Deaf and hard-of-hearing students in traditional, face-to-face classes currently use the assistance of a third party—either a sign language interpreter or a voice-to-print "captionist"—to facilitate communication with hearing instructors and peers. While helping to provide access to information, these third-party systems lack the clarity of direct communication.
To break down the communication barriers that currently exist between the deaf/HH and hearing populations, educators can do two important things. Firstly, they can reacquaint themselves with asynchronous online discussion tools, like the one bundled in Desire2Learn, which are reliable, low-cost, easy-to-use, and adaptable to any curriculum. Online discussion dispenses with third- party mediation, thereby enabling all participants, but especially deaf/HH students, the opportunity to communicate directly in a common language.
Secondly, educators need to rethink entrenched attitudes about "face time" in general, and classroom "seat time" in particular. While asynchronous online discussion and other computer-mediated texting tools (e.g., chats, blogs, and wikis) can technically be used within the classroom environment, in-class use of these technologies robs participants of the opportunity to research, reflect upon, and compose their messages, and does little to slow the synchronous pace.
In order to reach all students, educators can use asynchronous online discussion tools to disperse a significant proportion of interaction and learning activities outside of and between face-to-face sessions. Such dispersion is the primary objective of blended learning, which is a growing movement within North America. Using online discussion outside of class not only affords direct communication (and consequently eliminates the need for expensive and limited third-parties), but it also slows the synchronous pace of traditional instruction and offers participants sufficient time to compose a response or pose a relevant question.
The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), in upstate New York, is an ideal setting in which to study deaf/HH students and the use of asynchronous online discussion outside of class. One of RIT's eight colleges is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), the world's first and largest technological college for students who are deaf/HH. Most of the NTID's 1,100 deaf/HH students are mainstreamed with RIT's 14,000 hearing students in an array of campus, blended, and online courses.
In fall 2003, RIT's Online Learning department launched a blended learning program to leverage its new campus-wide learning management system (RIT transitioned to Desire2Learn in summer 2005). Within the program, a blended course was defined as any course in which approximately 25% to 50% of classroom lectures and other seat time is replaced by instructor-guided online learning activities, primarily asynchronous discussion (whole and/or small group). As this article went to press, the program has included more than 140 instructors and 400 blended course offerings.
RIT's blended program has been and continues to be extensively researched with student surveys, faculty narratives, and structured interviews with instructors. The majority of hearing students said they would recommend the blended format to other students, and that they knew their instructor and fellow students better on account of the format. Not surprisingly, the findings for these and other items were 20-40 percent higher for deaf/HH students as compared to hearing students.
There can be little doubt that asynchronous online discussion tools, when effectively used outside of class (as in blended and online courses), can transform communication and collaboration between deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students, faculty, and staff.
Resources
For a comprehensive research report on the first two years of RIT's blended program, please visit our webpage at: http://online.rit.edu/faculty/blended/project.cfm.
To view a five-minute video interview with a deaf and a hearing student from Peter Hauser's blended History and Systems of Psychology course, please visit: http://online.rit.edu/students/blended/stories/success_stories.cfm.
Many of the ideas and phrasing for this article derive from an article published in Athabasca University's International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, namely: "Access to Communication for Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing and ESL Students in Blended Learning Courses," written by my RIT colleagues Gary Long, Karen Vignare, Raychel Rappold, and Jim Mallory. This article can be accessed at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/28.
How can Deaf students in small towns around Washington state receive more services? How can these students have access to Deaf teachers and Deaf role-models?
A small team from Washington School for the Deaf (WSD) approached these questions this year, 2007-2008, by piloting two distance learning courses. Michelle Clark and April McArthur taught "The Language of Science" and "The Language of Math" using Desire2Learn's online platform. As a pilot program, these two courses experienced success in their first year of implementation. With the addition of videoconferences with students twice a week to answer questions and model language skills, students completed online work for high school credit.
Students log on, read the News and check for new assignments. Teachers communicate with students through Email, an online pager system, the discussion board and video conferencing using video phone technology. Students hand in homework by uploading to the homework bin (Dropbox). Checklists are provided to help the students keep track of what assignments are finished. These courses are enriched with additional visual components and extensive feedback regarding students' written English skills. As a result, these classes are becoming a way to for students to access direct instruction from master's level, certificated teachers of the deaf/hard of hearing, regardless of where they live in the state of Washington.
One of WSD's goals for next year is to increase the ability to stream longer videos so that students can see lectures in American Sign Language. These long-term goals still need to be worked out but for a first year pilot, we are pleased with the class.
