Deaf Students, Teachers, and Interpreters in the Chemistry Lab

Research: Science and Education

Deaf Students, Teachers, and Interpreters in the Chemistry Lab Brenda C. Seal Communication Sciences and Disorders, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 Dorothy Wynne Model Secondary School for the Deaf, Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC 20002 Gina MacDonald* Department Chemistry, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807; [email protected]

Introduction Many scientists value the cultural diversity of our peers from around the world. We realize the solution to many scientific problems is often found in collaborations between cultures, nationalities, and disciplines. Although we embrace and have come to expect cultural and gender diversity in our laboratories and classrooms, we have been slow to expand these opportunities to students with disabilities. Many outreach efforts today focus on expanding the number of women and minorities in the sciences. Efforts to include and encourage students with disabilities to consider chemistry as a viable career choice are far less common. This report describes a summer research program at James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where deaf and hard-of-hearing students and teachers participate with hearing students and teachers in chemistry research. The principles and procedures discussed in this report should have application to other undergraduate programs and to students with other disabilities. Assuming an active role in offering opportunities and removing communication barriers that might otherwise prevent students from reaching their full potential as scientists is possibly more important today than it has been in previous generations. Indeed, the historic contributions of Deaf 1 scientists are extensive. Numerous contributors are highlighted in Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences and include Sir John Warcup Cornforth (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), Anders Gustaf Ekeberg (chemist), Gideon Moore (chemist) and Charles Henri Nicolle (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine) (1). Today’s shortage of science educators and researchers intensifies the need to encourage all students to consider a career in the sciences and to provide qualified science teachers who are skilled in teaching the deaf. At least 65,000 students enrolled in kindergarten through the 12th grade in the United States have significant hearing loss (2). Deaf and hard-of hearing students are educated in a number of settings, including schools for the deaf. Eighty-one percent of deaf and hard-of-hearing students, though, are educated in their local schools where accommodations may include special teaching, amplification, speech– language therapy, and educational interpreting (2). Students who use sign language may find that their access to the instructional activities of chemistry or other laboratory sciences is challenged, unless they have educational interpreters. Even then, the interpreters may be limited in their experiences with the technical language of the sciences and, as a result, may

fail to make that language “visible” or comprehensible. Heavy fingerspelling and word-by-word transliteration is unlikely to portray the meaning behind the words. In other cases, instructors may fail to make accommodations for students who have interpreters. Instructors who are used to talking during a demonstration or experiment may find it difficult to separate their lecture and demonstration. They may be reluctant to make the necessary pauses that allow the deaf student to observe the demonstration or experiment and then watch the interpreter for the accompanying language. An even worse-case scenario may exist when advisors and administrators in local schools and colleges counsel deaf students away from laboratory sciences. They may fear that the students could be in danger. They may have difficulty finding talented interpreters knowledgeable of and comfortable with the language. They may also experience difficulty in orienting teachers to accommodate their instructional styles for a unisensory learner and his or her interpreter. The 20% of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in schools for the deaf are likely to have an easier time in accessing the language of a laboratory science. But the shortage of science teachers in deaf schools is even more serious than the shortage of science teachers in hearing schools, so that advanced sciences are often not offered in deaf schools. Imagine the domino effect that may have begun in a secondary program with a deaf student who is discouraged from sciences. Reductions in the numbers of college majors is cyclically reflected in reduced numbers of candidates to fill the teaching slots, even in the deaf school, where a deaf college graduate is more likely to apply for a teaching position. Inclusion and immersion are both addressed in the program described here. Inclusion is defined as “collaborative efforts among teachers and special service providers that are important to make curricular content accessible” (3). Immersion refers to intense learning experiences in a discipline or language. Immersion in languages (spoken and signed) promotes comprehensive acquisition of a language’s mechanics, pragmatics, and culture through intense experiences with the language. Numerous examples of immersion and inquirybased learning in chemistry are viewed in the literature; for some examples see cited references (4–8). Many science faculty believe that intensive research experiences may be the single most influential factor in encouraging young scientists to consider research careers and graduate education (9). In fact, almost “all contemporary educational reform documents” call for the teaching of science to be inquiry based so that students

