Virtual Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Education
I conducted an interview with one of the nation’s most experienced deaf education and training specialists. Her name is Cara Wilmot.
Cara Wilmot is an outreach specialist for the Resource Materials and Technology Center for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, also known as RMTC. As a teacher with over 22 years of experience, Wilmot has taught students from birth all the way to the age of 22 years old in over 67 counties in Florida.
“In the state of Florida, a student who is deaf or hard of hearing can go to school until the year they turn 21 or even 22 years old.”
From self-contained classrooms to local schools, Wilmot has taught students and their families what is known as the expanded core curriculum.
The expanded core curriculum displays the special standards on teaching students who are deaf and hard of hearing how to be advocates for themselves. An example of this is teaching students how to ask for what they need in order to access the general learning experience. Something a student may ask for is captioning, extended time, guidance on working with an interpreter, and especially during the time of COVID-19, how to access virtual learning materials.
Wilmot now is working with teachers and school districts to provide them with professional development on how to optimize curriculums and outlets of support, while researching the best technologies for virtual learning.
While scrolling through tons of research papers, material lists, and articles, I began to grow more interested in the field of education for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. My individual research from these resources was to be used for creating a note-taking software for a global STEM competition, but instead, I solely wanted to dig deeper and feed my own curiosity.
Of course, there’s no hurting in asking.
Q: What are the struggles you, teachers, and students are facing with virtual learning and especially with captioning systems? Do you notice any patterns?
A: Every tool has a different way of captioning, which is very frustrating. At a recent meeting I attended for professional development, the presenter had wanted to use his own personal Zoom room. He didn’t know how to turn the captions on it for the meeting’s two deaf attendees. All 250 participants had to be kicked out of the room in order to reset the meeting’s settings to include captioning for the deaf attendees.
The biggest challenge overall is pacing. Everybody just needs to know how to take turns. We want everything to be quick, but the technology cannot keep up with the speed of our learning.
The captions are always three to five seconds behind. Sometimes it gets as bad as 20 seconds behind. So, the deaf person in the classroom is always behind. My colleague, who hasn’t read the captions yet, is trying to keep up while everyone else is already responding when a question is being asked.
Q: Would you say Zoom is the most popular platform used for deaf and hard of hearing schools? If so, why?
A: It’s the most popular, yes, but not every school district is choosing to use it. But what makes Zoom better than the others is the clarity of the video. This is only true if you have a good Internet connection.
You need to be able to see small movements of the hands, especially if you’re finger-spelling. Other platforms have not been good enough to clearly see the hands and you get a lot of drag. If there is a lot of drag or buffering of the hands, you cannot understand those minute details of the hands. The speed of the hand gestures are very important for communicating those tiny details. We have to try out these technologies before schools buy them. This is part of our job.
Q: Even though Zoom has the best clarity for online learning, there can still be buffering during sessions. Would you use captioning systems as the alternate solution for this problem?
A: There have been considerations to use captioning as an alternate solution for online learning, but unfortunately, most deaf and hard-of-hearing students cannot read on grade level. What we found best is that we can use American Sign Language alongside a captioning system, but that can also be challenging.
There are a lot of times where material is spoken above their reading level. We have to look at the complexity of what’s being taught, their language, how far behind they are in their language, and decide what can really make the best, personalized learning experience for the student.
“Just because you’ve met one deaf child, doesn’t mean you’ve met any deaf child. You cannot generalize anyone and their experiences.”
Q: How do students take notes when their reading level is not matched with their ASL level?
A: We actually don’t recommend they take notes. One of the accommodations that we recommend is that they receive notes from someone else. One of the technologies that I’ve been looking at are called Immersive Reader and Otter.ai, where it can take notes from captions and simplify them for the student. When your head goes down to write notes, you lose the ability to read the sign language. You need some kind of note-taking device or a note-taker person.
Another practice I encourage is collaborative note-taking. So for the kids in the class that are good at note-taking, we would need more than one student to take notes because different students are focusing on different things during a lecture. This is better than going through the caption-transcript because that is too much information to take in.
Q: Do you think that the students rely more on collaborative notes as opposed to retaining information from a lecture in order to have a better learning experience?
A: Collaborative note-taking is not a very common practice. It’s actually something we are trying to encourage. Not enough people are taking advantage of that and understand it. I first heard about it from college students and teachers and they say they benefit a lot from it, but it’s not widespread enough. The problem is getting that coaching, training, professional development, and research to back it up.
“Only 1% of students are deaf and hard of hearing. It is considered low incidence.”
Cara Wilmot’s Mission Statement
“My mission is to provide every student who is deaf or hard of hearing with an individualized, student-centered, and specially designed education with their families as partners to prepare the students to thrive in every aspect of their life.”
And that’s a wrap! I learned so much from asking these five questions within a short 20-minute window of time. I hope you read this article and can emphasize or sympathize with the struggles of teachers, training specialists, and students in the department of special education. It is so important to be aware of their situations during COVID-19 and combat ignorance!
Please do not hesitate to email me any questions or concerns: katelynwon@gmail.com.
If you would like to reach out to Cara Wilmot please email her at: cara.wilmot@rmtcdhh.org
O you can visit the Resource Materials and Technology Center website.
