Creating Fluid Spaces for Online Instructors to Support Two Types of Diverse Learners

In this chapter, we provide guidance for the process that teachers enacting prepackaged curriculum in an online setting can engage in. Design-based research (DBR) is focused on a particular real world concern and the orientation is toward improvement. DBR develops a process, but it does not necessarily uncover what we know about that problem or setting or process. The other way this study differs from a full design study is that we would enact the process and adjust, but our role was as pedagogic specialists. For this study, we focused our design response to the problem and uncovered a process that instructors who are working with preset online courses, with little opportunity for fluidity, to respond in the moment to student difference. The design challenge presented was to create a protocol that teachers delivering such curriculum could use to accommodate individual student differences, particularly of English learners and students who have been identified with disabilities. What is revealed in this chapter is a process that teachers in such settings could use to meet the needs of diverse learners in such online settings. This process holds promise for online instructors within their busy work schedules to meet the needs of diverse learners and improve teaching and learning for all.