Blog 14: Independent Component

literal: I, Rachel Hernandez, affirm that I have completed my Independent Component which represent 30 hours of work.
 log hours
At my mentorship all I do is help the kids with whatever they need help such as a math problem or telling them what a certian word means or helping them trying to figure out what a sentence means. Also when some of the classes that I would go into were very small, like two or three, I got to see how the teacher handle the classroom and how they taught their children.
 Interpretive:

Here is Conor's class in 5th period, which is his DHH English classroom. Right now he has a simple flash cards with a word in the front and a picture of the word in the back. When he shows the front side, which is the word, the students have to sign the word to make sure they know what they are reading and to match the signs with the word. For example the front side of the card says "shirt" the student would have to sign the word "shirt" and then Conor's would show the back side which would have a picture of a shirt. For me the most significant part was learning how the teachers taught their students.
Applied: The component helped me more on understanding on what me second answer is for my essential question. But this also helped me with understanding my foundation because it taught me how hard and the effort it takes to help these kids learn and to be successful in life. When I was in Conor's class he came up and told me that one of the students he has can't even read. He told me that she picks up the same book, Twilight, for the past 2 years because she knows it popular. He also told me that they put her on the waiting list in Riverside, there is a deaf school out there. She would've gone and helped her alot more than they could do but her parents didn't want to send her there. So what they have to do is, instead of giving her the normal paper test, he has a 'one on one' with her so to speak. He signs her the question and she answers and thats how she passes. But hearing that story it just proves my point that having a strong foundation in a language first will be able to benefit the student or child in the long run in his/her life.

My essential question: How can a hearing impaied elementary student best become grade level literate in English?

Blog 13: Rough draft 30 min presentation

30 min Rough Draft

Blog 12: Third interview questions

1. What is the best way to teach hearing impaired students?
2. For the subject that you teach, do you notice a difference teaching deaf students and hard of hearing students?
3. Is it better for a hearing impaired student to be in a mainstream or in a special day class (SDC)?
4. In your opinion, which do you feel will benefit hearing impaired students: having a hearing impaired or hearing teacher?
5. Would a hearing impaired student benefit from learning English as their first language or ASL as their first language?
6. What are some challenges a hearing impaired student has to face when in a mainstream class?
7. What are some academic challenges that you see hearing impaired student face in your classroom?
8. Why do you think it's difficult for hearing impaired children to acquire the English language?
9. What made you become a DHH teacher?
10. Looking back, how was your own personal experience in school?

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 hour check

1. Where are you doing your mentorship?
I am doing my mentorship at South Hills High School.

2. Who is your contact?
Originally it was Michelle Benavides, who is an interpreter at the high school. But I have been working more closely with Mrs. Gough and she is in the area that I can benefit for my project.

3. How many total hours have you done 
32 hours 20 mins 

4. Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.
Every time I go for my mentorship, Mrs. Gough has me do the same thing I do all the time. She allows me to work and help her deaf students with whatever they need help on, which is mostly math.
5. Email your house teacher the name of your contact and their phone number. 
Done.

Senior Project Update

1) What I am doing currently on my independent component is doing an extra 30 hours of my mentorship at South Hills High School.


2) The research that really was beneficial to me was a thesis paper that I found written by Kimberly Johnson. When I was at my mentorship, Mrs. Gough, has me help the student with their math assignment for that day. While helping one of the students I came across a word I didn't know how to sign and the student and I were both stuck. I couldn't help him and he was not able to solve the problem. For the next research check I stumbled upon this thesis paper and reading it during research check it gave me a, what I think could be a possible answer to my essential question: You need to have a wide range of vocabulary. What I want to do next is to figure out which signs, since there are two "ways" you can sign (ASL or English), deaf perfer or helps them to retain the knowledge that they learned.


3)

These pictures are of the notes I take when I go to my mentorship. Some of the things that I write down are how the teacher operate in the class, her method of teaching, even how she moves the desk in the most unnusal way (the litttle drawing are the seating charts for the class). One of my notes talks about how there was a substitute who didnt know any sign language and how she had a hard time runnung the class and how she look relieved when I told her I knew how to sign. She had me interpret for the deaf students.

Blog B: Science Fair Propsal

1.     What is your topic: Deaf Culture

 2.     What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? (Expert citation must be MLA format.)

  “Because English is primarily a spoken language, all hearing children of English-speaking parents absorb it unconsciously, starting from the moment they're born. They're surrounded with English. Children who are born deaf (or early-deafened) are excluded from this process because they cannot hear. The lucky ones whose parents are fluent in SL start school already knowing a language. Those whose parents cannot (and will not) sign are often forced to star school without any real language at all.”

"Why Do so Many Deaf People Have Trouble with English?" The Deaf Way Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012. <www.thedeafway.org>.

3. What is your hypothesis? (Must be in If-Then form.) : When less students are tested in a cohort group for STAR testing, then more of those students will score in the proficient category.
4. Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment. Include the tools you plan on using.

Where I will be getting my data is from the internet. I will be looking on the California Department of Education and be searching for the test scores of Language Art in the second grade.


5. Select one of the following Project Categories for your experiment: Behavioral/Social Science