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DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE LEARNING MATERIAL TO STUDENTS WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT (HI) THROUGH ODL IN ZIMBABWE

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Abstract (2. Language): 
Students with Hearing Impairment (HI) are experiencing learning problems in most institutions of Higher Learning in Zimbabwe. Access to colleges and universities is limited and where they are accepted, there are no facilities to cater for their needs, hence there is need to develop learning materials that enable these students to learn effectively through Open Distance Learning(ODL) especially with Zimbabwe Open University(ZOU). The few Hard of hearing students enrolled at Zimbabwe Open University and other Institutions of Higher learning have expressed difficulties in coping with their studies partly due to the fact that the learning materials used are tailor made for the mainstream form of education. The research will use a descriptive survey method to extract information from students with HI and find ways and solutions on how to develop effective learning materials through ODL in Zimbabwe. Questionnaires and Interviews of students with HI, and lecturers /teachers will be used to collect data. Introduction and background to the study Promoting the development of a knowledge society through open and distance education is one of the tactics increasingly adopted in recent times by institutions of Higher Learning in Zimbabwe. Distance education, also called open or distance learning, is a form of education in which there is normally a separation between teachers and learners. Thus, it incorporates the printed and written word, the telephone, computer conferencing or teleconferencing to bridge the physical gap between the instructor and the learner. Distance education provides educational opportunities to those who otherwise would have been denied. Researchers (Howell, Williams & Lindsay, 2003) have shown that open distance education programs in particular are growing in importance as centres for the development of knowledge specifically for students with Hearing Impairment. According to Brundage, Keane, and Mackneson (1993) adult students (including students with Hearing impairment) and their instructors must face and overcome a number of challenges before learning takes place including: becoming and staying responsible for themselves;  "owning" their strengths,  desires,  skills, and needs;  maintaining and increasing self-esteem;  relating to others;  clarifying what is learned;  redefining what legitimate knowledge is; and  dealing with content. The term "hearing impairment" refers to functional hearing loss that ranges from mild to profound. Often, people who have no functional hearing refer to themselves as "Deaf." Those with milder hearing loss refer to themselves as "Hard of hearing." Accommodations for students with hearing impairments can be classified as visual and aural. Visual accommodations rely on a person's sight; aural accommodations rely on a person's hearing abilities. Examples of visual accommodation include sign language interpreters, lip reading, and captioning. Examples of aural accommodations include amplification devices such as FM systems. Hard of hearing students may hear only specific frequencies or sounds within a certain volume range. They may rely heavily upon hearing aids and lip reading. Some students who are hard of hearing may never learn, or only occasionally use, sign language. A student who is hard of hearing may have speech impairment due to the inability to hear his own voice clearly. Hearing impairments can affect students in several ways. They may have difficulty following lectures in large halls, particularly if the acoustics cause echoes or if the speaker talks quietly, rapidly, or unclearly. People who have hearing impairments may find it difficult to simultaneously watch demonstrations and follow verbal descriptions, particularly if they are watching a sign language interpreter, a captioning screen, or a speaker's lips. In-class discussions may also be difficult to follow or participate in, particularly if the discussion is fast-paced and unmoderated, since there is often lag time between a speaker's comments and interpretation. Students who are hard of hearing may use hearing aids. Students who use hearing aids will likely benefit from amplification in other forms such as assistive compatible telephones, personal neck loops, and audio induction loop assistive listening systems. Some students use an FM amplification system that requires the instructor to wear a small microphone to transmit amplified sound to the student; this accommodation may also be used in small group discussions with the microphone handed from speaker to speaker. A student who is deaf may have little or no speech depending on the severity of the hearing loss and the age of onset. She will often communicate through a sign language interpreter. Other students may use manual English (or signed English), which is sign language in English word order. A certified interpreter is used for translation into either language. A student who is deaf may also benefit from real-time captioning, where spoken text is typed and projected onto a screen. It is important to remember that a student who is using an interpreter, who is lip reading, or who is reading real-time captioning cannot simultaneously look down at written materials or take notes. Describing written or projected text is therefore helpful to this student. Handouts that can be read before or after class are useful but