Running Head: TEACHER EXCELLENCE: GENERAL AND DEAF EDUCATION

Teacher Excellence 1

Running Head: TEACHER EXCELLENCE: GENERAL AND DEAF EDUCATION

Teacher Excellence in General and Deaf Education

Catherine Banks, Valdosta State University

December 20, 2005

The professional literature on what it means to be a Master Teacher of excellence of deaf and hard of hearing students is not as extensive as the research outlining the needed characteristics of an effective teacher in general education. Salter (2001) states in his research that “good teaching, it turns out, is universal” (p. 116). Thus, by combining and reviewing the research on both excellent teaching of general education and deaf education (but focusing on the latter), a description of a Master Teacher of the deaf can be formulated.

This recent research is mostly focused on how to better serve the student. Necessary characteristics of the teacher include attitude, behavior, skills in instruction, and good communication. These create the most effective skills that can be used to serve the student inside and outside the classroom whether they are deaf, hard of hearing, or hearing.

The broader approach to what it takes to be an effective teacher of general education students is taken by Salter (2001) as he identifies sixteen characteristics or behaviors that all great teachers possess. These traits include: (a) have prior knowledge of your students’ talents, prior experience, and needs; (b) create a safe environment where learning is emotional, intellectual, and psychological; (c) have passion for the material and for teaching; (d) tell students the instructional goals and objectives; (d) have the ability to communicate complex ideas by breaking them down and making them understandable; (e) acknowledge that you don’t know everything and that teachers do make mistakes; (f) know yourself so that you can know your students more thoroughly; (g) repeat the important parts during instruction; (h) ask good questions; (i) teach students not only the right answers but how to think; (j) have good listening skills; (k) know what to listen for from your students; (l) encourage student interaction; (m) understand that every student learns differently and adapt accordingly; and (n) develop a trusting, solid relationship with the students (Salter, 2001).

In her article, Brighton (2002) recognizes the growing challenge of implementing the best practices while considering the growing focus on final assessment scores. She points out that best practices, combined with test practices, can exist together; it takes determination from the teacher and support from the administration. To accomplish this balance of testing and instruction, a wise teacher must consider the standards and use these essential elements to shape their instructional unit (Brighton, 2002). In order to keep the standards and the instructional objectives in line, Bafumo (2005) writes that it takes organization. To be an effective teacher, he/she must be organized with high-quality lesson plans and have efficient time management skills (Bafumo, 2005).

According to Aylor (2003) and other research results, communication is an essential element of teaching and a critical skill for an excellent teacher. Through the Communications Functions Questionnaire (CFQ), Aylor (2003) identifies eight communication skills which include, (a) conversational skill, the ability to initiate and maintain enjoyable conversations; (b) referential skill, the ability to convey information clearly and concisely; (c) ego supportive skill, the ability to make a person feel good about themselves, their goals, and their ideas; (d) comforting skill, the ability to help a person in times of emotional distress; (e) conflict management skill, the ability to reach mutually satisfying solutions to conflicts; (f) persuasive skill, the ability to change a person’s attitudes, beliefs, and/or behaviors; (g) narrative skill, the ability to entertain through storytelling; and (h) regulative skill, the ability to help someone realize their mistakes and correct them. In this research study, the students were also asked to rate the communication skills in order of importance. All but the comforting skill listed above was included in the rating because the students did not feel that skill was absolutely necessary for teaching. The resulting order was referential, ego supportive, regulative, conversational, conflict management, narrative, and persuasive. Through efficient communication, relationships are formed, and when used and built upon by the facilitation of the teacher, many great things can happen in the classroom (Aylor, 2003).

Through her research, Aylor (2003) recognizes that effective teachers care about their students’ feelings, self-image, goals and emotional stability. When this occurs, students report more cognitive and affective learning. There are two dimensions of a teacher/student relationship identified: content and relational. This author notes that teachers should understand that the content and relational dimensions of the relationship with their students are interdependent, striving off one another. That fact can be used to their advantage in teaching and facilitating interactions in order to maximize on learning opportunities (Aylor, 2003). At the end of the day, the assessments and records display the progress.

