Signed Numbers

My last semester in college, while I was student teaching, I had a class that emphasized different key topics in the field of Deaf Education.  One such topic was vocabulary development.  We all already knew that students who are deaf/hard of hearing have a lower vocabulary than their same-age hearing peers for a variety of reasons not least of which being their limited access to "incidental learning" that comes from listening to other people's conversations/tv/radio, etc.  In our class, we talked about ways to introduce new vocabulary in order to give students a more connected understanding of the new word in its five distinct forms. Picture Description/definition ASL sign (if applicable) English word (in print) Fingerspelling of English word I try to be conscious of this as I teach.  It's very difficult sometimes, and many of the math terms to not have standard ASL signs, so it is more difficult for the students to attach meaning and use the new term through f...

The Writing Committee at my school developed a task for this school year to help encourage writing across the curriculum in hopes of improving our students' writing abilities. (Students who are deaf, on average , are significantly below grade level in reading and writing. Some suggest it stems from lack of access to the phonology and patterns of spoken English, upon which the written form of English is based. Others suggest it is a symptom of language delay stemming from lack of access to a full language during the critical period for language development. Many oralists have cited ASL as the cause for low literacy rates among deaf people, but other research has shown that a strong foundation of ASL can actually support English reading and writing ability. It's all about language ).** Anyway, each class is required to submit 4 writing assignments for each student (one per quarter). Not too demanding, but there is an additional requirement that the writing assignments be of spe...

Sarah got me thinking about different kinds of graduate level programs after she commented on my last post. I also posted a tweet when I found out the program I had been eyeing has been closed. Our dialog (and some other tweets that have gone back and forth since then, has prompted me to want to do more research to see what's actually out there. I have come to a couple conclusions: I do not entirely know what I want to study I am afraid of making the wrong decision and finding out in 15 years that I am not marketable for what I actually want to do There might not be a program out there that fits my ideal The options I am looking at (so far) are either a M.A. in Deaf Education (with a focus in secondary math education), or a M.A/S in Mathematics Education (as long as there is a program that doesn't require me to a. have a BS in Math or b. student teach in order to get math certification...I already teach math...kthx). Pros for the Deaf Education program would be that...

Over my week-long Thanksgiving Break, I spent 1 1/2 days doing observations of other math classrooms. A bit of background: my major in college was Special Education - Deaf Education with minors in math and english. Basically, though, I was treated as an Elementary Education major, with the addition of some ASL classes. All of my observations and practicums, as well as my internship placements, were in elementary classrooms. I *did* observe in a public middle school program for d/hh students at one point, but other than that, all of my exposure was to elementary teaching methods. Tune into now, my 2nd year as a high school math teacher. I realized that the only high school math teachers I have ever observed were my own, and that was long enough ago that I don't remember specifics about what they did (let alone, while I was in high school I didn't really think I would ever be a high school math teacher...I started college majoring in music education with a minor in math thinkin...