Lived experiences of exceptional teachers from virtual teaching challenges in the curriculum new space

Considering the corona pandemic and changing the teaching environment and implementation of the curriculum of students with special needs, the present study was conducted to investigate the lived experience of teachers of these students from the challenges of virtual education. The present study was methodologically, qualitatively phenomenological and the participants included all exceptional primary school teachers in Yazd province in the academic year 2020-2021. Sampling was performed by purposeful criterion-based method and after the theoretical saturation of the interviews, a total of 426 significant expressions were identified by the Mustacas method. In the next step, the obtained expressions are classified into 6 themes and 24 sub-themes and two categories of contextual and structural categories. New offered. Findings in the category of contextual conditions show that teachers have described three central themes of education, emotions and relationships and interactions. In the category of structural conditions, teachers have described the three main themes of exceptional / special education requirements, curriculum implementation and the support needed by teachers and families during the coronation period.  The special educators in this study, at the beginning of the Covid 19 epidemic, described the underlying conditions in the initial exposure to the corona in such a way that in the first months, their relationship with students and colleagues and other staff was more or less sudden. As a result of unpreparedness for such situations, teachers reported different and often negative feelings and emotions under these background conditions, which were a kind of confusion and ambiguity due to the inability to predict the situation and the duration of the current situation and the inconsistency of this. The conditions were similar to the previous conditions of teaching and learning environment. Most of these teachers were not prepared for this situation and their families and students were in the same situation. Teachers in this new ecosystem, after a bit of delay and confusion, developed tools to communicate with students and their families, although there was no ready-made and interactive platform and even minimal telephone and WhatsApp communication between teachers and family and knowledge. Students often did not replace face-to-face training, and on the other hand, ready-made content for these students was less available in groups and networks. In the secondary encounter, other feelings and emotions such as hardship and the feeling of tiredness and pressure, imposition and coercion, and even fruitlessness and fruitlessness were experienced by the participating teachers. Teachers faced multiple directives and unstable working conditions, and on the one hand, due to the unpreparedness and training for virtual teaching on the other hand, and on the other hand, the individual conditions and differences of their students, they felt left alone and without support. They have to endure this hardship and pressure alone. Although the time for direct e-learning was reduced, teachers needed much more time than before to prepare content to meet the different needs of their students, sending content and uploading it, which prevented them from communicating well with their own family members while at home. They were present but they were practically doing their job. On the other hand, in order to better cover the educational needs as much as possible, and the protocols and circulars and the school principal allowed, the face-to-face education of the students was also on the teacher's agenda. After a while, the teachers felt tired and difficult. The principals 'insistence on loading the production of teacher-made content also added to the feeling of compulsion and imposition of conditions, and the feeling of fruitlessness and ineffectiveness of this type of education for such students and uncertainty about students' learning and learning rate also reinforced undesirable feelings. Only one participating teacher reported feeling happy and satisfied with the students' progress. Teachers acquired relative distance learning skills along the way, but all teachers in the study in all groups with impaired vision, hearing, learning disabilities and autism believe that despite this, self-empowerment with technology and software The tools are much more effective in face-to-face education for these students, and they feel self-sufficient when they experience the classes in person and in direct, immediate, continuous, and close contact with their students. In structural themes, the participating teachers paid attention to the requirements of exceptional / special education in order to create a more effective teaching experience in this course, and to the cooperation or non-cooperation of parents and family in the student education path as the main factor in advancing the learning process in pre-school. Corona and Corona spoke about their experiences of parental cooperation and non-cooperation due to cultural, educational and economic poverty. On the other hand, the participating teachers in their experiences stressed the need to pay attention to individual differences and to have flexibility in time and content in the programs, even in the corona period and the new ecosystem. They talked about their creativity in implementing the curriculum under Corona conditions due to the short time and compactness of the content, and the dynamic identity of the curriculum by teachers with new goals and selective attention to the content and its integration. Teachers in this new environment needed professional, administrative, technical and technological, economic and social support, and also explained the support needed by families in these dimensions. The result of this study shows the attention to the support needed by teachers and families of these students in designing programs and policies according to the requirements of special education in the event of such crises. Although teachers in the new ecosystem have been creative in implementing the curriculum, the content received by students in this course requires careful assessment in the post-coronary course and compensatory training. Life skills and self-help and social skills that are required for special education training are marginalized in this course and training is often superficial and evaluation of results requires retesting. Cooperation between the rehabilitation and administrative teams in education needs to be improved and expanded.