Web conference archive: Engaging deaf learners in the mainstream classroom

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April 2011

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1:17:17

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In the classroom

Archive of the web conference “Engaging Deaf Learners in the Mainstream Classroom,” which took place April 18, 2011. This web conference is a companion to the article “Deaf Learners and Successful Cognitive Achievement.”

In addition to the transcript on this page, a PDF version of the transcript is available. The presenters’ slides are also available in PDF format.

Transcript

Computer voice (00:01)

Recording started.

Bobby Hobgood (00:02)

Good afternoon and welcome to this, a special web conference entitled “Engaging Deaf Learners in the Mainstream Classroom.” My name is Bobby Hobgood and along with my colleagues Emily Jack and Lesley Richardson here at LEARN North Carolina, we’re excited to bring to you this web conference that takes a look at deaf learners in our classrooms.

(00:33)

We’re going to start our session this afternoon with Dr. David Martin, who is Professor and Dean Emeritus of Gallaudet University. I’m going to let Dr. Martin tell you a little bit more about himself. But I would ask everyone who’s joining us this afternoon to join with me in a virtual round of applause and welcome Dr. David Martin.

(01:01)

David?

David Martin (01:03)

Thank you very much, Bobby. And I would like to just provide a little overview of what my remarks will include. Can you hear me satisfactorily, Bobby?

Bobby Hobgood (01:19)

Yes, David. You’re coming through loud and clear. Thank you.

David Martin (01:23)

Very good. I’m going to talk about four things. First of all, about the idea of cognitive education for deaf learners. Secondly, I’m going to summarize a research study that related to that. Third, I’m going to talk briefly about equity in testing for deaf students. And then I’d like to conclude with a list of points of how to make inclusion really work for deaf students who are in regular or mainstream classrooms.

(01:56)

So I’ll continue by talking a little bit about the history of cognitive performance among deaf learners. There’s a long and sad history, unfortunately, that is marked by low expectations by hearing people of deaf learners. And we know this goes back at least into recorded antiquity in the Bible, the Hebrews are admonished not to curse the deaf. That we can infer very easily that some people were, indeed, cursing the deaf.

(02:30)

Jumping forward, Aristotle wrote that the ear is the organ of instruction. The inference there, of course, is if you can’t hear, you cannot be taught.

(02:41)

Fast-forward to 17th-century Europe AD, and an interesting thing happened during the 17th century in several western European countries. Experiments had succeeded in teaching some deaf learners how to form speech and how to lip-read and, therefore, all of a sudden the attitude changed for the wrong reason. In other words, now some deaf people were able to converse orally. Therefore, perhaps some deaf people were intelligent enough to be teachable.

(03:16)

We fast-forward still further into the 20th century. The United States government’s National Research Council reported that deaf learners were two to three years “retarded.” They used that word. Further forward, in 1953, that’s a very short time ago, really, a well-regarded special educator named Myklebust, whom many of you have read about, said that deaf learners can only be concrete thinkers.

(03:50)

So it was not until 1961, just 50 years ago, that a researcher named Rosenstein and his research found there were no differences between deaf and hearing students’ potential for thinking at higher level. In 1964, a psychology professor at the Catholic University, Hans Furth, said that the problem is not with the deaf learners, but it’s with the tests that are being used. And as I said before, I’ll have more to say about that later.

(04:23)

In 1967, we have a watershed event. McKay Vernon, who is still living and a fine scholar in deaf education did what we call a meta-analysis of a whole group of research studies and concluded that all of them together showed that deaf and hearing students had the same range of cognitive potential.

(04:47)

Now, I want to emphasize two words. Range, because, of course, there are differences. And potential, meaning they may not be achieving at it, but the potential is there. And that opened the door, finally, for some people to begin to change their attitudes. Less than 50 years ago, I’d like to point out once again.

(05:08)

In 1986, a colleague of mine and I did an experiment with 44 deaf high school students compared to a group of 44 students of the same type who did not have an intervention and found very important cognitive improvement if the classroom teacher carried out some explicit emphasis in higher-level thinking skills on a systematic basis several times a week over a period of at least two years. There are some others in this line of history.

(05:45)

In 2003, Marc Marschark, an outstanding researcher in the field of deaf education, pointed out that many cognitive tests for deaf learners are lacking in validity and appropriateness. A short while ago, I wrote that careful attention to appropriately interpreting the tests is vital and just two years ago Marschark reminded us that deaf and hearing learners process information differently. That a deaf learner is not just a hearing learner who can’t hear. And there’s a lot of information in that that’s becoming available that I don’t have time to point out.

(06:29)

The point is, then, that there are differences in the way that deaf students think, but the potential is there. There’s other literature written by Spencer and Meadow-Orlans and these other references. I’ll leave this up for a moment if anyone wants to make a note and is interested in investigating or if you’re doing a term paper for a graduate course and you’re interested in this field, these references would be wonderful places to continue your search. So we see that a lot of investigation has now been started in the thinking capacities of deaf learners.

(07:14)

The intervention — this is the second part of what I’d like to talk about, is a systematic approach to the teaching of thinking that I have used not only in the United States, but in a comparative study in two very different places, in the People’s Republic of China and in the United Kingdom. And, of course, the rationale is, first of all, we’ve established that the cognitive potential is there.

(07:45)

We also understand that problem-solving is absolutely essential for living in today’s world. And that in actuality, if one is adept at higher-level cognitive strategies, one may also do better on tests even though that is not the primary reason for this. But, finally, that higher-level cognitive processes are the underpinning of most subject matter content. And I’d like to comment on that a little bit later.