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“acquire the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that will enable them to come to deep understanding of the big ideas in science” (10, p 241). In the program described here, deaf undergraduates from Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, and deaf science teachers from the Virginia School for the Deaf in Staunton, Virginia, and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD) at Gallaudet University joined hearing secondary and postsecondary students for an intense learning experience in biochemistry. Integral to this experience were undergraduates from the JMU’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) who were also immersed in the summer of American Sign Language as interpreters-intraining.2 The program was designed to meet three important goals: (i) to encourage deaf and hard-of-hearing students to continue in the sciences; (ii) to expand research opportunities for secondary school teachers that would allow them the opportunity to update and share their scientific skills with high school students and undergraduates; and (iii) to familiarize the next generation of interpreters and educators with special considerations associated with interpreting in the chemistry laboratory. The Program’s Evolution The program at James Madison University evolved and expanded over three summers. All of the participants were recruited from schools for the deaf and Gallaudet University. During the first year, a single teacher from the Virginia School for the Deaf worked in the laboratory with a part-time professional interpreter. During the second summer, the same teacher and an additional teacher from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf were joined by a high school student from the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York. Their participation in research activities was again supported with the assistance of a part-time professional interpreter. The third summer expanded to include a new high school teacher and a returning teacher, and three Deaf undergraduates from Gallaudet University. The third summer also saw the addition of two student interpreters. Because many interpreters view the laboratory as foreign (11), we included interpreting students in the laboratory to address the shortage of interpreters who are familiar with technical terms and settings. The variety of secondary students, undergraduates, and secondary teachers from different school systems has offered a variety of educational backgrounds, communication styles, and needs, to the end that the program’s growth continues to be dynamic. Procedures All participants were involved in research for no less than five weeks. They worked on developing new biochemistry laboratories that include protein purification techniques, enzyme assays, and spectroscopic techniques frequently used to characterize their protein products. The labs were to be modeled after project-oriented laboratories such as our existing integrated organic/inorganic laboratory (4 ) and laboratories such as those developed by Bylkas and Anderson and by Craig that include protein purification and characterization (8, 12). The instructional goals of the biochemistry laboratories and summer research projects were to familiarize the students and 240

teachers with general biochemical laboratory techniques, to strengthen their ability to interpret biochemical and spectroscopic data, and to renew their enthusiasm for the scientific process. To this end, the deaf students and teachers participated with hearing students and teachers in intensive research experiences. JMU’s Office of Disability Services provided professional interpreters to aid in the interaction between the professor, teachers, and students. The logistics of the day-to-day interactions included meeting all of the participants and interpreters each morning for lectures and discussions of the duties to be performed that day. On some days, the lecture was extended to review biochemical concepts. The interpreter was present when most of these fundamental concepts, overall research plans, and specific goals were addressed. In addition to the voice-to-sign interpretation provided each morning, the interpreter aided in voicing communication from the deaf teachers and students to the hearing teachers and students. The contributions and questions from deaf and hard-of-hearing learners were addressed and many stimulating discussions ensued. Several logistical lessons were taught in other interpreting experiences during the day’s activities. The speakers learned to provide sufficient pauses during demonstrations so the deaf students could watch the interpreter and the demonstration simultaneously. The hearing instructors learned to provide sufficient pauses when demonstrating techniques that involved the use of a computer or other instrumentation (for example, the infrared spectrometer), again so the deaf students and teachers could observe the software demonstrations and then watch the interpreter for the accompanying language. This small provision assures that no information is lost during the demonstration. Finally, the speakers learned to maneuver in the laboratory, sharing the physical space with another professional to ensure visual access to the learning environment and its language. Communication between and among the deaf and hearing students and teachers also occurred during the absence of the professional interpreter. But unlike the summers of 1998 and 1999, which involved limited signing, lipreading, and writing in order to answer questions and keep the communication on track after the interpreter had left, the interpreting students added in the summer of 2000 served to aid numerous interactions between the hearing and deaf participants. Many informal interactions throughout the day allowed the student interpreters to develop their sign and voice interpreting skills. Their observations of the professional interpreter’s work earlier in the morning were put to practice throughout the day. They also served as models to the other hearing members of the laboratory that communication exchanges could occur even with errors and that these errors could be fixed. The student interpreters, in demonstrating their growing skills, actually served to encourage others to venture a sign and grow as communicators with their deaf colleagues. The interpreting students were also held to the rigors of scientific inquiry in their language learning and interpreting. They were required to record their observations of the skills modeled by the professional interpreter daily in their journal entries. Their interpreting experiences were analyzed through videotaped records and routine formal evaluations. The students also analyzed their own interpreting skills and developed goals for improving those skills across voice-to-sign, sign-to-voice,