can create challenges when referred to during the class session.The number of Deaf and hard of hearing impaired students entering higher education institutions such as ZOU in Zimbabwe are slowly increasing. This increase is in response to demands made by the government and the constitutional obligation to increase access to the education system. In order to accommodate a diversity of learning needs through addressing barriers to learning, education institutions are required by the government to provide education support services to learners. Higher education institutions like the Zimbabwe Open University who offers their tuition through Open Distance learning need to develop learning materials for their ODL programmes that support the needs of Hearing impaired students. Currently there are few deaf and hard of hearing students that have enrolled for higher education degree programmes with the Zimbabwe Open University and these few students have expressed difficulties in coping with their studies partly due to the fact that the learning materials used are tailor made for the mainstream form of education. Deaf and hard of hearing students are disadvantaged in education by the lack of learning materials that meet their academic needs. This is a barrier to Deaf students entry into mainstream higher education institutions because instead of being included, Deaf and hard of hearing students are excluded from the mainstream education system. In cases where they managed to enter higher education, they experience academic and social difficulties hence there is need to develop learning materials that enable these students to learn effectively through Open Distance Learning. The Module is the main learning material provided by ZOU for open distance education and it caters for the needs of inclusive form of education. As print media, the module has the advantage of being synchronous (real time and real place) as well as being asynchronous in both time and place (Lynch and Dembo, 2004). In the absence of computers and other telecommunication media, the students can carry the module home and information is relatively reliable and tailored to the needs of the learner because it has been written by experts. Some of these experts present learning materials or modules that are biased towards the hearing students and do not have expertise in the provision of special needs education for the deaf and hard of hearing learners. This creates problems for the deaf and hard of hearing students who have enrolled for degree programmes at ZOU. The modules as a mode of instruction for ODL are made to meet the needs of the majority of the students. The deaf have their own culture and this is not infused in the illustrations and examples given in the text. Some examples given actually promote discrimination and stigmatisation among the students at ZOU. Hence there is need to develop and improve these modules so that they become user friendly to the deaf and hard of hearing students enrolled at ZOU. Face to face and tutorials are the other ways used by ZOU to facilitate ODL. These tutorials are important in distance education as they provide interaction between tutor and students. However the deaf and hard of hearing experience challenges in such circumstances. The hearing students find it difficult to interact with deaf students through sign language. The tutors are also illiterate in sign language and no ODL professionals will facilitate such face to face sessions. Hence there is need to improve and develop the learning environment and material for the Hearing impaired students at ZOU. Deaf students in particular should be provided with support services like sign language interpreters, tape recorders and learning materials developed to meet their academic needs. However, the social and academic experiences of the Deaf and hard of hearing students, are not explored in order to determine the effectiveness of these services in terms of equal epistemological access to education.The use of CD’s as a way of information dissemination for open distance learning is a noble one but only to students who are computer literate. The students also face challenges mainly because the majority of them stay in rural areas, and do not have computers and let alone electricity. ZOU has introduced ZOU ONLINE as one of the forms of e-learning strategy to help the students with Hearing impairment. E-learning refers to the use of internet technologies that deliver a broad array of solutions that enhance knowledge and performance (Rosenberg, 2001; Marcal and Caetano, 2010). Thus e-learning has demonstrated its potential by overcoming several limitations associated with conventional face-to-face instruction such as high costs and schedule inflexibility (Bersin, 2004; in Marcal and Caetano, 2010) as well as geographical barriers (Juuitinen et al, 2010). E-learning facility benefits the hearing student most. It is interactive in nature as it allows the students to interact through the activities given in the text. The lecturers who prepare these texts do not have the skills to prepare the learning materials needed to meet the needs of the hearing impaired students and this creates problems for the students with HI. Deaf people identify themselves differently; there are those who use the uppercase Deaf, and see themselves as members of the Deaf community. They have a degree of audiological deafness and exhibit attitudinal cohesion linguistically, politically and socially with other Deaf people (Baker and Cokely, 1980). The other group is the oral deaf who use speech and hearing aids.
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