Challenges and Lessons Learned in Teaching Software Engineering and Programming to Hearing-Impaired Students

Teaching academic courses to students with disabilities is a challenging task, particularly for academics who are presented with the teaching requirements and needs that this implies, for the first time. Courses in the field of engineering and computer science, by requiring a lot of handson practices and teamwork, further exacerbate the situation as how to provide an effective learning experience for these disabled students. This situation requires a higher-level commitment than normal, from both the teachers and students. This paper presents the experience gained from teaching courses that involved hearing-impaired students of an undergraduate software engineering and a programming language course in two different universities. Some of the challenges faced by both instructors and the students are identified and some possible solutions are described.