(08:17)

The particular program I used is called Instrumental Enrichment, which is a bit confusing because it’s not a music program. But it is one of several systematic in-depth and intensive interventions, but very carefully, professional development training of teachers is important in that. And in the act of intervention during the classroom episodes, there are three stages that are followed by the teacher after he or she has had the training an the program.

(08:53)

First of all, the use of mediation where the teacher doesn’t just tell an answer, but comes in between the material and the learner and leads and asks questions so that the learner does the thinking him- or herself. Secondly, the use of metacognition or thinking about thinking. If we want learners to become independent of us, they have to become aware of what’s going on in their head so that when they don’t have us anymore as educators and they encounter a difficult problem to solve, they’ll have a repertoire of thinking strategies that they can call upon consciously, having done this kind of practice.

(09:32)

And then the third step in the learning episode is making a connection between the thinking skill and someplace where it applies, whether it is social life, family life, subject matter curriculum, or the workplace. And in any intervention, there are two issues when you’re talking about cognitive education. One is how do teachers make time when states, as we know only too well, are obsessed with required tests and teachers are beginning, unfortunately, to be evaluated on the results of those tests? And then, secondly, an issue that people argue about is, is there one set of problem-solving or thinking strategies that exists across all topics and all domains, or is thinking a little different in history versus mathematics, versus reading, versus science?

(10:32)

I’m going to leave those issues up in the air at this point. But they definitely have to be answered. Incidentally, my answer to number two is that there are generic problem-solving skills that are common across different domains.

(10:49)

Now, I said a moment ago about the general curriculum. There are Common Core standards, as many of you know, that are being adopted by the states. Some 45 states have now adopted them. And these are Common Core curriculum standards. If you look at the standards, they do have some reference to cognitive skills. But they don’t give an explicit place for cognitive instruction. And that, I maintain, is what is essential. Not implicit, but explicit.

(11:22)

And what we found in comparing students in several countries, including the United States, to a systematic exposure to cognitive instruction with particularly designed exercises, the students have demonstrated significant improvement in six areas. Reading comprehension, math concepts, math computation, general reasoning, thinking habits such as finding more than one answer to a problem or not giving up, and developing solutions to real-world problems. And there are published studies that give the details on this, which I can refer you to, if anyone would like to send me an email, with my address is going to show at the end of this presentation.

(12:14)

So, obviously, these ideas have succeeded, and so we have found this, then, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China, through an international comparative study. And the reference here for that would be this article in October of ‘01 in the American Annals of the Deaf if you’d like to look at that, but I can provide you with the text if you’d rather have it directly from me electronically.

(12:45)

So where do we go from here? Well, we have to establish that cognitive education is central in importance for all learners, but especially deaf learners. And we have to do the in-depth teacher development that goes along with it. And parallel with that, we need to provide opportunities in the teacher-preparation programs and universities to make the case for cognitive intervention as well as orienting their own professors on that importance and, of course, we need to continue with research.

(13:19)

And I’d just like to leave this segment of my presentation with you with five criteria that I would invite you to consider if you as a teacher are getting ready to think about adopting or adapting a cognitive intervention program. Please consider these as criteria.

(13:40)

First of all, the program, whatever it is, should have a strong theoretical base. There should be clear evidence of prior research results. They shouldn’t promise a quick fix, because when we’re talking about changing thinking habits, that is not an overnight process. Teacher development is central in any kind of a good program for teaching thinking. And there should be a comprehensive set of skills, not just, for example, comparison or categorizing, but a whole list of cognitive skills that are essential in problem-solving. And what I’m referring to, for example, are organizing, analysis, synthesis, categorization, comparing, as I said earlier, and a variety of other techniques and skills that, as you can imagine, are underneath the subject matter of the curriculum.

(14:40)

So let me move on to the third topic briefly here. And that is that there are some very definite prejudices involved in the kind of testing that we do as it relates to deaf learners. In multiple-choice tests, the stem item in a multiple-choice question is too short to give enough context. If you’re developing your own multiple-choice test, you can bear this in mind. If you’re in a position of agitating for change and more equity in testing for deaf learners, that’s one thing you need to agitate about.

(15:18)

Secondly, there’s a good many terms that are ambiguous. Hearing people are very able to find the nuances in language because they’re able to hear the language and the deaf learner who does not have auditory access to the language often has only perhaps one definition for a term. This can be fixed. But it needs to be kept in mind. And the hearing people who write tests develop them for hearing children and do not give any thought to the fact that a deaf learner has different needs. The use of multiple embedded dependent clauses is very confusing to a deaf learner whose first language is not English.

(16:05)

And, of course, there’s considerable use of idiomatic language. Think of the way we use figures of speech. A deaf learner may never have heard that particular idiom and is interpreting it literally. If he or she does that, they will get the question wrong. And so we have to think about, well, what do we do about that? Well, there are some adaptations. Providing extra time for the deaf test-taker is one way, but that’s not the only solution, because if they can’t understand an item, then more time will not help.

(16:41)

Certainly, we have to provide, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an interpreter for any kind of test instructions. If the deaf learner uses sign language, we could provide a situation where we waive the test, but that isn’t fair to deaf learners either, because deaf learners can demonstrate knowledge and skills. They merely have to have the right medium to do that in. Or we can embark on revision of the English content of the tests, which is doable if one is sufficiently motivated to do that.

(17:18)

And then, of course, we need to think about alternative ways of assessing a deaf learner’s progress. The oral or interactive interview is a very effective way of finding out really quickly what a person does or doesn’t know. Observation using systematic a checklist of observation and the development of a portfolio of accumulated work. I see there are some questions coming in, and so I’ll finish with my fourth segment and then we’ll talk about answers to these questions.

