Mitacs Globalink
Experiences to Contribute to my Research:
At first I thought collecting information on my research topic was going to be challenging because there were very few students with visible disabilities in the classes. Soon after getting to Chongquing I started to see different children that were in the typical school systems that had disabilities such as Autism. I attended two different Skype meetings on Special Education where I was a part of deep conversations with the teachers about how to support and accommodate. Another way I collected information was through informal conversations with teachers about differing ability levels in their classrooms. Additionally, I had conversations with students studying to become special education teachers. This was interesting because I found that many of them did not have a passion for working with children with disabilities like I do, but rather they were in the program because their grades were not high enough or because they wanted to avoid giving the students huge standardized tests. One really helpful school visit was in Chendu when we went to a special school that had a school for the deaf, blind and mental disabilities. This was so amazing because I got to interact with the students at this school and really understand how special schools support their students.
Skype Call on Special Education
During my time in China I went to two different Skype meetings with the topic of special education. These Skype meetings involved the Chinese school Skype calling the teachers back in Windsor to discuss how our different countries implement special education. This was probably the most constructive opportunity for me to collect information for my research. Comparing how the two countries implement special education is essentially my thesis, so the Skype call fit my research perfectly. It was really cool to see the Chinese teachers asking questions to the Canadian teachers about how they accommodate and the formality that they follow, as opposed to the Chinese teachers informally accommodating students who need additional support. I loved listening to the different cases that the Chinese teachers were experiencing in their classrooms, and having the Canadian teachers explain how they would approach that situation. During this Skype call I was taking notes constantly, and hopefully this will greatly benefit my paper.
