efficacy of use, attained teacher support, applied teaching skills and attitudes towards about VC for chronically ill students (on a 5-point Likert type scale, with the higher the score, the more positive the attitudes). Moreover, teachers provided demographic data, type of school, duration of use (in hours), and extra preparation time needed to work with VC (in hours). In an open question teachers elaborated on the specific skills or actions they used to connect the chronically ill student with class.

Expected Outcomes

Goals In the semi-structured interviews teachers reported that connecting chronically ill students with their peers was their most important goal. A second goal was to teach the ill students to prevent them from falling behind in school. This finding was confirmed in the survey results: the main goal for teachers to use VC was to enhance the social contact between the ill student and peers. Teachers find it very important to enable the ill student to be present in the classroom (M = 4.62, SD = 0.49). Experiences In the interviews, some teachers reported that it was sometimes difficult to determine whether the ill students at home really participated; they needed their physical presence in the classroom. The majority of the teachers of the survey was generally positive about using VC in their classes to connect the ill student with their peers (M = 4.35, SD = 0.65), as it helped students to re-integrate in their peer group if they returned (M = 3.67, SD = 1.11), ill students actively participated in classroom activities (M = 3.79, SD = 0.99) and tended to keep up with their classmates (M = 3.23, SD = 1.06). Skills and knowledge In total, 45 teachers provided some information about the skills and actions they applied: ‘A social talk at the start of the lessons’ (N=22), ‘posing questions to the ill student’ (N=17), additional communication in whatsapp/email/visits at home (N=11), ‘let the students, including the ill student’ work in small groups (N=8), special attention to feedback to the student at home (N=6), cooperation with parents (N=5), organizing activities with peers (N=5), offering choice to student at home (n=4), adapting lessons and learning material to the student at home (N=3), using VC for 1 to 1 instruction (N=2).

References

Andersen, T., Mrazek, R., Friesen, S., & al, e. (2006). Video-conferencing research community of practice research report. Retrieved 10 15, 2013, from http://www.vcalberta.ca/images/stories/pdf/Research_Summary_Report_word_version_final.pdf De Ridder, K., Pape, K., & al, e. (2013). Adolescent health and high school dropout: A prospective cohort sudy of 9000 Norwegian adolescent (the young-hunt). PLoS ONE, 8(9), e74954. Kirkpatrick, K. (2013). Adolescent perceptions of competence, school belonging, and autonomy in healthy students and those with a chronic medical condition: Relations and implications for academic attainment. Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ Martinez, Y., & Erickan, K. (2009). Chronic illness in Canadian children: What is the effect ofillness on academic achievement, and anciety and emotional disorders? Child Care, Health and Development, 391-401. Mokkink, L. (2004). Omvang en gevolgen van chronische aandoeningen bij kinderen. Amsterdam: Emma Kinderziekenhuis AMC. Muilenburg, L., & Berge, Z. (2001). Barriers to distance education: A factor analytic study. The American journal of distance education, 15(2), 7-22. Te Meerman, W., & Demoulin, L. (2005). Vraag en aanbod van ICT voor kinderen met een beperking, als gevolg van een chronische aandoening of handicap. Utrecht: Capgemini Nederland B.V. Van Heesch, H., Bosma, T., & al, e. (2012). Hospital admissions and school dropout: A retrospective cohort study of the 'selection hypothesis'. European Journal of Public Health, 22(4), 550-555. Ziezon. (2015). KlasseContact. Retrieved from http://www.ziezon.nl/ziezon-caring-about-taking-care-of-pupils-with-chronic-or-long-term-illnesses/klassecontact-off-sick-but-still-in-the-classroom/

Author Information

Nadira Saab (presenting / submitting)

Leiden University, Netherlands, The

Silvia Klunder (presenting)

LUMC

Maatschappelijk Werk

Zoetermeer

Wilfried Admiraal