Willie Ross School to Host Conference on ‘Current Research in Deaf Education’ on May 3

LONGMEADOW — Willie Ross School for the Deaf will host a conference, “Current Research in Deaf Education,” on Tuesday, May 3 from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The conference will be held in person at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place, and also via Zoom.

The conference is designed to share information regarding current and emerging best practices in deaf education, and is geared for educators, special-education directors, parents, school counselors, and school administrators.

Conference speakers will include Marie Coppola, associate professor of Psychological Sciences and Linguistics at the University of Connecticut, who will present “Early Language Supports Development: Number and Executive Functioning”; Jessy Willoughby, an doctoral candidate with Drexel University’s Educational Leadership and Management program and a program coordinator for McDaniel College’s Deaf Education program, who will present “What Does Bilingual Online Learning Mean for Our Deaf Education Community?”; Corey Axelrod, founder and CEO of 2axend, a deaf-owned strategic consulting and training firm working with organizations to provide user-centric experiences to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, who will present on “Promoting Student-centric Learning”; and Claire Sanders, department chair and professor of Deaf Studies at Holyoke Community College. The conference will also feature a panel discussion and a Q&A session.

Registration is $40 for in-person attendance, which will include lunch, or $20 for virtual attendance via Zoom. To learn more and register, visit www.wrsdeaf.org/conference-2022.

For questions about the conference, e-mail Joel Skelton, WRSD’s coordinator of Community Engagement, at jskelton@wrsdeaf.org.