Enhancing the educational experience for deaf and hard of hearing students in software engineering

Software engineering is largely a communication-driven, team-oriented discipline. There are numerous hurdles for ensuring proper communication and interaction between all project stakeholders, including physical, technological, and cultural barriers. These obstructions not only affect software engineering in industry, but in academia as well. One possible issue that is often overlooked in software engineering education is how to best educate Deaf and hard-of-hearing (Deaf/HoH) students, and how to fully engage them in the classroom. In this paper, we present our experiences in teaching software engineering to Deaf/HoH students. In the classroom, these students work very closely in activities and on project teams with their hearing peers. We also present recommendations for creating a more robust software engineering educational experience for not only Deaf/HoH students, but for hearing students as well. We encourage instructors not only in software engineering programs, but in other computing disciplines to consider our recommendations and observations in order to enhance the educational experience for all students in the classroom, whether Deaf/HoH or hearing.