Tag Archives: deaf/hoh academics

Sudden Remote Teaching – Deaf/HoH

daily grind, meetings, teaching,

-Ryan

Here we are navigating our 5th week of remote / online classes here in NYC (and beyond of course) and adapting to our “new lives”. I can’t think of anything else to call it as of right now, so I’m going with this. I say this from the perspective of integration as I’m very much still in the: “I’m really perplexed about how we are even in the position that we are in” phase along with having adjusted to this new life and fulfilled so many new, mandated compliances to keep my courses going simultaneously. (That was a long sentence, too!) I originally started writing this post about 3 weeks ago. A lot has changed, which makes it seem harder to update, since I’ve made more progress than I thought I would. Or could.

Along with following all of the administrative protocols, attending endless Zoom meetings, making course updates, reformatting everything, and dealing with the staggering amount of e-mail and overall communication—and that’s just work stuff—not including connecting with family and friends. Whew!—I’m finally starting to reflect on things. Or… wait, is my ego reflecting on what it thinks it is reflecting on? Reflection invites in ALL of the emotions. And the feelings—both positive and negative. And there’s been quite a bit of the negative! Why am I reminded of past failures at a time like this? We humans like routines, they help us stay focused and structured. Uncertainty isn’t something we’re really good at, right? Wrong, we certainly adapt, and adapt quickly. I can see that as I edit this post!

cog-fatigue

Here is a visual interpretation of me after the first 2 days of my 3-in-a-row-straight zoom meetings..

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the conversion to remote and online teaching in general. As I see it now, especially as a deaf/HoH professor who depends on “visual everything,” I have much more to organize than I thought. I teach simultaneously between 4 colleges here in NYC. I’m teaching 7 courses between all of these schools to 99.9% hearing people. As we know, the reality of “just switching to video chat classes” is NOT easy, even for a hearing person teaching hearing people. Especially if you’ve never done this before. Video chat platforms can actually work well for me if it’s a one-on-one situation, but add 5-15-24 people and access really changes.

Simply put, I need to see a face and mouth at all times to have access to a spoken conversation. Yes, I wear hearing aids but they are NOT magical devices that mean I can “hear” what normal hearing people hear. I don’t, not even close… Because I’m deaf. My hearing loss is degenerative and has been decaying over time since birth. So these days, I only catch about 30% with hearing aids. The other 70% of the conversation is absorbed from lip reading, speech patterns, emotional rapport, facial expressions, and body language. When it comes to only seeing someone’s face, head, and shoulders on a flat monitor or screen, that 70% contextual part is naturally limited, and understanding speech becomes harder.

IMB_LPIpfu

When switching to “synchronous style” remote teaching formats using Zoom, Skype, Google Meet or Google Hangouts or another video-chat platform (I recently tested Microsoft Teams that DOES have a live, real-time captioning feature. I much prefer this over the others and will be switching to this. You do need to download the desktop application and have access to the business or education licensing, though), things can get really challenging, especially with a sea of small icon-like faces as the number of people increase in the chat session. Three of my classes have 20-plus students in them. As I mentioned, one-on-one video chat works well for me, but add several others to the chat, and, well, the faces get smaller, and visual access decreases. I need to adapt to this by using a text-chat feature to support the visuals. This can be done and I have been making several adaptations as time has passed. However, typing out the conversation slows down the process, and others in the virtual classroom may become a little impatient. “Please be compassionate, please be patient, please put yourself in the shoes of others and try to understand.” Hmm, this is tough, especially if I’m your first Deaf professor. Believe me, I know I am. We are learning together in this experience, in real-crazy-time. Things will be tweaked as we go along. We can’t be selfish and expect communication to function as it would in the normal classroom. It’s just not the same thing

Aside from what I said above, accessibility has a context that expands and extends far beyond myself; it is collective and contextual. I can share my own experiences here but my experiences obviously relate to my life experiences as a whole—and that includes all of my students. I care about them deeply and protect them fiercely. They come first, always have, and I am fully responsible for making the choice to teach and work where I do. What does accessibility look like on my students’ end? My students have their own issues, struggles and problems. Some have no access to the internet, no access to a computer, laptop, desktop, smartphone, or tablet. Which means no access to certain software applications. Some do not have a physical space to sit and be present in a video chat class as their living space is shared with parents, siblings, and other relatives who are also home, and in some cases working from home. Many have lost their jobs altogether. Some are living with multiple family members who are sick, whether with Covid-19 or other pre-existing conditions. This all happens simultaneously. But what we don’t really talk about, when we discuss how wonderful all of these new adaptations are, are the emotional and psychological aspects of this entire situation. Do we have enough contrast yet to fully understand the current and continuing impact of the last 5 weeks? No way.

