Have you asked a group of deaf/hoh students (who will not be in your
class) what they think?
Kathy
Kathryn J. McKnight
Associate Professor of Spanish
Associate Director for Academic Programs
Latin American & Iberian Institute
MSC 02 1690
801 Yale Blvd NE
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
http://laii.unm.edu/
>>> "Emke, Amanda R" <[log in to unmask]> 10/2/2012 12:48 PM >>>
Amazing question. I wonder, are the other demographics about the same
amongst your deaf/hoh students such that if you made a team or teams of
just deaf/hoh students they would resemble your other teams, including
their diversity, in all things other than hearing/speech abilities?
Amanda
Amanda R. Emke, MD
Instructor, Divisions of Pediatric Critical Care
& Hospital Medicine
Course Master, Pre-Clinical Pediatrics
Washington University School of Medicine
St. Louis Children's Hospital
One Children's Place, NWT CB 8116
St. Louis, MO 63110
314-454-2678
[log in to unmask]
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Nicholas DiFonzo
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 1:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: team selection, mixed class, deaf/hoh students
TBL colleagues, below is an important decision that must be made in
preparation for a class that begins after Thanksgiving. I’ve put it in
the form of an application exercise. Please discuss for 15 minutes and
be ready to defend your answer to the other teams (just kidding on this
last sentenceJ). Seriously, I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.
Feel free to write in an option C if you think it would help. Thank you!
--Nick
In my Social Psychology class next quarter, I can expect between 5 to
15 deaf/hard-of-hearing students out of a class of 70 students. Given
the constraints and background material below, choose the best team
selection strategy:
A. segregate them (e.g., 1 or 2 deaf/hoh groups, and 8 or 9 hearing
groups)
B. intermix them evenly (e.g., 1 deaf/hoh person in each/most of the 10
groups)
Note: I only get two interpreters.
Background:
1. RIT has 1500 deaf/hoh students because one of our colleges is the
National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Most of my classes have a few
deaf/hoh students, who usually sit clustered in front and an interpreter
signs to them.
2. Most in the deaf/hoh community use American Sign Language, but many
do not*they lip read, hear badly, can talk but can’t hear well, have
cochlear implants (not quite the same as hearing), or they can
communicate in some other fashion, so the language abilities of the
deaf/hoh students is quite variable. Occasionally it is difficult for
even the interpreters to communicate with a student. In my experience,
many deaf/hoh miss many of the course concepts*something is lost in the
translation (I am hopeful that TBL will ameliorate this somewhat). Also
they only have one primary sensory mode in which to communicate (vision)
and so the process of communicating is often slowed down considerably.
3. A statistics professor here does group work (not strict TBL, but
similar to the application exercises) where she spreads the students out
intentionally, and they communicate with each other on large white
boards*each team gets a large white board and each team member writes
rather than speaks, even if they are hearing. Keep in mind that she has
groups of 4 persons, two of which are deaf/hoh and two are hearing (this
does not correspond to either option and I am not considering it because
it seems likely to produce instant cliques). She reports success using
this strategy, though some hearing students feel hampered because they
have to write everything down on the white board and it slows the
discussion somewhat.
4. The typical rule of thumb for team selection, as you know, is
diversity with respect to the ability to solve the team problems (option
B
).
5. If option A is followed, I think the extensive discussion that
occurs in the deaf/hoh groups will be rapid as everyone in the group
signs, and I think they will be able to help one another*especially
those who sign poorly, thus invoking the complex learning that is the
aim of TBL.
6. I hate to segregate them (option A) yet one more time*they are
always the minority in the class and creating a deaf team seems to
reinforce the differences.
7.. I am fearful that if there is only one deaf student per group
(option B) this student will participate less and when she does
participate, will be resented for slowing things down, or worse*if
communication fails, the group will be frustrated.
Nicholas DiFonzo, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
18 Lomb Memorial Drive
Room 1-2363
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, NY 14623
Phone: 585-475-2907
FAX: 585-475-6715
Faculty Website: http://people.rit.edu/nxdgss/
Personal Website: www.ProfessorNick.com ( http://www.professornick.com/
)
Skype: nicholas.difonzo
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