Assessments can be reported and used to benefit all parties involved, (teacher, student, and parent), but the teacher must know how to use them in that manner (Anonymous, 2002). The anonymous author of an article in Scholastic Early Childhood Today states, “Effective teaching of young children begins with thoughtful, appreciative, systematic observation and documentation of each child’s unique qualities, strengths, and needs” (Anonymous, 2002, p. 15). According to this same author, there are specific assessment skills that well-prepared teacher should have. They include: (a) being able to communicate the results to parents; (b) knowing a wide range of assessment tools and approaches to align with educational goals; (c) creating opportunities to observe both formally and informally especially with infants and toddler; (d) having the ability to conduct, interpret, and reflect on the assessment; (e) possessing the knowledge of definitions and jargon; (f) having the ability to point out and limit test weaknesses and limitations; and (g) understanding and practicing responsible assessment techniques, ethically grounded, collaborative, and guided by professional standards (Anonymous, 2002).

Now that the research about excellent teachers in general was discussed above, the research on the behaviors, skills, and attitudes of excellent teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing will be discussed thoroughly so that the purpose of the paper can be fulfilled which is to put all research together in order to display what really constitutes a master teacher of students who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Even more so than in general education, the mode and effectiveness of communication has always been a topic of debate and concern in the field of deaf education. The sign skills of the teacher have been the major factor in determining the effectiveness of communication in the classroom, but the recent research says differently. According to Smith and Ramsey (2004), Long, et. al (1999), and Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2002), effective communication and instruction is not solely dependent on the teacher’s sign skills rather the manner in which they use the language as a “linguistic resource in classroom discourse” (Mayer, Akamatsu, & Stewart, 2002, p. 486) to encourage student participation. Not only do the overall sign skills of the teacher bear little weight, the teacher’s hearing status has little effect as well. The results of the research done by Roberson and Serwatka (2000) show that although the deaf students associated more effective behaviors to the deaf teacher, the actual achievement level of students is not affected by the hearing status of the teacher.

Steering again away from the teacher’s sign skills, Luckner and Howell (2002) discuss the importance of the teacher’s interpersonal communication skills. They believe that it is most crucial to have the ability to communicate with the families of the students and with other professionals.

As stated by Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2002), there is a threshold level of sign proficiency needed for meaningful dialogue to occur, but they also say the overall quality and effectiveness of the interaction is a better way to measure effective teacher communication. Interaction is made and mediated through the use of language – signs and other tools of communication, and Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2002) name this type of purposeful, educational interaction dialogic inquiry. Dialogic inquiry is constructed by three understandings the teacher must have. Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2002) list these understandings as the following: (a) “learning is a social, interactive enterprise in which the teacher and the learner interdependently co-construct meaning, (b) this joint meaning making is mediated through language, through classroom conversations that occur within the context of meaningful, purposeful activity; and (c) the interaction is dependent on the ability of the teacher to work in a contingently responsive manner with the student” (p. 487). This author goes on to say that teachers who are comfortable in their manner of communication will be more equipped to communicate effectively with their students (Mayer, Akamatsu, & Stewart, 2002).

As mentioned above, sign skills are not the primary focus within recent research to describe excellent teachers, but they are still considered an important part of what describes a master teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing. Also stated above, interactions are the primary means of learning, and Long, et. al (1999) correlate the success of the interaction to teachers with higher-level skills in both expressive and receptive sign language. American Sign Language (ASL) is one option for use in the classroom that is encouraged by some researchers. Smith and Ramsey (2004) found in his research some benefits of fluent ASL use in the classroom. When comparing teachers using different modes of sign language during instruction and storytelling, he found that the teacher using ASL elicited more participation from the students through question asking, classifier predicates, role-playing, and the full range of ASL morphology. “Fluent signers can smooth out rough spots and ensure coherence in the discourse” (Smith & Ramsey, 2004, p. 56).

