Thursday, August 28, 2014
CSD 764 - Week 2 Post
Educational Placement:
1.) Educational placement for students with hearing loss has been a long debate. What are your thoughts about educating students within the "mainstream" versus in a centralized program/school?
2.) What are your thoughts about push in and pull out?
Educational placement can be one of the most difficult decisions a parent of a d/Deaf or hard of hearing child may have to face. There are so many factors that play an important role in the placement of the child such as the degree of the hearing loss, amplification if any that the child uses, and modes of communication that the child uses. These factors could help parents answer the big question on deciding if the child would succeed better in a mainstream classroom or a centralized program or school. I think it would also be helpful to the parents to talk with the child's past educators and other professionals that have spent time with the child to get an idea of their opinions as well as visiting several schools and observing their environments to see how teacher and student interaction is in each school environment. I think the parents then would have a better idea and be more confident in determining where they want their child to be placed to get the best educational experience. Ideally it would be best for the child to be in a setting where they are pushed to succeed with their typically developing peers. If the child needs additional focus on certain subjects there is always the option of mainstreaming the child and providing them the push in and pull out method. The child would then be pushed in for classroom instruction with the child's classroom peers and then pulled out to spend more time focusing on that subject with the deaf educator at his/her school. Although I'm not completely knowledgable on this topic yet, I think it would be very beneficial to the student and provide them a time of independence with their peers, but allow them to focus on the topic in a smaller setting as well, allowing them to ask questions and receive more focused instruction. The school I will be placed at for practicum this semester uses this method and I'm excited to get to become more familiar and observe how the push in pull out method works and observe the results of the student.
Attention Span & Problem Solving:
3.) What are your thoughts on attention span/problem solving? What if you're doing push in, in a regular education classroom, how do you approach student if he/she is struggling?
In class we discussed that a child that is d/Deaf or hard of hearing has to focus on the teacher, the interpreter, and their handout/notes simultaneously during classroom instruction which can be exhausting. Therefore it may be hard to keep their attention for a long period of time. I think it's important for the educators to have their " bag of tricks" when they notice that their students are beginning to lose interest. From past observations I have seen teachers incorporate a "Wiggle Time" when they play a Just Dance YouTube video allowing their students to get up out of their chairs and dance along with the video to allow them to stretch and give their minds a rest. I think it's important for educators to have a strong relationship with his/her students and incorporate topics of interest into the curriculum as well as using positive reinforcement to reward them on "A Job Well Done."( but be sparingly with this system) I think that students have more respect for their teachers when they trust them and feel like they could talk to them about anything. Getting to know your students is key!
When it comes to problem solving I think that it's important to push our students to use critical thinking to try and figure out the problem independently first before asking for help. If the child is still struggling to find the solution to the problem I think it is then okay for the educator to step in and act as a model to help the student solve the problem. In many of our previous classes we have discussed how important it is to push our future d/Deaf and hard of hearing students to be independent. I think this will best encourage them to be successful in their studies and educational experiences and eventually become successful adults in the future!
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Week 1 Reflection Questions
Week 1 Reflection Questions:
1.) What have you learned about instructional strategies?
-So far I have learned that instructional strategies are the key to implementing successful lessons to
our students in the classroom. I have learned that there isn't necessarily a correct or incorrect
instructional strategy because each teacher may find different strategies of implementation to be more
successful than another teacher depending on many factors in his/her classroom. However, there are
many instructional strategies that I have learned about to be more successful than others in the field of
Deaf Education and working with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. Yesterday in class we
learned that there are 5 categories of instructional strategies including; direct instruction, indirect
instruction, experimental learning, independent study, and interactive instruction. These 5 categories
further break down the amount of interaction the student and teacher have during lessons, the
environment of the lesson, and how information is given to the student during implementation of the
lesson. Some examples of instructional strategies we talked about in class and have previously used
during practicum in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Preschool have been; flashcards, manipulatives,
books, visual maps, SmartBoard, pictures, and videos.
What would you like to learn during this class?
-By the end of the semester I would like to have a better idea of what to expect during student
teaching and hopefully gain some tips and pointers on how to have a smooth transition into our last
semester before graduating the program. I would like to hear personal stories from professionals in
the field of Deaf and Hard of Hearing and their experiences while working with this population
along with what to expect in the classroom setting as we prepare for student teaching and any advice
they may have to give to ensure we are fully prepared for what is to come in the Spring. Although
we have covered some of these topics in previous classes, I believe it would be helpful to go over
assessments that are good to use with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students as well as behavioral
strategies to use in the classroom.
2.) Research has shown that students with hearing loss often times do not achieve higher than a 3rd grade reading level. What are your thoughts about this and how do you plan to face this?
