Teachers Perspectives on Transition to Online Teaching Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study

Abstract

Education has faced various challenges due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. These challenges were even more dramatic for deaf and hard-of-hearing students as they transitioned to the online setting. This paper aims to explore the teachers’ perspectives on transitioning to educating computer science deaf students at a technical college in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Therefore, the paper presents the results of 10 surveys and 5 interviews with faculty to identify the main obstacles that teachers have faced during the transition. This study outcomes reveal several challenges related to poor accessibility of learning tools, issues with the online availability of materials, no updates on the teaching pedagogy to accommodate the new settings and communication problems between teachers and students. Our study outlines important takeaways to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing students with a better learning experience.