I have adopted the mantra of Compassion, Patience, Understanding, Accessibility, Adaptability, Inclusion, Helpfulness, and Humility. We can do this together both inside and outside academia. Fellow students, faculty, and colleagues, both those with accessibility needs and those who need help working with folks with accessibility needs, let’s pull together and contribute our resources and knowledge to help each other. Blogs like this one and other social media have a huge reach and can be used to share useful perspectives and resources.

It is also crucial that we communicate honestly with our colleagues, students and administration. I AM Guilty of this in the past myself! I have and continue to reach out to my people. All of my students already know that that I am deaf/HoH. I was upfront with them from Day One of our semester. I explained my communication needs and stated that I always need to see a face, lips, and body language to follow verbal conversations. If not, then we need to type, write, text, or make written communication happen. The application of a speech-to-text application like Cardzilla (that I love! iOs — Android) or another form of text/type/visual communication also helps! Of course, content management system (CMS) platforms like WordPress websites are also super effective, and I have built a website for every class that I teach! No, not Blackboard or Canvas. I build my own websites for my courses so that I have full autonomy of the admin aspects of communication and access and so much more.

The combination of Zoom and the CMS platforms have allowed for a relatively smooth integration for me. As I mentioned above I will integrate MS Teams this week over Zoom. Zoom allows for simultaneous Video, Audio, and Text Chat, so for me and my students, this is crucial! I can see a face to speech read and then ask for additional text follow up via text in the chat box. Plus, if turn the audio on my computer speaker up, in my case to Very High, I can place my iPhone next to it and have the Cardzilla app transcribe the audio to text. It is a hack, but it works, and I am grateful for that. My students have been super patient and seriously awesome at this point! Accessibility is EVERYTHING! Especially in this very NEW situation we find ourselves in.

Aside from teaching and hacking accessibility and expanding my awareness of how amazing our collective human potentials are, how are you all coping with the isolation, and order to stay home? I’m focusing on self-care. Making healthy meals and setting a cozy and loving environment in my space. I’m also making a lot of new art, I mean A LOT!

breakfast

IMG_3076

Ink-Jet-SeriesWIP-Paintings

Communication is EVERYTHING so please be mindful and specific about what you NEED.

Much Love to all!

New Year’s resolution 2020: Make Your Workplace Accessible

daily grind,

The new year brings a fresh start to our lives; it’s a natural time to reflect on the year past and make plans for the coming year. At the start of 2019 The Mind Hears offered a post on making your academic workplace more accessible for your deaf/HoH colleagues. For 2020, we’ve updated the list of recommendations on the google doc and expanded below on the reasons why you should work to improve your workplace’s inclusivity today.

Universal design your workplace: Our spaces become more inclusive for all when we improve access for any subgroup of our community. Consequently, by increasing the accessibility of our workplaces for our deaf and hard of hearing colleagues, we create a better workplace for everyone. This includes hearing folks who have auditory processing disorder, use English as their second language or are acquiring hearing loss during their careers. Chances are that someone in your department has hearing loss, whether they’ve disclosed this or not, and will benefit from your efforts to make your workplace more accessible (see post on Where are the deaf/HoH academics). This is why you should universal design your workplace now and not wait until someone who is struggling asks you to make modifications.

Sharing the work: With a google search you can find several resources on workplace accessibility for deaf/HoH employees, such as the Hearing Loss Association of America’s (HLAA) very useful employment toolkit. One drawback of these resources is that nearly all of the suggestions are framed as actions for the deaf/HoH employee. While deaf and hard of hearing academics need to be strong self-advocates and take steps to improve their accommodations, our hearing colleagues can help us tremendously by sharing the work and not expecting us to bear all of the burden of creating accessible workplaces. Speech reading conversations, planning accommodations and making sure that technology/accommodations function is never-ending and exhausting work that we do above and beyond our teaching, research and service. Your understanding and your help changing our workplaces can make a huge difference to us.  For example, if a speaker doesn’t repeat the question, ask them to repeat even if you heard the question just fine. The people who didn’t hear the question are already stressed and fatigued from working hard to listen, so why expect them to do the added work of ensuring speakers repeat questions. Repeating the question benefits everyone.

