Challenges

You commonly use groups in your classroom or laboratory setting. You have one or more deaf or hard-of-hearing students in your class with all other hearing students.

This section concentrates on the communication challenges that group work creates in this setting.

• Are rules of communication established? By whom?

• With multiple deaf and hard-of-hearing students, should you group all of these students together in the same group, or not?

• Are there benefits to deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students working together in groups?

• How will the interpreter or captionist if present function? If there is one interpreter or captionist, and deaf and hard-of-hearing students are in multiple groups, how are communications issues resolved?

• How will the notetaker if present function? Again, if there is one notetaker, and deaf and hard-of-hearing students are in multiple groups, how are issues revolving around notes resolved?

Strategies

NOTE: The handout at the left provides you with a page that you can print and duplicate to give to students working in groups; the content of the page will help establish communication rules for the students.

Consider your communication goals in assigning group work or project teams. Are you focusing on problem-solving or do you want the students to learn to cooperate and work as a team?

How many deaf students are in your class? How do your students communicate? If interpreting, notetaking, or captioning services are available, can you get more than one interpreter, notetaker, or captionist for that particular class? Can you request additional notetakers from the students in your class? Will you be assigning group work regularly during the course? How can you encourage deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students to work together so that communication can happen?

We don’t have all the answers. Clearly, there is no single strategy that applies to all situations. Instead we offer this list of suggestions for consideration when setting up groups.

• You are a model for your students. If you are open in your interactions with deaf and hard-of-hearing students in your classes, hearing students will follow your lead. But if you are hesitant or withdraw from interaction with deaf and hard-of-hearing students, your hearing students will perceive this as an acceptable behavior.

• Plan ahead. If you know you want groups to include deaf, hard–of-hearing, and hearing students, and you also want communication to be easy and fast, then you may need to request additional interpreters or captionists (if available) in advance.

• Ask the deaf and hard-of-hearing students before class for their preferences regarding group organization, and of their need for an interpreter, captionist, or notetaker. This can be crucial to finding a satisfactory solution for your particular environment and available resources.

• Make your expectations clear to all students. If you place deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students in workgroups together, it is important that you tell them you expect them to take equal responsibility for making communication happen successfully.

  Provide handouts to students ahead of time with guidelines for communication in groups, including rules about: maintaining line of sight between speakers; turn-taking; and identifying the current speaker clearly in order to orient deaf or hard-of-hearing students before the ‘next’ person begins talking. A sample handout is provided; it can be easily modified to meet your particular needs.

  Sometimes it helps to give students a kick-bag to pass around; the rule is that only the person in possession of the bag can speak.

  Encourage the students: to use paper and pencil (or laptops if available) to write back and forth; to repeat comments; to allow only one person to speak at a time; or to write on flipcharts with markers. These actions will facilitate communications.

  For groups that are expected to meet outside class, remind students to schedule meetings with lead time to allow the scheduling of interpreting or captioning support if available.

  If learning to manage communication difficulties is a key part of the group activity, let students know that they will be evaluated on their effort and effectiveness in finding ways to communicate with one another.

• If you expect to provide directions during the group work, consider writing these directions on the board or on overheads. Then, at the outset of the lab, announce that you will post directions during the group work, so students will realize that they should periodically check the board to see if there is new information available.

• We suggest you mix deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students when:

  1. Your goal is for students to learn about teamwork (as well as to solve a problem or complete a task). If so, there are benefits to having deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students work together (even without an interpreter or captionist), because learning how to communicate with one another and function effectively as a team will teach all students about diversity and teamwork.

  2. You want to create teams with a balance of skills and perspectives.

• We suggest that if your goal is to solve a problem quickly and efficiently then it is probably important to set up groups in ways that promote clear communication (e.g. have deaf students together or request sufficient numbers of interpreters or captionists in advance to be sure you can have one in each group).