(17:58)

The last segment I want to talk about is just this one slide on what do you do if you want to be sure that you are fairly including a deaf learner in a classroom of non-deaf students. I would recommend that the teacher know some basic signs. Even though he or she may not be trained as a deaf educator, and my colleagues, Mary and Kathy, may have more to say about that a little bit later. I would like to see the teachers who have deaf learners in their classrooms have a basic knowledge of the principles of deaf education, and that can be provided. Obviously, the presence of a sign-language interpreter for any deaf learner who has a preference for a visual is essential and should be required under the law. One way to make a deaf-friendly environment is for other students to at least know some basic signs so that there is interaction.

(19:04)

Of course, a trained deaf educator needs to do some kind of at least pull-out occasionally of the deaf learner to provide specialized instruction. And this next-to-the-last one is very important. I worry a great deal when I see one deaf learner in a classroom where everybody else is hearing. This is very lonely as well as actually unfair, so I’m suggesting that teachers who have deaf learners in their classrooms might want to make a case for having more than one person in the classroom who is deaf. What we call that, of course, is a critical mass.

(19:49)

And then in the school environment as a whole, a deaf-friendly environment, and that means sensitizing the rest of the school to ways in which deaf people need to communicate as well as how they need to work in general in a school environment. A very practical way, of course, is what about when the fire alarm goes off? Is there some way that someone takes responsibility for telling the deaf learner that there’s an emergency? So I’m going to stop there. And I’m going to ask Bobby whether we should answer the questions now or is it better if we wait until everyone has finished their presentation?

Bobby Hobgood (20:43)

Thanks, David. Indeed, we’ve realized here in Chapel Hill that it might be good for you to address some of the questions that have been coming through the chat window as well as submitted privately to Emily here in Chapel Hill. So Emily is going to pose some of these questions to you.

(21:00)

As a point of order before we go on, to satisfy some curiosity, we did not mention that we are not using video this afternoon. We apologize for not mentioning that. But the use of video in this context would be a talking head, and while David is a very handsome man and Kathy and Mary are just gorgeous women, we chose to not sacrifice the quality of the audio this afternoon, which would happen if we attempted to use both audio and video. So we apologize for not mentioning that up front.

(21:37)

I’m going to turn the microphone over to Emily now, who has a few questions for Dr. Martin. Emily?

Emily Jack (21:46)

Thanks, Bobby. The first question is, David, if you could just clarify quickly, one of the first things you mentioned was Instructional Enrichment. Is this a published program? Where can — Is it something that somebody could find somewhere?

David Martin (22:06)

Yes, Emily, it’s called Instrumental Enrichment, and it is a published program. And if anyone would like to send me an email at the address that I’m going to put on right now, I can provide them with information about how to find out more about the program as well as how to arrange for training and the like. But, yes, it has internationally been used since the 1950s and there have been about — oh, more than a thousand research studies on its effectiveness.

Emily Jack (22:49)

Thank you. That’s very helpful. The second question is, you mentioned cognitive intervention. Is there a specific cognitive intervention program that you would be able to suggest?

David Martin (23:05)

Well, I would suggest that one. Of course, since I’ve been very much involved in using it in my own research and have done a good deal of training of deaf educators and other educators in the program, I probably have a leaning toward that particular program. But there are others that are out there. Again, if anyone would like to send me a message, I could suggest some alternatives.

(23:36)

I think there are published digests of thinking skills programs that can be consulted. And I’ll give you an example of a good one: In 2001, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, ASCD, published the 3rd edition of their — It’s really a handbook called “Developing Minds.” “Developing Minds.” And that has many different articles on various thinking skills programs as well as mention of the particular programs themselves. And Instrumental Enrichment is among those in that. So I believe that’s still available from ASCD, which is in Alexandria, Virginia. And the website is ascd.org.

Emily Jack (24:35)

Thank you. I posted that URL in the chat room window in case anyone wants to see it and access it later. The next example, do you have an example of what a proper choice would look like in regards to the multiple-choice options? What would a proper answer choice look like? I know that’s kind of a hard question to answer in this format, and this is also one of the things you mentioned in your article, that I’ll put the URL for that as well in the chat window so people can take a look at some of the examples you mentioned there.

David Martin (25:18)

A well-constructed test item for a deaf learner, other than an open-ended item to which they would write a short-essay or a paragraph answer, but a well-constructed multiple-choice item would have, first of all, the stem, that is the introductory paragraph, which would be of enough detail to set the full context for the choices that are about to be presented. So that’s one criterion. And I’m talking about a short paragraph, not just a sentence or two that we often find in published multiple-choice tests.

(25:55)

Secondly, the ways that the question — or the question options should be worded should be clearly unambiguous with little or no use of idiomatic language, preferably no use of idiomatic language, and where there would be no possible misinterpretation of a particular word’s meaning. Then, thirdly, certainly, a good process is to test the test on a deaf learner and ask him or her what he thought or she thought that she was answering and what was confusing. That’s, of course, a validity check, because again, hearing people, and I include myself in this, find it very difficult to get inside the head of a deaf learner if we’ve always been hearing people.

(26:52)

So those would be some of the things that relate back to the bulleted list of criteria that I gave. Obviously, multiple-choice tests have their limitations, and I am very much also in favor of more open-ended questions as well.

Emily Jack (27:13)

Thanks, David. The next question is something of a — I wonder if we might touch on a little bit later. I’m going to pose it now so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. The question is how do these teaching strategies work for those who are itinerant teachers, that is, people who do not have a classroom or control of instruction?

