Next Steps and Tips for Transitioning

Next Steps

If you are interested in either supporting multilingual teacher preparation programs or transitioning your program to align with a multilingual perspective, we encourage you to become members of the MLE-SIG7 and attend the annual ACEDHH conference. This will be a way we can continue to share and grow resources to support you in the process. Here are some action steps we plan to take as the MLE-SIG to support programs in implementing the guidelines:

• MLE-SIG website: While the MLE-SIG has already established a new website located on the ACEDHH website, one of the next steps to support existing and new teacher preparation programs in becoming multilingual is to expand on resources within the SIG website. Our hope is that members will utilize the SIG website as a place to share resources.
• MLE-SIG event at the annual ACEDHH conference: The SIG will continue their annual day-long event adjacent to the main ACEDHH conference for collaborative projects, including sharing and building additional resources such as course syllabi, teacher modeling videos, and the latest research findings.
• equity of BIPOC: The MLE-SIG aims to increase BIPOC representation and membership at the annual conference to ensure their perspectives are represented in our SIG actions, policies, presentations, and publications.
• developing evaluative tools: The MLE-SIG aims to develop and share multiple options for tools that can be used to evaluate the quality of Multilingual Deaf Education teacher preparation programs.

Tips for Transitioning

Ready to align your teacher preparation program with a Multilingual Deaf Education perspective? Here are some tips for getting started:

• review your state licensure requirements for standards
• review your university/college requirements for standards, credit limits, etc.
• review your department/college procedures for minor versus major course revisions
• review your department/college procedures for creating a new course
• review your department/college procedures for course revisions versus program revisions
• review faculty vita, loads, and responsibilities to determine who will teach which courses

Program Changes

Full program changes can include major/minor course revisions, and revisions to program goals, admission requirements (e.g., ASL skills), and program evaluations. Keep in mind that if you are making extensive program changes, some university/college requirements ask that you wait to submit all requests at one time. However, if you are only changing a few courses you might not have to submit a full program change. Some colleges require approval from curriculum committees. We recommend when possible to revise courses you already have in place. This can help you transition more smoothly, and is typically less time consuming than getting a new course proposed and approved.

Course Revisions

Sometimes programs separate language from literacy. Since key strategies connect language to written print, we do not recommend this for multilingual programs. For example, if you have one language and one literacy course that is currently P–12 and you want to split it into two courses, Early Childhood Language/Literacy and P–12 Literacy Methods, you wouldn’t need to create two new courses. You could do the following:

• modify the current literacy course by taking out the early childhood parts. This could consist of major or minor revisions, depending on your university’s requirements.
• create one new course for early childhood.

Unlike minor course revisions, which may only need to be reviewed at the program/department level, major course revisions usually require review by the college curriculum committee. When revising courses, there should be a focus on materials that come from Deaf and/or BIPOC scholars.

Creating a New Course

There is no need to reinvent the wheel! If you are creating a new course (e.g., Multilingual Methods for Teaching Academic Content) we recommend first reaching out to the MLE-SIG for a sample syllabus. This can help you not only with content but with your standards as well. Please note that standards for each course will vary based on the guidelines set by your university, state, and in some cases, the Council on Education of the Deaf (CED). Importantly, some universities already include statements regarding antibias, antiracist principles. If yours does not, this will be something you will want to include. While it is critical to integrate antiaudist, antibias, antiracist, and social justice principles throughout your program, you may also decide to have a separate course as well (e.g., Identity Development, Intersectionality, and Social Justice). When creating new courses, there should be a focus on materials that come from Deaf and/or BIPOC scholars.

You also may want to consider whether you want to include an online component to your course (e.g., blended learning). If you do decide to add this component, we recommend the course be designed to emphasize genuine learning experiences so teacher candidates have opportunities to learn, interact, and collaborate with each other.

Deaf Education Teaching Evaluation

In regards to our recommendation for a Deaf education teaching evaluation (see Deaf Education Language and Teacher Evaluations, consider whether you want to embed this into one of your courses or make it a standalone credit or exam This can take substantial time to administer and evaluate, so you might want to consider this when determining the duties, loads, and responsibilities of your faculty.