STEM Workforce Stories
for Adolescents Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (SWS)
Implementation Strategies
Selection of a Story
You might use one or more of the criteria in the list below to help you decide one or more stories for students to view.
- Professional’s occupation
- Research setting depicted
- Alignment with a particular STEM content area or with the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices for K-12 classrooms
- Professional’s gender, hearing loss level, or race/ethnicity
Viewing Options
There are many ways to access information presented in the story. The icons, shown in the image of the video player, before and during viewing can be set to designate how the entire story or individual pages are viewed. Once selected, the story will play based on the preferences selected—in sign with or without captions or listened to in English with or without sign. Other options include the ability to increase or decrease text size, loudness, and contrast and to stop, play or replay all or part of the story. Selected preferences can be turned off during viewing.
The stories are divided into sections such as Beginnings, A Typical Day, Changes Along the Way, Pandemic Impact, Advice for the Next Generation. The table that follows lists each section and examples of what the professional talks about.
| Section | Examples of What the Professional Talks About |
|---|---|
| Beginnings | Tells about growing up, what led to being deaf or hard of hearing, means of communication, and what led to working in the field. |
| A Typical Day | Tells about current job and research, describes an average day, and shares a fun work story or something unusual that happened. |
| Equipment Involved | Tells about and shows or demonstrates the equipment used for research or works with. |
| Changes Along the Way | Tells about challenges faced and dealing with them. |
| Impact of the Pandemic | Tells what it was like working during the pandemic. |
| Advice for the Next Generation | Provides advice for a younger self and for students about going into a STEM field. |
Rather than viewing a story in its entirety, you might have students view different parts of a story on different days or select one or more sections for them to view. When viewing the entire story, you might pause and discuss it before moving on, revisit particular sections, have students scroll forward or back to view sections of particular interest. After viewing the story or a section of the story, give students the opportunity to discuss what was said, identify questions that emerge; make connections with personal experiences or situations, and articulate what they learned or found noteworthy.
As students view other stories, provide opportunities for them to discuss common threads that emerge or make comparisons with aspects of stories they previously viewed. Examples of questions to ask students after watching a section or sections of a story are listed below.
- What interested you?
- What did you learn?
- Is this a career you might like to explore? Why or why not?
- What did you like or dislike about what the professional described?
- What do you wonder about?
- What questions do you have for the professional? How might you go about getting answers to your questions?