A graduate student approaches me, signing in ASL, “Dr. Skyer… can we have a meeting? I have something to ask you.” This question used to occur during breaks, or after class; sometimes at the end of the semester, sometimes right in the beginning. The ensuing conversation takes an hour or more. They used to occur in my office. Nowadays, the question and discussion occur on Zoom. Whatever the case, it is usually held over a steaming mug of tea. Whatever the modality, at the start of the meeting, the student squirms a bit before asking the question I’m expecting: “So, what does it really take to do a Ph.D.? After taking your class, I want to do research… I’m sick of waiting for changes to occur—I want to create change.” As Bernard Roth has observed, “the best way to fix the world is to fix yourself” (p. 45). This is the true currency of academia.
Understanding social science research in deaf education is a potential minefield without the aid of philosophy. To guide analysis and decision-making, I designed MSSE 785 Foundations of Educational Research to shepherd graduate students enrolled in a teacher education program. My goal is to support them becoming cognizant of myriad ethical conflicts and methodological dilemmas of practice that define our field. In part owing to epistemological and ontological diversity within contemporary deaf studies research, this course can only survey the breadth of methodological and theoretical issues. Students are expected to be critical consumers of published studies, but also participate in those conversations and activities and are encouraged to be critical, thoughtful producers of teaching research. We also take carefully selected “deep dives” into specific vexing concepts that are recurrent across the field’s history (e.g., the conflict-driven status of language modality with respect to language acquisition, and the troubled relationship between disability studies and deaf studies). My rationale is that in order to change deaf research (and the world it occupies), we must first understand it. To understand it, we need philosophy.
To acculturate students to the changing balance of duties and processes, this course expands on familiar domains like the rise of mixed and qualitative methodologies as counter to traditionally-dominant quantitative methodologies and introduces practitioner-focused dilemmas, such as the need for early career researchers to apply for and secure grant-based funding. I also explicate the increasingly visible status of video-based sign language publications, which counter the traditional prioritization of written texts over sign languages. To reflect these shifts, I have built new assignments, which are submitted in a mix of modalities and temporalities, including traditionally written English texts, ASL-based video analyses, live and recorded, via Zoom and other LMS (MyCourses) platforms and tools.
The assignments also emulate milestones of general and academic research (e.g., proposals, defenses, and literature reviews). One four-week module contains a highly-structured set of interactive lectures to aid in the creation of a researchable question. Each week, students build on coursework and homework to move from a topic to problem then focus the problem into a research question. Thereafter, drafts are advanced by degrees into a researchable question that is appropriately delimited to the scope of the assignment. The question must also be transferable to a New York State-mandated teacher licensure examination (edTPA), where students design and enact Action Research methods. Students also propose and defend research syntheses and ask new questions about published research. I cap off the semester with a poster session, to help students gain competencies in a range of contemporary scholarly formats.
Central to my courses are peer review processes. These take varied forms, and have different stakes. Some are graded, others are not. Peer analysis and review also occurs in microteaching. After students take turns collaborating and presenting in semi-weekly sessions about select methods and methodologies, I use structured questions and rubrics of my own design to solicit feedback in signed and written modes using quantitative and qualitative formats. Microteaching students also self-assess their own work and interact with their colleagues’ feedback. In sum, I promote an authentic praxis of research, where theory, action, and reflection unite.
In the five years since I first taught this course, I’ve updated it several times. This iteration reflects significant findings from my recently completed Ph.D. dissertation that establishes deaf axiology—the ethics and aesthetics of deaf education and its research traditions. This value-based framework is a helpful analytic rubric used to guide our analysis of methodological benefits and detriments and compare and contrast among four paradigms that characterize two hundred years of Western/Northern deaf education traditions.
Educators of philosophy who are new to deaf education, deaf studies, and disability studies may shy away from conflict or avoid complex controversies. In contrast, I embrace them as heuristics. Mainly, I explore the philosophies of dissensus as developed by Ewa Ziarek and popularized by Jacques Rancière to juxtapose contrastive points of view, with a teleology to analyze sources of differences rather than only seek a superficial consensus. From students, I’ve learned that the course’s chief sticking point is that it’s “reading-heavy.” In response, I paraphrase Stokely Carmichael: true revolutionaries must first be scholars. Affecting change in deaf education research is dependent on adequate historical knowledge. In this way, I aim to cultivate an ethics of dissensus in my students who, as I see it, embody the future of teaching and research. In effect, this course aids my colleagues as they train in the fine arts of academic revolution.
Reference: Roth, B. (2015). The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life.” Harper Business.
The Syllabus Showcase of the APA Blog is designed to share insights into the syllabi of philosophy educators. We include syllabi in their original, unedited format that showcase a wide variety of philosophy classes. We would love for you to be a part of this project. Please contact Series Editor, Dr. Matt Deaton via MattDeaton.com or Editor of the Teaching Beat, Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall via sabrinamisirhiralall@apaonline.org with potential submissions.
Michael Skyer
Michel E. Skyer, PhD is a teacher educator and pedagogic theorist working at the juncture of deaf education, special education, and disability studies. When he is not teaching or writing, he is usually cooking soup, building something, homesteading, or
