David H Smith

David H Smith

Dr. Smith is currently the director at the Center on Deafness at the University of Tennessee. Prior to this he was a professor and director of the Deaf Education program at Fresno State. He has his experience as a Deaf individual, program leader, and grant writer to the Center on Deafness with great enthusiasm.  Dr. Smith also has been involved in a career as an educator of the deaf and hard of hearing that spans over more than 20 years in a variety of settings and age groups.

Preparing Deaf-Friendly Teachers in a Diverse Setting

This paper will present qualitative and quantitative findings of the Deaf Education Personnel Preparation Project (DEPP), a four-year federal grant to train personnel to serve deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) school age children and adolescents.  California State University, Fresno is a minority serving institution and students have daily exposure to a wide diversity of languages and cultures on-campus and off-campus. Students majoring in Deaf Education in the department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Studies are required to complete courses designed to prepare them to be successful D/HH teachers.

A critical component of the DEPP project is preparing students to understand and work with the Deaf community, which is culturally and linguistically diverse. This paper will present an overview of the required Deaf Studies curriculum for students’ at the undergraduate and graduate level. Specifically, discussion will be focused on student outcomes related to nine Deaf culturally related or linguistic courses.

Qualitative findings of factors that motivate students’ to become D/HH teachers will be presented. Data will be reported that identifies student perceptions of individual behavior in seeking, finding, and using American Sign Language as well as interacting with Deaf Community members.  Quantitative findings of DEPP performance objectives and measures data will be presented.  This data provides information necessary to assess the effectiveness of the resources utilized to train D/HH teachers.