-Finding out that students with hearing loss often times do not achieve higher than a 3rd grade reading level by the time they graduate high school was quite surprising to me when I first heard this statistic and can be quite scary to think about as a future teacher for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing. Reading has been proven to be a very challenging subject for d/Deaf and hard of hearing students because it requires a lot of speech and language that most people with a hearing loss struggle with. However, I am willing to accept this challenge and work as hard as I can to make a difference in my future students to help them beat this statistic. During Aural Habilitation sessions this past year, we were able to use critical thinking to come up with fun strategies to help improve reading, language, and speech skills with a d/Deaf and hard of hearing student such as flashcards, videos, simple games, and books. I think it's important to incorporate these strategies into our future reading lessons as we go on to student teaching and later in our own classrooms.
3.) In looking at the first 3 chapters of CITW, what are some ways you can provide feedback and reinforce effort? Do you plan to use verbal, tangible, or both?
-After reading the first 3 chapters of CITW I learned some ways you can provide feedback and reinforce effort to your students are by stating learning objectives in simple language and in terms of knowledge rather than learning activities, relate the learning objectives to things that are personally relevant to students, modeling for students how to set their own learning objectives and provide feedback on the learning objectives they set, periodically checking students' understanding of their learning objectives by asking them to write in their journals or on a notecard, provide students with information about what good performance or high quality work looks like before giving them an assessment, and consider using technology to increase the rate of feedback and help with organization.
-I plan to use both verbal and tangible feedback when working with students in the future. I feel that providing both of these methods to d/Deaf and hard of hearing students is important and most helpful to make sure they have a strong understanding of topics being discussed.
1.) What have you learned about instructional strategies?
-So far I have learned that instructional strategies are the key to implementing successful lessons to
our students in the classroom. I have learned that there isn't necessarily a correct or incorrect
instructional strategy because each teacher may find different strategies of implementation to be more
successful than another teacher depending on many factors in his/her classroom. However, there are
many instructional strategies that I have learned about to be more successful than others in the field of
Deaf Education and working with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. Yesterday in class we
learned that there are 5 categories of instructional strategies including; direct instruction, indirect
instruction, experimental learning, independent study, and interactive instruction. These 5 categories
further break down the amount of interaction the student and teacher have during lessons, the
environment of the lesson, and how information is given to the student during implementation of the
lesson. Some examples of instructional strategies we talked about in class and have previously used
during practicum in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Preschool have been; flashcards, manipulatives,
books, visual maps, SmartBoard, pictures, and videos.
What would you like to learn during this class?
-By the end of the semester I would like to have a better idea of what to expect during student
teaching and hopefully gain some tips and pointers on how to have a smooth transition into our last
semester before graduating the program. I would like to hear personal stories from professionals in
the field of Deaf and Hard of Hearing and their experiences while working with this population
along with what to expect in the classroom setting as we prepare for student teaching and any advice
they may have to give to ensure we are fully prepared for what is to come in the Spring. Although
we have covered some of these topics in previous classes, I believe it would be helpful to go over
assessments that are good to use with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students as well as behavioral
strategies to use in the classroom.
2.) Research has shown that students with hearing loss often times do not achieve higher than a 3rd grade reading level. What are your thoughts about this and how do you plan to face this?
-Finding out that students with hearing loss often times do not achieve higher than a 3rd grade reading level by the time they graduate high school was quite surprising to me when I first heard this statistic and can be quite scary to think about as a future teacher for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing. Reading has been proven to be a very challenging subject for d/Deaf and hard of hearing students because it requires a lot of speech and language that most people with a hearing loss struggle with. However, I am willing to accept this challenge and work as hard as I can to make a difference in my future students to help them beat this statistic. During Aural Habilitation sessions this past year, we were able to use critical thinking to come up with fun strategies to help improve reading, language, and speech skills with a d/Deaf and hard of hearing student such as flashcards, videos, simple games, and books. I think it's important to incorporate these strategies into our future reading lessons as we go on to student teaching and later in our own classrooms.
3.) In looking at the first 3 chapters of CITW, what are some ways you can provide feedback and reinforce effort? Do you plan to use verbal, tangible, or both?
-After reading the first 3 chapters of CITW I learned some ways you can provide feedback and reinforce effort to your students are by stating learning objectives in simple language and in terms of knowledge rather than learning activities, relate the learning objectives to things that are personally relevant to students, modeling for students how to set their own learning objectives and provide feedback on the learning objectives they set, periodically checking students' understanding of their learning objectives by asking them to write in their journals or on a notecard, provide students with information about what good performance or high quality work looks like before giving them an assessment, and consider using technology to increase the rate of feedback and help with organization.
-I plan to use both verbal and tangible feedback when working with students in the future. I feel that providing both of these methods to d/Deaf and hard of hearing students is important and most helpful to make sure they have a strong understanding of topics being discussed.
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