ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to detail the infusion of insider perspectives into an online graduate course and to discuss students’ experiences of their engagement with insider perspectives throughout the course. An insider’s perspective is a person’s voice; it is a text that, when interpreted, illuminates the meaning assigned by a person to his or her experiences in life (Susinos, 2007). Every person’s voice and experience is different, so, likewise, insiders to disability have subjective perceptions about life situations that are constructed not only through disability but also through personal experiences, beliefs and values (Brown, 2010). Each individual voice is valuable. Including insider perspectives in teacher education is also a way of integrating cultural relevance in the curriculum, respecting perspectives other than the dominant one (Preece, 2001). The following questions guide the discussion in this chapter:
What are some of the critical experiences and lessons learned from the infusion of insider perspectives into a graduate online teacher education course?
How were the students’ experiences of exploring insider perspectives gathered?
What were some of the lessons learned from students in the online graduate course relating to the infusion of insider perspectives into an online learning experience?