David Martin (27:37)

That’s an excellent question. An itinerant teacher who perhaps sees a deaf learner either once a day for an hour or three times a week for an hour, of course, has very limited time. My bias is in favor of an itinerant teacher making some component, even if it’s only 10 or 12 minutes, of some sort of thinking strategy practice, whether it’s analyzing or comparing or organizing or categorizing, so that the cognitive skills get taught as a regular continuing thread along with the other instruction that the itinerant teacher would be using as part of his or her regular program. And so that would be my suggestion. Itinerant teachers certainly are capable of doing this just as well as regular classroom teachers, but, of course, there are time limitations. But I’d be glad for a further question, if I’m not answering that one enough.

Emily Jack (28:57)

Thank you. I don’t know if Kathy Metzer might want to chime in on the question about how these teaching strategies work for itinerant teachers who don’t have a classroom of their own.

Kathy Metzer (29:13)

Yes. I’d be glad to. I have been in the position, being an itinerant teacher. I agree with Dr. Martin. It is very important to help those students with those cognitive skills and the process that they would go about to learn the academics. You know, while it would be great for us to get inside the deaf student’s head, you know, that just doesn’t happen. So I think trying to work one-on-one with them to see what their process is or why they’re thinking that way and then to try to model a lot of, you know, the process. But, you know, the critical thinking skills are very important. So I agree. That part of your time needs to be spent focused on that.

Mary V. Compton (30:14)

This is Mary V. Compton. I think one way that you could certainly help a deaf student as an itinerant teacher is acquiring some cognitive skills would be really through the use of graphic organizers and advanced organizers, and use those when you’re pre-teaching vocabulary or pre-teaching some of the content or encouraging the regular classroom teachers by giving them examples of how they could use graphic organizers, although many regular educators are knowledgeable about graphic organizers. But you could use them in presenting information. But I think you could also perhaps start asking the students to create their own graphic organizers by giving them models or maybe one that’s partially filled in and the student could complete the rest of it. So that way there would be sort of some sequential acquisition of skills in learning how to organize content information, even though some of the information may be somewhat new to them.

Emily Jack (31:21)

Thank you, all three of you. That was great! It’s nice to have some cooperative question answering. In just a minute, we’ll hear some more from Dr. Mary V. Compton and from Ms. Kathy Metzer. We have just a couple more questions on the information that David Martin has just shared with us. One of the things that you mentioned, David, is that it’s not ideal when a deaf student is the only one in the school who is deaf. So one of the questions we have is, what is the best way to support a deaf student when he is the only one in the school at his grade level? He believes he is the only person that uses ASL, other than his interpreter and myself, the teacher.

David Martin (32:07)

That, unfortunately, is not an untypical situation, and it’s very challenging. I guess I would say there are two things parallel here. Before talking about what you can do, I think there should be some making of the case on the part of a different placement for that child. That’s really an unfair isolation for that child in that situation. But the placement decisions of course are only made once a year, if that often. So let me suggest that parallel to that, while making that case, then there are a couple of things that can be done.

(32:53)

One is that the teacher, him or herself, could make the attempt with the help of the interpreter, to learn at least some basic signs. And, secondly, as an interesting enrichment activity, to help the rest of the class learn some basic signs which, by the way, hearing children love to do. And these days a number of hearing children are growing up who were exposed to sign language as babies, because we know from research that a hearing or a deaf child can understand signs before they can understand any speech. And so I think those two things can help the ASL user to feel just a little bit more comfortable, because both the teacher and fellow students are at least making a very good attempt to being able to communicate in that child’s language. And, of course, I think all of these efforts should be done in concert with the parent, because whether the parent is hearing or deaf, they need to know that the school is making some really positive efforts to make this as deaf-friendly an environment as possible.

(34:12)

There is one more thing, and I want to go back to the placement decision, and that is that — I’m going to show my bias now, but I think that an ASL user probably is not placed correctly as an isolated deaf child in a hearing classroom. And a day program for the deaf or a residential program for the deaf, which are very fine nowadays and have improved greatly, will be a much more viable environment for that child to really blossom. And so I think we keep that in the back of our minds.

Emily Jack (34:52)

Thanks very much, David. I just wanted to point out something that Debra Glenn mentioned in the chat window. She says, “I have two deaf students at different schools in my county. They got them video phones for home so they can communicate with each other.” And I think that’s a really great use of technology in this context. I’m going to ask one more question and then we’re going to move on to the next part of our presentation. This is more on the same topic of having a critical mass of deaf students in a mainstream school. This writer wants to know how does that work if —

[audio dropout] (35:37)

David Martin (35:46)

Emily, I kind of lost the full sentence there. There was a bit of an interruption in the audio. Would you mind repeating that?

[audio dropout] (35:56)

(36:23)

Emily, can you hear me?

Emily Jack (36:32)

David, you’re back.

David Martin (36:37)

Okay, good. I just wondered if you’d repeat the question, because I lost some of it.

Emily Jack (36:50)

Sure thing, David. And I apologize to everyone. Hopefully, we’ve got it worked out now. So the question was, again, on the topic of having a critical mass of deaf students in a given environment. And the writer wants to know how does that critical mass work if the students require different forms of communication.

David Martin (37:12)

Another excellent question. And these days we have to fully understand that there is a range of communication preferences among deaf learners. Some are completely oral and they’re able to use lip-reading fairly effectively. Others need some assistance with signing. Some depend on a virtually complete signing environment. Deaf children, as are all children, are really very adaptable and wonderful, and if the two — if two students who are deaf who are in the same classroom have different communication styles, of course, as peers, they will find a way to communicate. They always do.