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interactive, and team interpreting of formal presentations. The students demonstrated empirical evidence in meeting their goals through a summative portfolio that included videotape evidence of improvement, self-evaluation ratings, and ratings of interpreting skills by the deaf consumers. Finally, the interpreting students were required to reflect on their experiences and required readings of the interpreting literature with a list of research questions that had not, to date, been asked or answered. The summer research experience culminated in presentations for the entire group of research participants in the chemistry department (approximately 40 students and teachers). All students and teachers, including the deaf, were required to attend and to present their summer research results. Although the professional interpreter provided most of the voice-to-sign interpretation, the interpreting students also interpreted selected presentations that were videotaped for final analysis of growth. The deaf students and teachers prepared in advance with the professional interpreter to ensure that their presentations were fluid and the sign-tovoice interpretation was accurate. Several hearing students and teachers rehearsed with the interpreters, often explaining what certain language meant so the interpreters could represent it accurately. This additional preparation with the interpreters was absolutely essential and added to the professional caliber of the final presentations. One professor commented that the transition between the hearing and deaf presenters was seamless. Transferring Knowledge Several benefits of the summer program were reported in the subsequent academic year. The deaf teachers returned to their schools, where they incorporated research techniques into their curricula. Many of the experiments conducted during the summer weeks were integrated into the secondary chemistry courses. The benefits that research and constant learning bring to college faculty have been well documented (9). We may assume that research experiences will also benefit K–12 teachers (and therefore their students) by renewing interest in the field and disseminating new information. The Gallaudet University undergraduates followed up by presenting their summer research findings to the high school chemistry students at MSSD. These same students reported at the end of their summer project that they would return to Gallaudet with renewed enthusiasm for their majors. The Gallaudet students left with increased understanding of biochemistry, protein purification, and infrared spectroscopy as evidenced by their final papers, presentations, and informal conversations and questions throughout the experience. They also discussed continuing their degree programs beyond the bachelor’s level. At least two of the three college students went on to research projects at other institutions during the summer of 2001. The participating hearing students and teachers who had no previous educational experiences with deaf students or teachers or with educational interpreters left the experience better prepared to teach in K–12 and postsecondary settings where interpreters and deaf students are likely to be found. One of the graduating seniors, a lab assistant in the project, entered a middle school program where she teaches math and science. One of her students was a hard-of-hearing student. The

new teacher reported that many of the skills she learned in the summer research program enabled her to communicate more effectively with the variety of students she encountered in her first year as a teacher. The two interpreting students also showed a transfer of knowledge and skills in the year following the summer’s experience. One entered a graduate program in education at Gallaudet University. The other entered an early childhood special education master’s program at James Madison University and took on a part-time educational interpreting role in a local middle school. Finally, the didactic and experiential knowledge gained over the first three years has led to the successful incorporation of these techniques into a newly funded NSF-REU grant. This will allow us to provide similar learning opportunities for a larger number of deaf and hearing researchers and their interpreters. However, despite our success over the past three years and our anticipated success and extension of this program over the next three, we are not without concerns. Expansion of the program will involve more students, teachers, and professors. Therefore, we may encounter some new problems and idiosyncrasies during the extension of this program as we try to provide adequate mentoring and interpreting to a larger number of deaf researchers. Replication Concerns Concerns about replicating a program such as this are likely to center around time, finances, and the recruitment of participants. Professional interpreters can be very expensive, particularly if paid an hourly salary commensurate with that earned in the medical and legal community. However, each college or university should have an Office of Disability Services that will aid in the recruiting and funding of qualified interpreters for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Engaging professional interpreters for a limited period at the beginning of each day, rather than for the entire day, sets up an expectation that important information is offered at the opening of each day. The professional interpreter’s model was also important for the student interpreters in that they were able to videotape and study her choice of signs, use of space, and day-to-day interpreting skill level as they practiced the art and science of interpreting during her absence. The daily contact that occurred among the hearing and deaf professors, teachers, and students enabled learning of several “survival” signs that allowed communication when the interpreters were not immediately available. Because colleges and universities are required to provide qualified interpreters (13) and because the cost of professional interpreters might appear prohibitive for such an intense learning experience, we recommend that the experiences we had with and without the interpreters should encourage any professor or program to extend research opportunities to deaf students and teachers. Once interpreters are available, concerns about their comfort level in the language of (bio)chemistry should be addressed. A recently updated handbook, Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities, offers numerous resources and tips that will provide both faculty and students with useful information on teaching students with a variety of disabilities. This manual can be obtained from the American Chemical Society in booklet format or online. Another recently updated book, Signs for Science and Mathematics: A Resource Book for Teachers


