Week 5 - Easterbrooks + Baker

I saw that we were reading about assessment and groaned inwardly, a little. However, I found this book not only to be readable, but also that it takes a much more objective approach instead of a subjective approach. I agreed with the statement that "the most important reason for testing is to decide what to teach." I felt like all the information provided (such as gathering as much information you can in order to narrow or limit the skills you, as a teacher, are testing/assessing) was highly relevant. As a student in a semester with tons of reading required, I liked that it didn't seem to ramble on and on and on about it, either. The authors deliver the information in a really direct way that appeals to my inner scientist. Once again, the tables and appendices were super helpful in my organization of the information given.

I also really liked that the authors stated that they feel "the question should not be about which philosophy to use but about a particular student's style" in understanding and communicating information, basically, and choosing what best matches that student's style individually. I literally could not have said this better myself. I also liked how directly the authors laid out the issues in assessing DHH students. One of the issues was the lack of easily administered tests, but it was cited from 1995 (which was 20 years ago now, yikes). I feel as if there still aren't many of those easily administered tests, but isn't that something that's getting better? Or at least that people (general people, test makers or whoever) are working towards? And related to this, I don't think I realized how many different ways there are to assess language formally and informally. I knew of some of the ways mentioned in the book and could probably have spouted them off directly, but I don't know that I really considered things like the ILSA (Interpersonal Language Skills Assessment). Like many of the people I know in the deaf ed field (although certainly not all of them), I like portfolio style assessments the best, I think, for informal assessment the best. I feel like it's the most genuine and honest way to look at how the student is doing, because it provides tangible evidence for what and how the student is doing in the classroom itself.

And as far as the second section of readings, the planning language instruction and tons of ideas for facilitating the instruction, I can sum up my feelings and thoughts about it in one word: helpful. Incredibly helpful. Especially since some of the ideas were things I hadn't seen or considered before, like the example for production (giving a child a box of interesting items and asking for clues). It seems like a really fun way to get children interested and involved (and subsequently, ideally, to communicate). I think that since I want to teach science, that specifically would be a good (and relatively easy) thing to implement to help me elicit language from my students.