(37:57)

But as far as how classroom instruction works, that has to be worked out at IEP time. For example, the child who is dependent on a visual language needs to have an interpreter, and I notice that there were several questions about the skill of the interpreter. There are standards now for certification of sign-language interpreters, and you as the classroom teacher have to in the IEP meeting insist on the provision of a qualified, certified sign-language interpreter. Secondly, if there is another child in the classroom who does not use a sign-language interpreter but who is dependent on oral communication and on lip-reading, then the regular classroom teacher needs to make sure he or she is always facing that learner when talking with him or her and, secondly, without exaggeration —

[audio distortion] (39:09)

David Martin (39:15)

Without exaggeration to make clear lip movements, and I say without exaggeration, because some hearing people very much overdo it. So for the deaf student who uses a sign language interpreter, a qualified interpreter will pick that up and visually communicate the sign to the deaf learner. For that one who does not use sign language, then being sure to face the learner and articulate clearly, not talk behind his or her head, will help that situation. Those are just examples. So I think probably I better stop and give some time for my colleagues.

Emily Jack (40:02)

Absolutely, David. So, at this point, I’m going to hand it over to Dr. Mary V. Compton and Ms. Kathy Metzer.

Mary V. Compton (40:11)

Good afternoon everyone. And it is a pleasure at least for me to see some familiar names amongst the participants. Kathy may also.

Kathy Metzer (40:20)

Yes, it is.

Mary V. Compton (40:23)

The focus areas that we’re going to emphasize this afternoon are the school and class environment, and we’ve talked about some of those issues in the conversation previously, but we want to elaborate on those a bit. Also, the instructional format and the delivery of academic content. Instructional language and collaboration and communication. One aspect that we’ve already talked about a little bit is the notion of a cluster, and Kathy in Guilford County Schools has done an excellent job of creating some cluster situations that I know those of you who are out there in itinerant settings do not have, and I praise you for the work that you’re doing. But let’s hear a little bit from Kathy about what the cluster is like.

Kathy Metzer (41:13)

Thank you, Mary. We are very fortunate in Guilford County in that they — the county itself recognizes the need for our deaf students to be at the same school. You know, sometimes it depends on the amount of service they get, but so far we’ve been very lucky that the downtown office and our supervisor understands the need for them to be together. So we have an elementary, a middle school, and a high school site-based program. At the elementary school this year, we have six students ranging in different grades. But I am able when I work with them as their resource teacher to alter their schedule somewhat.

(42:10)

We might move a fourth-grader that has to go to fifth-grade specials because they need to be with another particular deaf student because they are closer to the same language level or academic level. So the administration at the elementary school has been great as well as all the teachers. At our particular school, the program has been there approximately nine years. So it is a very open-armed school and they have embraced our program, allowed us to be the ones to suggest or ask if different things can occur at the school to enable the deaf students to feel much more a part of the school. So we do have, you know, the deaf students in the mainstream environment.

(43:13)

We have a sign language club for the hearing students and even the deaf students that want to stay and help us teach it that occurs after school. And it is phenomenal to see how many students really have learned sign language and even that our deaf students feel comfortable and at times will even tell the interpreter, I don’t need you to sign for me because we can sign together. So, you know, that goes on. But again, it’s just that the school itself is very open to our program.

Mary V. Compton (43:52)

And that’s at the elementary level. But that’s continuing in the middle school.

Kathy Metzer (43:57)

Yes. The middle school has a site-based program with approximately six to seven students. And then our high school has a higher population of 11 students. So sign language club is at the middle school and at the high school as well.

Mary V. Compton (44:21)

Okay. To continue on with that organizational structure here that we have also as well, when we look at the school or class environment, regular classroom educators and administrators need to know what those of us who have taken audiology probably already know about classroom acoustics and the loudness level of conversation. And although you may not be able to purchase curtains for your room, you know stories of how teachers have put tennis balls on the bottom of chairs. The loudness level of conversations in the regular classroom, particularly for some children who are hard of hearing, can be a detriment to their being abile to understand the teacher. So there are assistive listening devices in terms of technology for a child who is hard of hearing. When you think about the technology with cochlear implants, all the accessories that can be obtained for that child can be very helpful.

(45:28)

The visual environment we know obviously to get on the child’s level, lighting, background, and sightline considerations. And I wanted to say something about seating. In a lot of lists, these are accommodations that can be made for a student who has a hearing loss in the classroom. The instructions will be to let the student sit in the front, but I don’t think that always works so well, because the student has to have some extra wait time to turn around to see who’s talking if there’s class discussion. I think it would be much better if the child could sit more in the center of the room and that way also feel much more a part of the class. Along with that, what a regular classroom can do — can do within the course of such discussion is to reiterate the questions asked of the student or maybe a comment that another student has made, so that gives the student who’s deaf or hard of hearing, even if there’s an interpreter in the classroom, a little more wait time to process that information, and that would be a cognitive skill that a teacher is facilitating.

Kathy Metzer (46:45)

And thank you for saying that. In the past, there have been times where we have had to even modify a particular game that the class might do to review for a test, whether it was the students would push the buzzer. So what we would do is we went in and, of course, knew about it beforehand and we would ask the teacher to count to three before they — or count to four before they could push the buzzer to tell the answer, so that the deaf student would have time to watch the interpreter, process the question, and we would play that by ear depending on the deaf student that was in the classroom. And, you know, that worked very well, you know, even for the hearing students. They were able to process the questions a little more. So there are times where we may go in the classroom to adapt certain activities or games that they do, you know, to enable the deaf student — for it to be more fair and to be a part of the classroom.

