Author: Dr. Susan Easterbrooks Georgia State University

1. Author: Dr. Susan EasterbrooksGeorgia State University • Date submitted to deafed.net – March 24, 2006 • To contact the author for permission to use this PowerPoint, please e-mail: et.3@charter.net • To use this PowerPoint presentation in its entirety, please give credit to the author.

2. Visual Saliency: Making information available to D/HH Students By Amy Elrod & Susan Easterbrooks

3. Visual Saliency Defined • Representing information in such a way that it has meaning for the student. • Typically for D/HH students saliency is accomplished by using visual representations. • Three types of visual representations: enactive, iconic, and graphic/symbolic.

4. What does it mean for something to be visually salient? • Visually salient material is usually “chunked” or categorized using a visual means in order for the information to be connected visually to spoken or signed concepts. • This makes the meaning more transparent and helps transfer it from short term memory to long term memory, as well as facilitate recall.

5. Why do D/HH students need information to be presented in a visually salient manner? • The typical way of teaching is via use of symbols (decoding, reading, writing) • D/HH students may miss much of the message when information is presented this way • D/HH students may also not have the language or reading skills needed to fully understand concepts presented in this traditional manner

6. Why? cont. • Most D/HH students typically communicate and learn in some visuospatial manner (via ASL, signed English, or total communication). • Bruner’s work on brain-mind function found that using different representations tapped different areas of the brain and kept students actively engaged. (Samples, 1992) • Visual enhancements provide additional means of presenting information. • Using representations that are visually salient accesses sensory systems that are strengths for D/HH students: visual, spatial and kinesthetic.

7. Enactive Representation • Knowing from movement, kinesthetic action, dance (Samples, 1992) • Enacting or re-enacting an object or event (Easterbrooks)

8. Examples of Enactive Representation • Making gestures • Experiments • Dance • Using manipulatives • Demonstrations • Role Play

9. Applications of Enactive Representation • To teach the concept of Matching you could use the following examples: -Play a Scavenger Hunt – Have the students look for 5 people who “match” them in some way: eye color, hair color, shirt color. -Freeze game – Have one student “freeze” into a certain position and then have the other students try to match that position. -Follow the Leader – Designate one student as the “leader” and have the other students follow their actions.

10. Iconic Representation • Related to visual and spatial arts (Samples) • Use of visual organization to present a concept or category; this can include an aspect of an activity or entity

11. Examples of Iconic Representation • Silhouettes • Symbols • Key signs or symbols • Visual maps • Mnemonics

12. Application of Iconic Representation • To teach the concept of matching: -Match Game – Have students match a picture with the same shape silhouette, or have them find two silhouettes that look the same -Color like items the same color

13. Visual/Graphic Representation • Also known as symbolic representation; Reason and reductive logic; used coded symbols (i.e., letters, numbers) (Samples, 1992) • Symbols manipulated to produce meaning in a systematic way (Easterbrooks)

14. Examples of Visual/Graphic Representation • Drawing • Painting • Mental imagery • Diagrams • Maps • Webs and Organizers • Outlines

15. Application of Visual/Graphic Organization • To teach the concept of matching: -Show pictures to the students and have them try to draw the same picture -Recall an item that looks the same -Play a matching game on the computer or with picture or word cards.

16. Example of a Lesson Using Visual Saliency • 4th Grade General Curriculum Objective – Demonstrates how light travels and can be separated into a visible spectrum. Produces a rainbow using a prism, water or oil (refraction). • Key Concepts needed to master this objective: -How light works -How the eye sees color -Refraction

17. Preteaching • Have the students draw what they think light is and what might happen if light was broken up into different colors. (Iconic) • Put the drawings up and begin to talk about them and discuss why the students might have drawn these ideas.

18. Teaching • Introduce the lesson and state the objectives: *Write out the objectives on chart paper and put them in a visible spot.

19. How Light Travels • Brainstorm about light, design a web for the students ideas (graphic)

20. How Light Travels *Begin describing how light travels: -Light travels (moves) 186,000 miles/second. -Have the students think about things that might go as fast and compare the speed of light to other objects. -Light can speed up or slow down if it hits different objects or substances -The more dense or solid an object or substance is, light goes slower; the less dense or solid an object or substance, light goes faster. -You can use the picture of a tractor going through grass to show how light can travel faster or slower. The thicker the grass, the slower the tractor will go. *Watch movies from Captioned Media (www.cfv.org) on how light travels #2568    HOW DOES LIGHT TRAVEL?Uses two demonstrations to prove that unobstructed light travels only in straight lines. Discusses reflection and presents an experiment demonstrating the measurement of the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection.#2587    WHAT IS LIGHT?Introduces light as a type of radiant energy in the electromagnetic spectrum. Mentions heat, radio signals, and X rays, comparing the lengths of their respective waves. Provides activities to study the electromagnetic spectrum and to test for transparent and opaque materials.

