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Topical Team 2.2Academic Content and Content Best Practices
October 25 and 27, 2004
Brenda Simmons, University of Tennessee
Topical Team Leaders
Brenda Simmons, University of TennesseeScience/Math Focus
Susan Easterbrooks, Georgia State UniversityLiteracy Focus
Team Experts
Harry Lang, National Technical Institute for the DeafScience/math
Gay Su Pinnell, Ohio State UniversityLiteracy
Overall Outcomes Expected for Grant Period
Research supporting increased academic achievement as a result of using the most effective standards-based content resources and content-specific strategies for teaching academic content to PK-12 students who are d/hh, improving d/hh teacher preparation program designs and increasing d/hh preservice teachers’ abilities to demonstrate content best practices competence.
Activities proposed in the grant
Activity 1: Conduct needs assessment of the content
best practices (standards-based content resources and content-specific strategies) that have been empirically demonstrated to increase student academic (i.e., literacy, mathematics and science) achievement for ALL PK-12 students.
Outcome: baseline empirical data
Response to Activity 1
Team of deaf educators evaluated state’s core curriculum websites and conducted interviews with state level representatives from departments of education to determine what states are expecting TOD to know and be able to do.
Participants: Susan Easterbrooks, Kathleena Whitesell, Elaine Gale, Marcia Virts, Len Roberson, David Smith
Literature Reviews (will be posted on deafed.net)Harry Lang- Science
completedBrenda Simmons- Math
completedSusan Easterbrooks and Kathleena
Whitesell- Literacy 2/3 completed
Literature reviews were organized by the reviewers surrounding concepts identified in the literature
Each review provides information regarding best practices with DHH students in that area
This will be addressed further in Activity 2.
Date collection process for Activity 1: State-by-state review
Team members were assigned states in regions of the country identified by the Regional Resource Centers
http://www.dssc.org/frc/rrfc.htm
Posed following questions to Department of Ed officials
How does the state require teachers of the deaf/hard of hearing to respond to the general education curriculum?
Are teachers of the deaf/hard of hearing required to address these standards or are alternative curricula permissible?
Do you have any standards that are differentiated for exceptional learners, specifically are there any designed for learners who are deaf/hard of hearing?
What resources are available on the website to assist teacher?
Regarding students who are deaf/hard of hearing, how does your state recommend that teachers bridge the gap between the child’s present levels of performance and mandated standards for that age?
Is there any specific guidance for teachers of the deaf/hard of hearing?
Do deaf/hard of hearing students need to pass exit exams to get a regular diploma? If yes, what happens if deaf/hard of hearing students do not pass the exam?
Are there specific data on graduation rates of deaf/hard of hearing students?
What else can you tell us about the state’s response to performance or outcomes that will be evaluated via high stakes assessments?
Team members looked at the core curriculum for each state and identified:Name of the curriculumurlStructure of the standardsResources
Were able to get data on 33 of the 50 states.
Kathleena Whitesell is writing up an executive summary of the data, to be published on deafed.net
General findingsMost states require their TODs to teach
from the general ed curriculumMost (but not all) states have highly
specified core curricula; some identify mandated test objectives, and it is the responsibility of the local schools to identify appropriate curricula to meet these objectives
Few states give TODs any specific guidance on how to make appropriate modifications to the general ed curriculum
Few, if any, states have any graduation data on DHH students that are disaggregated from all of special education
Very little is being done to address the problems surrounding high school exit exams
How can this information be applied and used?
Teacher prep programs need to make sure that TOD have had experience in navigating the state’s curriculum and curriculum website.
Teacher prep programs need to give teachers in training experience in identifying general ed curriculum objectives and relating these to IEP objectives to identify how to bridge the gap.
Deaf education professionals need to support dis-aggregation of deaf ed data from special ed data
Teacher prep programs need to infuse information from the literature reviews into their courses
Your ideas?
Activity 2
Conduct research concerning the use of the content best practices (content resources and content-specific strategies) that have been empirically demonstrated to increase academic (i.e., literacy, math, science) achievement by Master Teachers of students who are DHH and within DHH teacher preparation programs.
Outcome: Increase the knowledge base
Brenda and Susan are in the process of developing a survey to be sent to Master Teachers based on the Maximum Benefit/Maximum Likelihood research model.
Best practices will be identified from activity 1.
MT will be asked to provide 3 ratings:
How beneficial is this practice to your students’ achievement (least beneficial to most beneficial on a scale of 1 to 5)
How likely is it that you will use this practice?
If you are not likely to use this practice, why not?
Donna Mertens will place the survey on the Gallaudet website using Perseus Software
Result will be an analysis of what works and what teachers will in reality do.
How can others help?
One person to review the literature and make sure that the questions we developed address the most pertinent findings.
Activity 3
Disseminate resulting research and offer professional development support for the use of the research information to DHH preservice teachers, their faculty, MT and the entire CoP.
Outcome: Increase in knowledge base and use of content best practices by DHH preservice teachers, their faculty and MT.
DisseminationVia deafed.net
Professional DevelopmentPowerpoints developed and used in teacher
prep programs.
What can you do? (After data are back from Master Teachers)Design Powerpoint presentations that teach
students in teacher prep programs how to use the content-specific strategies identified in activities 1 and 2
Maximum of 10 in literacy and 10 in science/math
Activity 4
Conduct follow-up research on the impact of the disseminated information on DHH teacher preparation programs and their preservice teachers’ demonstrations of content best practices competence.
Outcome: Empirical evidence.
Team leaders will identify team members to assist in developing a data collection process.
Team members will work with individual teacher prep programs to implement use of the Powerpoints
Team members will work with teachers in training to gather data about application of the practices.
Critical Problem:
We KNOW what to do but we do not have the administrative structures within which we can do it, so how do we prepare TODs to provide what students truly need in an environment where their needs do not drive the curriculum?