Mary V. Compton (47:54)

In terms of — let’s look now to instructional format and delivery. Obviously, if it’s a lecture type of presentation, maybe at the high-school level, most teachers are using PowerPoints now, so there are some visual organizers and I mentioned graphic organizers. But also, even the use of models, and teachers do not have to — or drawings. And teachers now with clip art do not have to be great artists. And stick figures work just perfectly fine for students. But also objects to manipulate. Games and role-plays and scenarios. And, Kathy, you and I were talking earlier today about a role-play that you did that really sort of ties in with how you can integrate academic content with a target linguistic structure that would take a syntactic structure — let’s say direct object, for example. Can you share how it worked on the — civics lesson? Was that what it was?

Kathy Metzer (49:00)

Yes. In North Carolina, the fourth-grade curriculum teaches the three branches of government. So we pre-taught the vocabulary, you know, and we used lots of graphic organizers, but we did even pull in all six of the deaf students, even though there were some in second grade, third grade, and fifth grade. We brought everybody in to role-play the three branches of government. We had one student that was the president. And then we had senators, and we discussed with some of the senators about what would be a good idea for a bill. And we had, of course, already taught all the vocabulary, and explained that to the students.

(49:51)

So we even had a judge with a graduation gown on, and he sat at a different table. And everybody had name tags. And we role-played what happened from the beginning of, you know, the legislative branch and, you know, we would write up, you know, the legislative branch writes the bill. Therefore, we wanted to focus in on, you know, the direct object in that particular syntactical structure. And then we moved the bill, and they discussed it, and we took it to the executive branch. We talked about the president vetoed it and what happened, and it had to go back to the legislative branch. And then, you know, the president approved it and signed it. And then we took it a step further and said, you know, now the judicial branch, which to me is a very difficult concept, so we had two students who had gone back, one who had the right to an interpreter and one whose county or school said he could not have an interpreter, so he then went to the judicial branch to complain that, you know, the law was not fair. And through that role-play, the students were able to really understand the whole concept of the government.

(51:18)

And even the younger students, I think, you know, they were even the ones who gave a lot of input. We had one particular second-grader who just became irate at the thought that he would not have an interpreter in the classroom, and he himself stood up and said it wasn’t fair. So, you know, I think you can take those situations and even though it wasn’t in their curriculum, they still learn about government and, you know, we related it even to the school setting. The principal is the boss of the school and that ind thing. So it worked out very well.

Mary V. Compton (52:00)

And in a way that’s problem-solving as well as self-advocacy skills that deaf and hard-of-hearing students need as well. So I think that’s a great example. I think so many times when one thinks about cognitive skills, the question comes that, well, you have to ask them higher-level thinking questions. Not just who, what, when, where questions. But I have found that you have to model for them how to answer those questions. A lot of times, in current cognitive theory now, theory of mind — and a lot of Vygotsky’s principles are very prevalent — and I think if the teacher and even interpreter can model how to sort of think through a process even if you’re setting up a situation in which the child has to help them solve a problem. And if you sort of say, “If we tried this” to get the child thinking about alternative ways to solve problems that may be related to a science experiment if it’s something very simple, or it could be something very complex, high-school level, but something that they can be physically engaged in with objects or now they all have laptops themselves to engage in things like that.

Kathy Metzer (53:19)

I agree. We do — and I work closely with the interpreters, so that we are all together, and we do a lot, we do a tremendous amount of modeling and kind of thinking out loud. I would model for them why I could do this to solve the problem, and if I do what could happen and get their input. And then sometimes we’ll even try it. This year, we — every classroom had to do a science fair project. So we did one as a class, and, you know, we went ahead and let them — ours had to do with what happened if you mixed certain colors. And we went ahead and let them mix what they thought would work, and then we stepped back and talked about why that didn’t work and what could you do differently. So we do do a tremendous amount of modeling.

(54:25)

The other focus we have really looked at is the whole visualization. You know, every deaf child comes with different background experiences and background knowledge. We go from a child whose whole family can communicate and knows sign language and they all can communicate with each other, to a child who goes home and their parents don’t know but 20 words in sign language. So, you know, I do agree with Dr. Martin when he talks about the tests not being fair and you can have a child who comes to school and has never been to the beach. So they have no concept or background knowledge about a beach. We have to go and teach that. So we do a lot of visualizing, a lot of acting out and role playing so that they can try and get a better picture.

Bobby Hobgood (55:23)

Kathy, this is Bobby. As you were talking about that, the child who had never been to a beach, it reminds me of the same phenomena that exists for our English language learners, those culturally-bound phenomena or concepts. For example, a water slide. If any of you have been — I remember as a boy going to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and enjoying a water slide. But when I taught high school, I distinctly remember one occasion when students were talking about this water slide, and one of the students was from Mexico and had not been in the US for very long, and that concept was totally unknown to him as a learner. And I thought to myself what happens in a reading passage, for instance, when a learner encounters something that’s either culturally bound or — well, their own experience, whether it’s from a different culture or their culture here. So I’m glad you brought that point up because I think along with idiomatic expressions, we take for granted how commonly we refer to these culturally-bound concepts or we use these terms, but not everyone shares that same culture. Even people who maybe live in the same neighborhood with us.

Mary V. Compton (56:55)

Exactly. This is Mary V. I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve been in deaf ed such a long time. Teachers of deaf and hard of hearing teacher used to have massive picture files for different concepts, say maybe for teaching science, or teaching landforms, different geographical features or even things related to different science experiments. So you’d have your big picture file, and you would tote this around with you, those of you who were itinerant teachers have probably done this. But now, everybody’s so lucky now, because they are going to have laptops and they can go right to the site. I’m hoping that. That they can go get a picture from clip art immediately. And I think that would be very helpful, and also the same thing would be true of idiomatic expressions. I think for deaf and hard-of-hearing children, just as with English as a second language learners, you probably have to teach — you do, I know you do, have to teach that formally, but that’s fun to teach.

