Barb Rentenbach

I really enjoyed the presentation. I think it may have been very eye opening for some people. I don't think that everyone understands that even though a person has autism, they can still be an intelligent person. This can be seen by the words Barb choose for her book, as they were very impressive. Her language style is so witty and snarky, and she has a very good sense of humor. I've worked with a little boy with Autism, and he is one of the most intelligent children I've ever met. I really like what she said about people with autism finding their purpose and perseverance. I believe that given a task, everyone can do it, just in a different way. For students with Autism in the classroom, I would want to make sure that they have the accommodations they need to succeed and display their knowledge and intelligence.

What I also thought was interesting was everyone's reaction to her. I think it was really cool how impressed some pople were. Some people were very interested in her book, and her process of presenting. It was also interesting to see how some people reacted negatively to her. I heard some people around me making rude and immature comments. I think this really highlights the idea of perseverance, and the very real challenges people with Autism must face. It also shows what type of teachers some of these people will become, by grouping students with autism into a pigeonhole of low expectations.

I really liked how the first thing Barb said to everyone was "Autism in my prism, not my prison". It really illuminated the idea that autism is not what defines the person. Autism is only a part of who they are. I saw this news segment that really shows how intelligent and intuitive this one girl with Autism is. She describes why she acts the ways he does, and how it affects her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMBzJleeOno

Group Differences

I think everything we discussed today will be very useful in the classroom. I think we, as educators need to think about how each topic can be adressed in the classroom. I thought it was interesting how most of the topics related to the culture of diverse students, and that is where the issues stem from. I  I definitely learned that race plays a huge card in almost every topic we discussed. We need to find ways to incorporate their interests, yet motivate them and want to learn. Which can be hard if given such a culturally diverse classroom since every culture is so different from each other. 

I thought that everyone had great ideas about how to adress the problems. Or at least how to function around them or try to solve some of them. These ideas will be super helpful when we all have our own classrooms. Everyone is going to have students who fit in to more than one of these groups, so it is essential to realize ad absorb the knowldege of what we can do in our classrooms. I thought it was an awesome discussion, and everyone had important and powerful things to say.  I also thought it really flowed and all of the topics connected with each other. I want to keep learning about how to involve students with disabilities into the classroom with having them feel oppressed. I think it's a very deep topic and it can't be analyzed in ten minutes, but I am very interested in learning more about it.

Language

Suggested strategies I plan to utilize in the classroom:
Teach irregular word forms
Begin instruction about parts of speech
Use group discussion as a way to explore academic subject matter
Have students create short stories that they present orally or in writing

I think language is a huge component in any classroom, but specifically a deaf classroom. Since the teacher is working on teaching the students two different languages, it is essential that strategies to facilitate language exist. I would be sure to educate my students about the different time tenses in English. In working with hard of hearing kids, I've learned that this is a very difficult aspect for them to master. I would have them do worksheets that include different tenses. I would also have them create stories that I would turn into a book for them. They would write their story, and I would proofread it, then we could create a creative cover for it. I think a good way to make sure they understand the different parts of language is to have them write journals. 

This is a website full of worksheets for working on different tenses in language.
http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Verb-Tenses.htm