Week 6 Post

1.) Several approaches and suggestions were mentioned by the authors, however challenges continue to impact educating students who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing. In thinking of your classroom, what components of reading and writing do you feel are important to teach and how will you teach them?

-In thinking of my future classroom I believe I will use a variety of reading and writing strategies with my students to keep the students motivated and observe what works best with my d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. I believe that all students should be exposed to all components of reading and writing to fully grasp these content areas. The components of literacy include: phonemic awareness/phonic strategies, alphabetics, vocabulary, text comprehension, fluency, and motivation (keeping the students engaged).The two reading strategies I decided to begin with were using graphic/ semantic organizers and pair and share. Graphic organizers including; cause and effect charts, storyboards, chain of events, and Venn-diagrams. These organizers allow the students to organize their thoughts on paper as they read. These organizers help students to understand relationships and concepts in the story. d/Deaf and hard of hearing students would benefit from this strategy because it is very visual and breaks down main ideas so that they can better understand the story. Pair and share allows students to pair up with a classmate and discuss reading comprehension questions provided by the classroom teacher. As we have discussed in several of our previous classes d/Deaf and hard of hearing students tend to struggle being social with their hearing peers. This would challenge them to discuss their thoughts and opinions and compare and contrast with their classmates by socializing whether that be using voice or sign and the interpreter. I’m interested to see what other strategies I will find beneficial when working with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students in my future classroom.
 

Week 5 Post

In teaching a lesson, when should you use cues, questions, and advanced organizers?

-In teaching a lesson with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students I think it’s important to incorporate cues when you have given the student an opportunity to think about the question for a few minutes and realize that he/she is still struggling to come up with an answer.

-I think that it’s important to ask questions throughout instruction of all lesson to keep the students on their toes and make sure they are understanding the content being taught. Critical thinking questions will challenge our students while they work in the classroom.

-Advanced organizers are such a good way for students to understand a big concept that may need to be broken down into smaller ideas. As we have discussed in several of our classes d/Deaf and hard of hearing students need lots of visuals.

What adaptations might these need in working with students who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing?

-Some adaptations d/Deaf and hard of hearing students may need while working on assignments are extra assistance from the deaf educator or interpreter, extended time to work on an assignment before turning it in, and an assignment that is broken down into pieces to make sure the student understands each part. Using many visuals and manipulatives with d/Deaf and hard of hearing students will also keep our learners motivated and intrigued in an activity.

What are your thoughts on homework?

- I believe that homework is important to give your students in making sure that they are grasping the content that you are instructing during class time. Homework doesn’t have to be something to make your students’ lives miserable. Just a small clue to the teacher to know that the student is competent on certain skills.

Will you assign homework?

-After shadowing a handful of deaf educators I believe it is our responsibility to make sure our students understand the material that is being covered in their mainstream classes. Therefore I believe that assigning extra homework would be unnecessary when they are already receiving that from their classroom teacher. However, if I were to become a deaf educator in a residential school and was the main classroom teacher I think assigning a small amount of homework would be acceptable.

How often do you think students should have homework?

-Ideally I think it’s important for students to have a small amount of homework each night to make sure they understand the content covered in class each day. This will give the classroom teacher a good idea if he/she needs to spend more time lecturing on a topic that students were struggling with in class and showed difficulty with when attempting the homework assignment.

Do you agree with the authors of the CITW or disagree?

I agree with the book in that homework should depend on the age level of the students and the amount given to them. We want to make sure students are not overloaded with homework this could turn school into something negative and lose the students interest. 

Week 4 Reflection Questions

1.) When looking at stages of development VS Common Core Standards VS Curriculum Scope and Sequence VS hierarchy of skills which do you think is important when teaching students with a hearing loss?

When looking at each of these important components I don’t think there is necessarily one that is more important than the other. I think each of these components play an important role in teaching curriculum to students with a hearing loss. It’s important that as the deaf educator you are knowledgeable on each of these components to ensure that the d/Deaf or hard of hearing students in your classroom succeeds during the school year. As we have learned in many of our previous classes each hearing loss is unique. With that being said each of our students with a hearing loss will be at different levels with the competencies that they have already met previously, what they are able to meet currently and what long-term competencies they are working towards meeting. The components listed above will provide you with helpful information that will inform you on the competencies that the student should achieve by the end of the school year in order to be successful in the next grade level. It’s important for the classroom teacher and the deaf educator to collaborate on how they will teach these competencies over the school year to prepare their students for the following grade. Looking at each of these documents in class was helpful to see how teachers use each of these to build a curriculum for their students.

2.) What will be your focus as the student expands and progresses in skill?

As my future students expand and progress with certain skills I think my focus will be to first praise them for their accomplishments but then continue to keep challenging them with more advanced skills. We always talk about pushing our d/Deaf and hard of hearing students to be independent learners and treat them with the same expectations of their hearing peers. We want our students to be strong independent learners as they progress through their educational career to ensure the best success. 

Week 3 Post

1.) When planning for assessment of a student with hearing loss, what considerations should you keep in mind? Should you use only tests designed for this population? Why or why not?

When planning for assessment with one of your students who has a hearing loss it’s important to keep in mind why you are assessing this particular student, how you will complete the assessment, will there be any modifications made to the assessment including a description of the environment that the assessment was done in and how that affected the child, background noise in the room, how test questions were presented, and the students behavior and response to the assessment. These are all important factors to take into consideration when administering an assessment with a student who is d/Deaf or hard of hearing. In class we discussed that it is important to have a variety of assessments available to give a particular student in your classroom as future Deaf Educators. You want to have informal and formal assessments as well as assessments specified to children with a hearing loss and assessments that are meant for typically developing students. Having a variety of assessments will give you the best results on where a particular d/Deaf or hard of hearing student in your classroom is functioning in relation to his hearing classroom peers. There could be a scenario when the child you are assessing is having a bad day and doesn’t perform well on the assessment so re-assessing and giving a variety of assessments over a period of time would be helpful to get the most accurate results.

2.) Communicating with teachers and staff is a vital part of Deaf Education. Do you think face-to-face is better or email? Why and how do you plan to communicate with staff?

As we have discussed in several of our previous classes, we have learned that as future Deaf Educators we will be working as a team with many other professionals in the field to ensure the best success for our d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. Therefore being able to communicate effectively with regular classroom teachers, other staff members, interpreters, and other professionals in the field is very important. In class we discussed that an equal variety of face-to-face communication and email will probably be the most successful. I think it will depend on the discussion that you need to have with this particular person and how much time you have to discuss things with them. That will help you decide if face-to-face or email is more appropriate.  We also discussed in class how it’s important to sit down with your team at the beginning of the year and exchange contact information and discuss the best way to reach each other and the expectations you have for one another as professionals before the year begins. I plan to use this process with my co-workers in my future career as a Deaf Educator and hope it proves to be effective. As we have heard many times before, “ communication is key.”