Inclusive education on pandemic times: from challenges to changes according to teachers’ perceptions

Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities is at the heart of education in democratic countries. In times such as these of pandemic, where the spread of Covid-19 has resulted in the shutdown of schools for face-to-face learning activities, digital technology was intensified. However, technological solutions to enable the continuity of learning from home have raised challenges to continue effective teaching-learning processes, mostly with disadvantaged groups of students such as those with special needs. This was a matter of providing access to technology and open learning resources and also required maintaining effective social relationships between families, teachers, and students, particularly for those who lack the resilience, learning strategies, or engagement to learn on their own. We intended to explore teachers' perceptions about changes, challenges, and opportunities related to inclusive practices during COVID-19. Our research questions are the next ones: (i) What problems related to students' access, participation, and learning were meet during home-schooling? (ii) What changes were made in pedagogical and organizational practices during home-schooling?. This study adopted a methodology of a qualitative nature. The instrument used to collect the data was an open-ended questionnaire focus changes, challenges, and opportunities related to inclusive practices during COVID-19. The questionnaire was administered to 25 Portuguese teachers, which allowed knowledge challenges and irrespective changes on practices perceived by teachers when attending to diversity during home-schooling. Teachers reported difficulties related to the access and use of digital technologies both by students and teachers, the design of adequate learning activities, and the delivery of these activities by multiple modalities. Changes in practices were reported, such as intensifying individual support to students with difficulties, regular and tied contact with students' parents, and the design of different and diverse materials/activities. Therefore, the conclusions pointed to the need for continuing studies related to experiences and practices during Covid-19 that can inform future more inclusive and innovative practices in education, mostly considering disadvantaged populations such as students with special needs.