Teaching development grants final and financial report: Empowering BEd(PE) students for teaching students with autism spectrum disorder in field experience

Inclusive education has been implemented in Hong Kong. However, teaching students with special educational needs in particular those who have ASD in field experience has been a big challenge for preservice PE teachers. To this end, empowering BEd (PE) students with necessary knowledge and skills in teaching students with ASD becomes an important component in teacher education. This project aims at empowering BEd (PE) students to overcome the challenges of including students with ASD in field experience. The project team has developed a guidebook for managing students with ASD for Year 5 BEd (PE) students. The team will also provide participants with online training with case studies for critical analysis and online mentorship for problem solving via Facebook. Participants’ self-efficacy level will be evaluated before and after the empowerment activities. Focus group interviews will be used to collect participants’ feedback on the effectiveness of the online training/mentorship on self-efficacy towards teaching students with ASD as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook.