Designing an Interactive Training Workshop for Teachers who are Teaching Learners with ASD

Abstract

Teachers' experiences supporting learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in mainstream classrooms vary widely yet commonly teachers face various difficulties in teaching these learners. Following the inclusive education policy as envisioned in Education White Paper 6, independent primary schools are increasingly enrolling learners with ASD posing challenges for mainstream teachers. Having learners with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms, changes classroom dynamics with added responsibility towards learners with ASD. Teachers often lack knowledge of how to support learners with ASD and systemic factors influence the teaching atmosphere. To address these issues, an interactive workshop will be designed, framed around Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, which focuses on self-efficacy. In this study, teacher self-efficacy in teaching learners with ASD will be explored.  The paradigmatic perspective of the study will be pragmatism, using an action research design with a qualitative approach to collecting data to explore the research question, of what content and learning activities should be facilitated in a teacher workshop. The action research will follow six phases. In phase one, the planning of the workshop content will be done based on a thorough literature review. Phase two will be purposive sampling to select the teachers participating in the workshop which will be conducted in a mainstream primary school. Qualifying teachers will be asked to complete a pre-workshop survey detailing their biographical profiles and experience with ASD learners. Phase three is taking action, which refers to conducting the workshop. Phase four will be the collection of data from the workshop role-plays, observations, and post-workshop survey. Thematic content analysis will be used to analyse the raw data sets. The study will contribute towards teachers’ professional development with practical, clear guidelines for mainstream teachers in supporting learners with ASD in mainstream primary classrooms.