Investigation of Special Education Teachers’ Online Teaching Experiences during Covid 19 Pandemic

The Covid 19 pandemic, which initially emerged in China at the end of 2019 and was seen in other countries in a short period, adversely affected daily life. The epidemic has also caused various interruptions in terms of education and training activities. Incidental to the discontinuation of face-to-face education in schools, educational activities began to be carried out on online platforms. Many problems arose in this process during which various new experiences had to be coped with by teachers and students. This research aims to reveal the opinions and experiences of special education teachers regarding the online learning-teaching process, which is compulsory due to the pandemic. The research was carried out with 21 special education teachers working in a special education school in the spring term of the 2020-2021 academic year. Within the scope of the research, the data were obtained by using a semi-structured interview form prepared online by the researchers. According to this research study, for which the qualitative research method was preferred, thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. As a consequence of the research study, the opinions and experiences of the participants were gathered under five themes. The results obtained were discussed in comparison with other studies in the literature and suggestions were presented.