One size doesn’t fit all: If a participant requests accommodation for a presentation or meeting, follow up with them and be prepared to iterate to a solution that works. It may be signed interpreters (there are different kinds of signing), oral interpreters, CART (see post on Captions and Craptions), or FM systems (see post on Using FM systems at conferences). It could be rearranging the room or modifying the way that the meeting is run. Keep in mind that what works for one deaf/HoH person may not work for another person with similar deafness. What works for someone in one situation may not work at all for that same person in another situation, even if the situations seem similar to you. The best solution will probably not be the first approach that you try nor may it be the quickest or cheapest approach; it will be the one that allows your deaf and hard-of-hearing colleagues to participate fully and contribute to the discussion. Reaching the goal of achieving an academic workplace accessible to deaf/HoH academics is a journey.

What to be a better ally and make your workplace accessible for your deaf and hard of hearing colleagues? Follow this link to read our list of recommendations. This is a living document and we welcome your comments and suggestions either to this post or directly within the document.

 

I owe my career to the invention of email

daily grind, networking, ,

-Michele

The title of this post says it all, really. Several times a week I marvel at all the work communication that I can do now that would have been extremely difficult several decades ago. I earned my PhD in 1996. So, I remember the days of making physical presentation slides, where you had to use special film and rush to the developing place in order to get your slides produced before the meeting. I also remember searching the World Wide Web for the very first time. I realize that I’m dating myself in these reminisciings and you are probably impatient with me to get to the point.

Email was around when I was in graduate school, but, at that time, most professionals relied on phoning each other to exchange ideas and get information. At my request, the Dean’s office of my graduate school installed a TTY for me to use for making professional phone calls. I used it a few times and I was very grateful that the captionists relayed voiced information so that I didn’t have to piece together the message from fragments heard on my amplified phone. For example, I used this for some job interviews (see our post on disclosing deafness in job search).

Around my third year of my PhD, I was also having serious doubts if an academic career was for me. This is not uncommon for any graduate students but my deafness exacerbated a sense of not belonging in academia. I didn’t know any deafened professors or researchers. How does one have a successful academic career with deafness? How will I follow discussions at meetings? How will I hear my students’ comments? How will I communicate with colleagues on the phone?

I’m still asking some of these questions and The Mind Hears blog is doing a great job of probing these questions (e.g., teaching large classes post). Fortunately, the last question is now moot. Email allows us to communicate with colleagues, exchange ideas and get questions answered. I don’t have to worry about how my voice sounds or whether I can hear folks. I don’t have to fuss with the complications of the relay service, though I still use my new captioned phone when necessary.

Do I ever miss being able to use the telephone? Heck no! I far prefer email or talking in person than using the phone. Recently Ana and were chatting with a hearing person and they suggested that we contact someone by phone. Ana and I looked at each other and I could tell from her face that she was thinking the same thing as me. A combination of “Ew! Why use the phone when you can email?” and “Eek! Don’t make me use the phone!”.  When I need an answer from someone on my campus, I take the opportunity to stroll over to their office.  Sometimes I get asked “Why didn’t you just phone rather than walk over here?” I laugh and say “It’s good to get out and about and besides, now I’ve had the chance to visit you.” If I choose to, I can use these encounters as opportunities to talk about my deafness. But honestly, the work of educating the hearing community is draining so I prefer to have some control over when and where educational moments occur.

I marvel that while I’ve met many deaf and hard of hearing academics that are younger than me, I’ve not yet met one older than myself who has navigated an academic career with significant deafness (i.e., not age related).  I wonder if this is because I was the leading edge of the email revolution that changed the way academics communicate. Academics even a few years my senior had to rely on telephones for networking. The thought of that makes me deeply appreciative of starting my academic career when I did. What an amazing and empowering time this is to be an academic! I’m grateful for the luck of living on this side of the email revolution. Thank you email!

So, I will end with this Haiku:

    The telephone sits on my desk
    Gathering much dust
    While I type and weave science

P.S. The increasing utilization of remote video conferencing is presenting new challenges for us deaf and hard of hearing academics. Who wants to contribute a The Mind Hears post on navigating these settings?