Challenge

Suppose that you frequently hand out written materials containing adjusted directions for laboratory science procedures. It’s your experience that you routinely alter the basic lab procedures that appear in the lab manual to make them appropriate for your specific situation. You also often have last-minute changes to announce once the lab is in progress.

At the start of the lab, you ask the students to open their books to the procedure and then you state the needed changes. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students try to read the manual, to look at you, and to follow the interpreter or captionist – all at the same time. This leads to confusion on the part of these students when they begin the lab.

Strategies

• Discuss the lab changes during the lecture preceding the lab.

• Send an e-mail or post information on the Web that details changes to lab procedures.

• Give students a printed handout with the changes in the lab procedures.

• If the changes cannot be detailed until you are in the lab, prepare an overhead with the changes. Display this overhead throughout the lab so that all students can refer to it. Or write changes on the board and leave the notes there throughout the lab.

• As changes are detailed, be consistent in the way you communicate the changes to students and support personnel so all know where to access this information for each lab.