Since the focus of the research is more on how the teacher affects the student, the students’ opinions of the teacher’s communication skills were researched and reported in the article by Long, et. al (1999). Student rating of communication ease was higher for teachers with higher scores on their Sign Communication Proficiency Interview such as Superior through Intermediate Plus rather than lower scores of Intermediate through Novice (Long, et. al, 1999). Long, et. al (1999) also found that students felt if they understood their teacher, their teacher could understand them. To fully participate and learn as active, engaged learners, deaf and hard of hearing students need to feel at ease in communicating with their teacher and other students through comfortable, reciprocal communication. Through this effective communication exchange, teacher/student interactions occur as a bridge to learning (Long, et. al, 1999).

The importance of classroom discourse is seen throughout a lot of the research. There are positive occurrences that result from meaningful discourse such as, learning to make meaning and sense of the world around them and the development of thinking skills (Mayer, Akamatsu, & Stewart, 2002). To facilitate the classroom discourse, there are many skills and behaviors that the teacher must possess and use. Smith, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2004) believe that the classroom atmosphere must be flexible and free, and to accomplish this, experienced teachers will exhibit less-controlling behaviors with a relaxed attitude while maintaining control and showing an ability to head off problems. They discovered there is a high negative correlation to the amount of control taken by the teacher to the amount of complex language used by the students. Also, having inadequate and non-fluent language skills will pose a problem to maintaining this type of classroom atmosphere (Smith, Akamatsu, & Stewart, 2004).

In regards to communication in discourse, Smith, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2004) state several strategies and skills that excellent teacher possess. These strategies are the following: (a) encourage further comments while boosting student confidence and extending interaction; (b) develop increased sensitivity to students’ perceptions of the quality of communication in class; (c) give greater attention to variations in communication needs of the students; and (d) put greater effort into developing teaching strategies for effective interactive communication.

To be considered a master teacher of the deaf, there are also teaching behaviors and strategies that are encouraged, if not expected, relating to communication in instruction. Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2004) encourage the constructivist teaching approach because it utilizes communication using symbols and signs to allow individuals to eventually become independent in regulating their own language and behaviors. Instructional conversations can be used in the classroom to “support, guide, and assist the learner in achieving fuller participation and understanding” (Mayer, Akamatsu, & Stewart, 2002, p. 487). Greenspan (2003) delves a little deeper and with more specificity by stating the importance of using multiple channels to communicate with the child during instruction, including much visual support. Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2002) describe other exemplary practices to facilitate language and communication which include, but are not limited to, (a) taking the learners’ best attempt as the starting place; (b) inviting suggestions and opinions; (c) requesting explanations, clarifications, justifications, and amplifications; (d) encouraging learners to take risks and express their own points of view; and (e) shaping instruction into meaningful and purposeful language activity (Mayer, Akamatsu, & Stewart, 2002). Mayer, Akamatsu, and Stewart (2002) sum up exemplary teacher communicative practice in instruction and discourse stating, “Teachers who are responsive to their students, and engaged in joint meaning-making, are constantly stretching to reach the learner’s cognitive and linguistic ground” (p. 489).

The focus of the research done by Roberson, et al. (2004) is measuring the effectiveness of teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing using two broad categories: teacher quality, the characteristics and skills they bring to the classroom, and teaching quality, how they teach once they are in the classroom. Some of the characteristics and skills that encompass teacher quality are preparation, proper assessment-data collection, knowledge of content, ability to provide evidence of pedagogical knowledge, and demonstration that their instruction actually has an effect on student learning (Roberson, et al. 2004). According to Roberson, et al. (2004), the major indication of excellent teaching quality is the presence of academic responding which has been positively correlated with achievement on standardized tests. Academic responding is defined as “the active and appropriate student behaviors that are made in direct response to an academic task, teacher command, or teacher prompt” (Roberson, et al. 2004, p. 406).