Kathy Metzer (57:56)

It is fun to teach. And it’s interesting to see the puzzled look on their faces when we tell them what it really means or an idiomatic expression, what that really means, because they do. When it comes to idioms and figurative language, you know, they are very literal thinkers.

Mary V. Compton (58:23)

Now, you use visual phonics, too, don’t you?

Kathy Metzer (58:26)

Yes. We have — in our need to also help our deaf students not become just sight-word readers, we use a tool. It is not a program, it is simply a tool we use with a specific direct instruction program called visual phonics. That allows the deaf student to see the sound on your hand. There are different hand shapes that are for different sounds. And we have one particular student who came to our school that started this in pre-school. And we are keeping close tabs on him. He is now in second grade and is reading on grade level. He is severe to profoundly deaf, but does come from a deaf family. He has family members who are deaf as well. You know, but he really has just taken it and gone with it. So again, all our interpreters are trained in visual phonics and all of us use it. And he’s in the regular classroom for reading. So when they do teach the sounds, he — the interpreter does the visual phonics with those sounds.

Mary V. Compton (1:00:02)

Let’s go on to our last area here, although it’s certainly not really the last. I wanted to say a few words about collaboration and cooperation. And we both agree this needs to be in huge letters, because it’s absolutely critical for a deaf student, whether it’s a rural, itinerant, or in a cluster setting, in terms of communication with a regular classroom educator. And I now something that you’ve done, Kathy, you talked about in terms of ongoing contact.

Kathy Metzer (1:00:37)

Yes. We start out at the beginning of the year with an initial in-service with any regular-ed teacher that would have a deaf or hard-of-hearing student in the classroom. And what I try to help them see, even though if they’ve had a deaf student before, to me, practice makes it even better. But what is that difference depending on the mode of communication for that student, whether it’s a student who uses mainly ASL or if they’re a more pidgin signer. We even have students who have cochlear implants who need the support of signing. I meet with the teacher for that individual student and I also meet with any other teacher that would have that student, the PE teacher, the art teacher, the special teachers. But we talk about the role of the educational interpreter and the role of the classroom teacher herself and then my particular role. I don’t want them to think it’s all them. And so we don’t do a lot of in-service at the very beginning, but then we meet consistently throughout the year and I still do some in-service on, the reason the child writes like this is because of their hearing loss and this is typical for a deaf student. This is typical for a student that has this language level. So there is constant communication between, you know, myself, the interpreters, and the regular ed teacher.

Mary V. Compton (1:02:19)

Well, I like the way that you do that not — I don’t want to say bits and pieces, but incrementally. Because at the beginning of the year, I think regular classroom educators are bombarded with — special educators, too, are bombarded by so much information, that if you give them everything at one time, they’re not going to remember. So this consistent contact and collaboration between the teacher, deaf student, interpreter, and the regular classroom educator, I think, is essential. So I think one ability that a teacher of deaf and hard-of-hearing students needs to have is good interpersonal communication.

(1:03:00)

Also, let’s say, I think it’s important to educate student peers about deafness and hearing loss as well as the deaf students themselves, so they need to know about their hearing loss and to be able to explain it. And that can create some interesting situations. One of my colleagues in a middle-school regional program where I was teaching in New Jersey, I was teaching the language classes and my colleague was doing the science classes and they were doing a —

[audio interruption] (1:03:40)

Mary V. Compton (1:03:35)

And so my friend had taught this lesson and one day during lunch one little girl came up to me and said, “Oh Miss Compton, I’m deaf, you know.” So, she was sharing what she had learned, and didn’t realize I already knew it, which is typical of deaf kids. But the way in which it was taught, she was very proud of that. So that was self-advocacy. What other things do you think are important about communication and collaboration?

Kathy Metzer (1:04:00)

Well, I think it’s important to get the regular-ed teachers’ lesson plans ahead of time. If there’s a particular book or story they’re going to read to the classroom, that we’re able to get that to the interpreter so that they can pre-read it and, you know, their skills will be better at, you know, interpreting that book to the student. While we do have closed captioning for our students, I find that it is — at the elementary school level, it is unusual that students can either read fast enough or are able to be on grade level to read it. So I encourage our interpreters to still interpret, you know, movies or film clips for the deaf students. Again, that just depends on the individual student.

(1:05:02)

We also individually look at appropriate accommodations so the students can access the curriculum. And, again, to be able to participate in classroom activities. We have morning announcements in our school, and they are via the television. So we have an interpreter that goes up and they sign the announcements every morning and our deaf students watch the television like all the other students do. But then they also sign the pledge and we have a school promise and what we do is encourage all the students in the classroom to sign with the interpreter so that they can just learn more sign language. So, you know, we have teachers that will do, in the younger grades, K-2, they will do certain signs or tell the students, you know, this week we’re going to learn these signs. So we really work very closely with the regular-ed teachers. Our educational interpreters are responsible for doing documentation sheets on a daily basis, and that tells me, you know, what they did in the classroom, but also, okay, here’s some vocabulary that I think this student should know and don’t. So we try to do as much and we learn every year by doing. If something doesn’t work as well, we go back and do something different.

Emily (1:06:42)

Thanks. Are we ready to move on to some questions?

Kathy Metzer (1:06:45)

Sure.

Emily Jack (1:06:47)

Yes. Great. Sounds good. So we have some questions about how do you convince a district to understand the need for multiple interpreters when you have deaf students who aren’t on the same cognitive educational level? So many districts want to lump all deaf students together and provide fewer interpreters.