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and Students, should aid interpreters, teachers, and students in utilizing a common set of scientific signs (14 ). As previously stated, all our participants were recruited from schools and universities for the Deaf. Gallaudet University’s Web page contains links to information on the names and locations of universities, colleges, community colleges, and K–12 schools for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing. This information should provide a valuable starting point for any primary investigator interested in helping to increase the number of deaf and hardof-hearing science majors and extend research opportunities to interested teachers. In considering time and financial replication concerns, we also encourage interested faculty to consider the benefits to hearing students and the extended consequences of this program. It is probable that the hearing students immersed in the ongoing summer research program (around 40 total, including all JMU faculty) will be more likely to consider and include deaf and other disabled students in their future laboratories and classrooms. Working with deaf students and teachers helped to diminish any misconceptions we may have had previously. More importantly, hearing students who themselves become teachers who include and increase the number of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in their laboratories and workplaces will create a ripple effect that should result in increased diversity in the sciences. The future teachers who have been involved in this program will also be better prepared to interact with hearing and deaf or hard-of-hearing students. Improved teaching can be expected particularly if we accept that both hearing and deaf students generally value similar characteristics in teachers—including content knowledge, use of visual materials, providing clear explanations, and teaching at an appropriate pace (15, 16 ). Deaf students who have “dependent” learning styles, much like many hearing students, will need organization and structure during participation in classroom activities and laboratories. Thus, during discourse, teachers who make a special effort to connect lecture and laboratory experiences and relate what is being learned to experiences in students’ lives should communicate more effectively with deaf and hearing students with “dependent” learning styles (17). Summary James Madison University, formally a teachers college, has a strong history of preparing K–12 teachers in their respective disciplines, involving science educators in research, and providing numerous outreach efforts to local schools. In addition, the chemistry department has always integrated undergraduate research into its curriculum and departmental duties. These characteristics provide an environment that allowed the facile incorporation of deaf students, teachers, and interpreters into the biochemistry laboratory. Educational goals of this project to design new projects for the biochemistry laboratory and allow deaf science teachers and students to extend their biochemical experience were met. New laboratories were incorporated into the biochemistry course and the teachers and students left with the acquisition of basic biochemistry skills. Many of the students had their first exposure to concepts associated with experimental biochemistry while reviewing concepts acquired in general chemistry. The hear-

