Remote teaching and learning – challenges and opportunities for students with special educational needs

The pandemic makes it a rule that remote teaching has become a regular way of education nowadays. After the first period of emergency remote teaching (ERT), both the teachers and students entered the second stage of more regular remote teaching. Both teachers and young people improved their digital literacy skills and can experience fully the benefits of remote/blended learning. However, there are also many worries about the youths’ well-being in the lockdown time. Remote learning education creates plenty of challenges, connected with inequalities in access to both the equipment and IT services, various levels of the quality of remote teaching and mental health issues. It is especially the case of students with special educational needs (SEN), like disabilities of learning challenges. At John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin a research group was established in April 2020 (coordinated by the author of this text) to study the conditions and recommendations for remote teaching of SEN students. The presentation will be discussing the main results of the findings of this project shown in a wider context on remote education methodology. Recommendations will be formulated for fully inclusive remote education of students with special/additional educational needs.