Kathy Metzer (1:07:13)

That is a great question! Unfortunately, in our — the whole United States, feeling the budget cuts that we are experiencing, a suggestion would be if you can keep consistent data of the difference cognitively and the difference of the language levels of those students and you could take that data, you know, to your supervisors who make those decisions, you know, that would be one way to possibly be able to advocate that the students cannot share the same interpreter. The other suggestion would be to get the parents on board with advocating for their child. I just think that’s very important throughout everything. If you’ve got the parents involved in their child’s education, you know, I do a lot of — or try to do a lot of communication back and forth with the parents, being very honest where their student is academically, cognitively even, and suggestions they can do at home to help out with that. That would be a start with those two areas.

Mary V. Compton (1:08:43)

— suggestions. I would go with your suggestions.

Emily Jack (1:08:49)

David Martin, do you have any thoughts on that topic?

David Martin (1:08:56)

Actually, I think Mary and Kathy have answered it very well. And your statement of very practical ways to approach this is right on. So I don’t think I would have anything to add at this point.

Mary V. Compton (1:09:10)

I do think that I so heartily agree with Kathy. A lot of districts are very interested in data-based decisions. So if you could collect data about the child’s performance, that would make a huge difference in that decision.

Emily Jack (1:09:32)

Great, great. Thank you.

David Martin (1:09:35)

I will add one thing at that point. We’ve talked several times about making a case for different kinds of services at the IEP time. And I just want to emphasize that the classroom teacher is in a critically important position to make the case for different kinds of accommodations and collecting the kinds of data that have just been talked about is the way to do that. Because all these decisions ultimately should be data-based anyway. So I definitely encourage that.

Emily Jack (1:10:13)

Thanks, David. The next question is, as a deaf ed teacher, do you provide direct instruction in self-advocacy, or do you integrate it within your lessons? Is this something that is actually outlined in the student’s IEP, and if so, what frequency would you recommend as a starting point?

Kathy Metzer (1:10:37)

This is Kathy. I think it depends on the student. You know, if a student definitely needs direct instruction in self-advocacy, then we do include that in the student’s IEP. You know, if we feel like they don’t necessarily need goals in the IEP, then, you know, I integrate it within the lessons. It’s interesting how sometimes — mainly, it’s with the students that either parents don’t sign well enough to communicate with them or their parents don’t sign, we are seeing an increase in the number of students we get who are moving to the United States from other countries, and their child is deaf, and so those children go home to families that don’t know English and certainly don’t know sign language. And in that respect, I think we have to look at really making sure that student can advocate for themselves.

(1:11:50)

So that’s — and frequency, again, would depend on the student. There are some students who naturally can advocate for themselves and have a bolder personality, but then I think with the cultural differences we’re seeing, I have a student in particular that his culture is such that they’re very reserved and you have to look at that cultural difference. And we might need to really focus and do some advocacy skills a couple times a week or even more. Again, I think it depends on the individual.

David Martin (1:12:33)

I’d like to add one other note about technology. And we’ve only talked a little bit about that. And the technology is proceeding ahead at a great pace very fortunately, and one of the things that we all need to do is to stay on top of the technology, particularly as it relates to direct communication. And Robert Palmquist, who is one of our participants today, brought this particularly to my attention yesterday. But there are different companies available that are doing very exciting things. One example is auditory sciences.com. Auditorysciences.com as an example of different kinds of developments that are going to help. And at IEP time, we need to be aware of the very latest in that, because that sometimes can be provided by an IEP if people agree.

Emily Jack (1:13:38)

Thanks, David. The next question is about vocabulary development. Vocabulary development is constantly ongoing. A lot of new words and phrases that deaf students are being exposed to. Without learning the new vocabulary, they will not be able to sustain reading. How can we teach a child vocabulary without them getting frustrated and giving up on instruction?

Mary V. Compton (1:14:03)

I think an effective way to do that in a short amount of time would be to somehow see if you could make it thematically related. Or another way I know that there’s been some research done is to teach the students root words and root prefixes and suffixes, which will make it a little easier for them to identify, for example, Greek root words and Latin root words. But I’ve found the best way is to somehow make it thematically related and that they could have like a vocabulary notebook or now the students are probably having their own iPads, they could create their own little iPad vocabulary guide. But it will take some teaching in terms of how to use a dictionary. But I found greater success with using a more thematic approach. Because it’s not possible to learn all the vocabulary they need in an isolated context.

Bobby Hobgood (1:15:00)

Okay. Well, folks, that is bringing us to the end of this session. And before we close, just a couple of notes. First and foremost, I’d ask if you would all join us in a virtual round of applause for Dr. David Martin, Dr. Mary V. Compton, and Ms. Kathy Metzer. We really appreciate their time, their efforts to collaborate on the article that Dr. Martin wrote. And if you haven’t noticed this already, Emily has posted in the chat window the URL on several occasions of that article. On that same page, you will also see videos that feature Dr. Compton and Kathy talking about various aspects of that article as well as some additional concepts not explicitly addressed in the article. So we hope you will go back and revisit that.

(1:16:04)

This session has been recorded, and the recorded session will be made available later this week. We will email everyone when that is posted. And we’ll give you the direct URL to access that. With Dr. Martin’s permission, Dr. Compton’s permission, and Kathy’s permission, we’ll also make the slides available for you so you can access this information. And in addition, the transcript of today’s session will be available. So almost every bit of content and resource we can make available, regarding today’s event, will be posted on the LEARN NC website.

(1:16:46)

We encourage you also to visit the series on differentiating instruction. That series is called “Reaching Every Learner: Differentiating Instruction in Theory and in Practice.” And we will make sure that you have that link if you do not know where that’s located. So I’m going to stop the recording now. We’ll ask that you hold on for just one moment, please.