Ever since I was a graduate student at Gallaudet, I’ve wanted to return and teach at my alma mater. Especially now, after 15 rewarding years in the field of my chosen career. There’s so much I could impart to earnest young professionals who want to contribute to the well-being of deaf children everywhere in the world.
So why don’t I apply for job teaching at Gallaudet?
The answer is: I loathe the East Coast. You couldn’t pay me enough money to live there. Seriously, not for a million dollars. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine for those of you who already live there. I’m not criticizing your choice. I have a few good friends in the area, and a bunch more that I haven’t met yet but who could be my friends if I lived there. The area is pretty. Lots of cool museums. The weather, well, let’s not go there.
On the other hand, I’m so in love with the West Coast. San Francisco, Tucson, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Boulder, Santa Fe, Bozeman, and many other Western cities are among the most beautiful on the planet, and I am fully qualified to say that. The lands west of the Rocky Mountains are unparalleled for their eye-popping scenery, awe-inspiring grandeur, and unique variety. Not only that, the West is a Mecca for progressive, forward-thinking, free-spirited individuals everywhere. I will live in the West until the day I die.
Guess a job as a professor at Gallaudet isn’t in the cards for me. Or is it?
Let’s fast-forward to the year 2017…
Hello again! I’ve finally realized my fondest dream – to be an adjunct professor at Gallaudet. How did that happen?
Distance education. To counter diminishing enrollment, Gallaudet began offering online courses for university credit a few years ago. It collaborates with graduate schools around the country who have deaf education, counseling, psychology, and rehabilitation departments, and with local communities that have K-12 schools, community colleges and universities, and service agencies for the deaf. Here’s how it works.
To teach my “classes,” I go to a local university and use its distance learning lab and audio-visual technology (ATV) staff to videotape the course sessions. As an example, one of my classes is titled “Intellectual Assessment I.” Over the 18-week course, I demonstrate how to administer and interpret three major test batteries, the Wechsler, the Kaufman, and the Stanford-Binet. On the video, I lecture on the basics and then test deaf student volunteers from local schools with various hearing and communication abilities. The distance learning lab supplies technicians to edit video from several perspectives so that the essential parts of the session are visible. A second class I teach is “Psychoeducational Assessment,” a case-studies course that videos me throughout the entire assessment process from start to finish, including interviews, classroom observation, formal testing, interpretation, collaborating with teachers, and presenting the results at an IEP meeting. A third class is “Professional Report Writing,” in which I coach students to write clear, informative, and accurate psychological evaluation reports. This is a self-paced elective course.
Graduate students participate by taking online quizzes and exams in a proctored testing lab provided by the local university. They demonstrate their competence in the subject by going to the distance learning lab and having themselves filmed administering tests to other graduate students. They score test protocols in the proctored room which are scanned or faxed to my location for critique. Class discussions and participation are conducted through a web site that allows for asynchronous, multiple views via web cam.
Best of all, once the entire course has been filmed, it is archived and can be used again and again, and updated when needed. It’s like Pay Per View. The course can be shown to a group of students, or to a single student under supervision of another university professor. Gallaudet could conceivably earn royalties for the course into the indefinite future. Distance learning benefits working professionals also. The archived videos would make it possible to take the course without having to travel to DC or take time out from a full-time job.
Have you ever wanted to meet an audiologist or a speech teacher who is not an audist? Gallaudet’s deaf-centric graduate programs can be made even more integrated and collaborative. In my local area, I know both a Doctor of Audiology and a certified (CCC-SLP) Speech/Language Pathologist who are fluent in ASL and have many years of experience working with deaf children who use ASL as their primary language. I also know many skilled and experienced teachers of the deaf who are able to model academic ASL instruction. I’ve also met teachers of the deaf who use Visual Phonics, SEE, and Signed English to teach reading. They could be guest speakers in my online course too, or teach their own!
Best of all, people considered exemplars of their professions anywhere in the world can be hired to teach any of the core courses of the program, rather than being limited to those willing to live in the metro DC area. By opening up faculty membership to accomplished professionals world-wide, a greater diversity of ethnic groups, language preferences, types of students served, and communication modes could be achieved. Distance education could permit a variety of languages and communication modes to be added to the video, including foreign language subtitles, cued speech, signed English, ASL, or foreign sign languages, and it only needs to be done once. This would make the content accessible to any graduate student in the world.
My references are available on request…
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Kokonut Pundits' response: Great article! Who says that a professor has to be physically present at a Gallaudet University classroom? With technology today we have the capability to be able to teach class via long distance with video conferencing capabilities. That way we can still continue to live where we can live and teach at the same time! Imagine in a Gallaudet classroom in 2017 a large 15 ft long by 10 feet high very thin video screen against a wall facing a roomfull of students who can easily interact with the long-distance professor and vice versa.
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