21. Refraction • Begin this segment of the lesson with and experiment/demonstration of refraction. • Materials needed: cup of water in a clear glass, cup of clear oil, cup of oil and water together (do not mix, just pour oil into water), wooden dowel or pencil • Place the pencil in the water. Ask the students what happens to the pencil Diagram showing refraction

22. Refraction, cont. • After getting the students’ responses, explain that the pencil looks bent because of refraction. The light is bending because the water slows it down. • Next, ask the student to think about what might happen if the pencil were put in the with oil and with the oil/water mix. Have them speculate whether the oil would bend more or less. Write down their responses on a chart such as this one. -> • Finally, have the students put the pencil in the water/oil mix and in the oil. They can write their results on a chart similar to the prediction chart, then compare the two. They could also draw what happens.

23. How we see light as colors • Begin by reading the book The Magic School Bus: Makes a Rainbow • Review the book by talking about what happened in the book and perhaps writing down what happened. • Next, or maybe as a review after talking more about how we see light as colors, show the movie on Light and Color from CFV. #3266    LIGHT & COLORAn elementary class prepares for a visit from the Shadow Players, a group who use light, shadow, and color to tell a story. The class learns about sources of light, shadows, and silhouettes. They experiment with transparent, opaque, and translucent objects to see what lets light through. Using a prism, they discover the colors in light. Review at the end.

24. How we see light, cont. • Review how we see light. -Light as we see it is white. It is a combination of colors that are in a certain order. Each color has a certain speed or frequency and the order of their speeds is known as a spectrum. -Show the spectrum

25. Activity • Make a color spectrum top • Materials: white card board, scissors, glue, markers, pencil, wooden spools cut in half • Cut a circle about 4 in. in diameter from the card board. Color with the spectrum in wedge shapes. Glue the circle to the wooden spool. Push a pencil through the hole. Spin the circle like a top. Ask the students to describe what happens. • Explanation: When the colors are spun, our eyes see the individual colors for a very short time. Since our eyes see very slowly, we can’t distinguish fast color impressions so they merge and the brain perceives them as white. This ties in to why we see the light from the sun as white. • An activity similar to this is related to the book The Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow. A copy from the website is on the next slide.

26. Color Activity

27. Making a Rainbow • Show the students a picture of a rainbow • Ask them what it is and how they think it might be made. Write their responses on a web similar to the one used to describe light. • Then explain that the rainbow is formed when the light from the sun goes through rain drops. The water slows down the light, bends it and separates the light into different colors. Remind the students about the activities earlier involving the pencil, water and oil.

28. Making a Rainbow, cont. • Show the class the prism. Ask what they think it is and what they think it might do. (They may already have an idea from the book) • Explain that the prism is made of clear glass or plastic and is formed into a triangle. It can be used to form the color spectrum. Show a diagram of the spectrum again, and a picture of a prism. • Explain to the students that they are going to make their own rainbows.

29. Class Rainbows • Materials: Light source (flashlight), Prism, white or dark poster board, markers, white paper • Show the students how to hold the prism in front of the paper and manipulate it with the flashlight shining on it. Make sure the room lights are off or low as possible. • Then have the students manipulate their prisms in different ways and ask them to draw what they see. • Another suggestion comes from the Scholastic website: Separate white light into a rainbow by placing a glass of water on the edge of a window sill. Move the glass around until you see the rainbow. Catch the rainbow on white paper. Ask: How many colors do you see? Can you change the order of the colors?

30. Using a Prism to Make a Rainbow and Bend Light From: http://www.gelighting.com/na/home/gela/students/science_prism.htm

31. References and Resources • References Baker, S., & Easterbrooks, S. (2002) Language Learning in Children Who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: Multiple Pathways. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Samples, B. (1992) Using learning modalities to celebrate intelligence, Educational Leadership, 62-66. • Resources www.scholastic.com www.howstuffworks.com www.gelighting.com/na/home/gela/students/science_prism.htm www.glc.k12.ga.us