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ing undergraduate(s) interested in education gained valuable research experience and had the opportunity to interact with science teachers and learn from their “real world” experiences. As McIntosh et al. have suggested, more methods of training for deaf teachers actually benefit both the teachers and the students (18). Informal conversations have led us to believe that the teachers and students involved in the project gained new knowledge that was then disseminated at their home institutions. The interpreting students gained extensive knowledge in their field and became familiar with the environment, including the language, of a chemistry laboratory. They learned technical signs and grew in their ability to conceptualize scientific procedures. Their increased understanding of the process of scientific research was matched with their requirements to document their own observations and gains. The students involved in this project grew in both their skills and their knowledge of educational interpreting as applied in the laboratory, as assessed by the methods described. The continuation and expansion of this program within JMU and at other universities should improve the future pool of scientifically literate interpreters who will work with deaf scientists. The inclusion of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in science classrooms and laboratories has never been more likely than it is today. Educational reform across the United States and many progressive countries calls for eliminating restrictions that previously isolated deaf students from opportunities outside their own deaf schools. Programs such as the one described here simply extend opportunities to deaf students and teachers and provide a more diverse and enhanced academic atmosphere. Notes 1. Both deaf and Deaf are used in referring to individuals whose hearing loss precludes the development or functional use of spoken language. The upper-case Deaf identifies members of the Deaf culture who use American Sign Language to communicate. 2. American Sign Language is indigenous to more than half a million deaf individuals in the United States. Deaf students who communicate with American Sign Language may rely on educational interpreters who make the spoken language of the classroom or educational setting accessible to the deaf students and the sign language of the deaf students accessible to the hearing teachers and students. In addition to deaf students are many hard-of-hearing students who also rely on sign language interpreters to bridge gaps that occur in their spoken communication with hearing individuals.

Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge support from National Science Foundation to G.M. (MCB-9733566). We acknowledge the National Science Foundation for the RET supplement to Daniel M. Downey and G.M. that provided D.W.’s summer 2000 salary and funding for one of the undergraduate interpreters (NSF 97-31912). We are grateful to James Madison University for matching support for B.S.’s summer salary and to the Office of Disability Services for funding the professional interpreter and the other interpreter trainee.

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Special appreciation is extended to all who participated in this project. The professional interpreter, Christine Colbert, was an exemplary role model for the interpreting students and a valuable support for the deaf participants and their hearing colleagues and professors. G.M. would like to acknowledge all of the participants associated with the workshop to rewrite the Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities handbook—especially Harry Lang and Michael Moore, for numerous helpful discussions. Literature Cited 1. Lang, H. G.; Meath-Lang, B. Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary; Greenwood Press: Westport, CT, 1995. 2. U.S. Department of Education. To Assure the Free and Appropriate Public Education of all Children with Disabilities; Eighteenth Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 618; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1996. 3. Brinton, B.; Fujiki, M.; Montague, E. C.; Hanton, J. L. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 2000, 31, 252– 264. 4. Amenta, D. S.; Mosbo, J. A. J. Chem. Educ. 1994, 71, 661– 664. 5. Deal, S. T.; Hurst, M. O. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 241–242. 6. Kharas, G. B. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 829–831.

7. Kimbrough, D. R.; Magoun, M. A.; Langfur, M. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 210–212. 8. Craig, P. A. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 1130–1135. 9. Doyle, M. Academic Excellence—The Role of Research in the Physical Sciences at Undergraduate Institutions; Research Corporation: Tucson, AZ, 2000. 10. Palinscar, A. S.; Collins, K. M.; Marano, N. L.; Magnusson, S. J. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 2000, 31, 240–251. 11. Seal, B. C. Best Practices in Educational Interpreting; Allyn & Bacon: Needham Heights, MA, 1998. 12. Bylkas, S. A.; Anderson, L. A. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 426–429. 13. Kincaid, J. M. Legal Issues Specific to Serving Students Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Institutions of Higher Education; AHEAD Publications: Columbus, OH, 1995. 14. Caccamise, F.; Lang, H. Signs for Science and Mathematics: A Resource Book for Teachers and Students, 2nd ed.; National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology: Rochester, NY, 2000. 15. Lang, H. G.; McKee, B. G.; Conner, K. N. Am. Ann. Deaf 1993, 138, 252–259. 16. Lang, H. G.; Dowaliby, F. J.; Anderson, H. Am. Ann. Deaf 1994, 139, 119–127. 17. Lang, H. G.; Stinson, M. S.; Basile, M.; Kavanagh, F.; Liu, Y. J. Deaf Stud. Deaf Educ. 1998, 4, 16–27. 18. McIntosh, R. A.; Sulzen, L.; Reeder, K.; Kidd, D. H. Am. Ann. Deaf 1994, 139, 480–484.


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Deaf Students, Teachers, and Interpreters in the Chemistry Lab

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