Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning. One of the key responsibilities of deaf educators is to advocate for their students and the Deaf community. Deaf educators are responsible for ensuring that their students’ diverse needs are met and that they have access to all necessary hearing technology. In clinic we completed a Deaf culture notebook, detailing aspects of Deaf culture, sign systems, and hearing technology. In our Teaching Spoken Language class we completed a project detailing how to increase language accessibility in the classroom, limitations of writing samples of Deaf and hard of hearing students, school placement options for Deaf students, and assumptions made regarding these school placements. This project encouraged us to analyze the diverse needs of Deaf students in comparison to the needs of normal hearing students. Zoom and online schooling has brought up many challenges for students, but especially students with hearing loss. During the beginning of COVID, I sometimes had to redevelop my lesson plans minutes before clinic to accommodate a learner with hearing loss over zoom. To accommodate a client with severe hearing loss, I had to change my oral prompts into written prompts to minimize confusion resulting from technological lag and preexisting communication difficulties
