The way I would create an environment that is conducive to learning would be to start off by making the kids feel comfortable to communicate anything with me. Let them know that I care about their success and general well being. I would do journals in my classroom and have them choose to write about a specific topic or I'll ask them a question, have them answer it, and have to ask me a questions too. That way when I grade it i would give them feedback and they would find out something about me too. This, I believe would open like an "open door" policy that lets the students know I care and am willing to help them (whatever the problem may be) (Ormrod 464). I also think it would be nice to let the students take part in choosing classroom activities. I would maybe let them make their own choices on how to complete an assignment and/or how they wanted to spend their class time. This would allow them to explore how to set priorities and feel included in their learning experience (Ormrod 465).
I would try to give my students a sense of school community while trying to work with other teachers in the same grade, but I would definitely want this in my classroom. The book states that "a sense of school community also involves close student-student relationships across various classrooms and grade levels." So, would want to start in the classroom before we go to other classrooms, but from an interpreters point of view I would hope that the teacher would allow the interpreter and the student to get up in front of the class and teach a few basic signs and the alphabet to the whole class like: "hello, my name (insert finger spelled name)," "nice to meet you," and "want to play?" The basics just to start out, but then maybe incorporate it into the lesson like if they are learning animals or something. This would not take up more than 30 minutes of the day and would really make the Deaf child feel included and would improve their learning environment tremendously.

Educational Interpreting Case Study
This is your first week as an educational interpreter at Brown Elementary School. One of your students, Luke, has completely shut down and is not engaged in learning. During instruction, he refuses to look at you for communication. He has not completed any assignments that would help him demonstrate an understanding of material and has, on several occasions, put his head down on his desk and gone to sleep. On the second day of school, you tried to talk to Luke between classes to find out if there was a problem and he walked away from you. Yesterday, when you attempted to facilitate communication with his math teacher, Luke crossed his arms and turned his back toward you. His math teacher got angry and has requested a meeting with his parents, who are both hearing, to discuss Luke’s behavior. Assuming that the teacher teaches from the perspective of your chosen theory(ies) of learning, discuss how might you help facilitate her intervention plan for Luke using the professional language associated with your theory.

I would help the teacher facilitate her intervention plan for Luke by showing an interest in his well-being. Just by simply showing that we care about them may just change their behavior around (Ormrod 163). I would also stay there through the entire meeting to interpret and facilitate the communication between the teacher and the deaf student or (if the teacher approves) just be apart of the conversation to include my opinion and feed back on what could be done to help Luke. Maybe there are other factor involved like nutrition, medical care, relationship with siblings, mom, or dad at home that may be the reason why he is acting out at school (Ormrod 22). I would also start taking notes and documenting EVERYTHING that happens. Each time he acts out or doesn't do what he is supposed to do I would just start and keep a record for my sake and to show the parents or principle.

Post #3

I found out today that I am extrinsically motivated, which could be a bad thing, but at least I can admit that and that is step one in any problem. :-) I am motivated by good grades, money, recognition, extra credit, and (I also found out today) food. I learn better when something is fun. I really enjoyed both of the activities today on motivation and both groups did a very good job of making the activities fun and interesting. But because you can't give kids cupcakes everyday for a motivator I thought you could come up with a way to get them excited and motivated to do better for their own self esteem, not just for the grade. Now that may be hard for me to do because I'm more extrinsically motivated with a good grade or recognition of my accomplishments, but by setting realistic goals for my students and providing encouraging feedback I believe will set them up for success. Also, I believe that if you put some effort into some kids they will want to do better because they know someone believes in them. I would want them to see the relation between working hard and success and that is the main thing . 

Ed psych 401

Formal- If I tell all the students that every Tuesday we will have a spelling test and Tuesday rolls around and all the scores are low, I could assess that what I am doing is not working. Maybe I could move the test to Friday so that the  students would have all week to prepare instead of the weekend and one day because some students might not get to study over the weekend.

Informal-If there was a student in class that wore dirty clothes or the same clothes almost everyday, one might assess that their parents cannot afford newer clothes or they may just not have a washing machine, but you could tell by looking at the whole classroom whose parents care about what their child is wearing to school everyday. Maybe I could schedule a meeting with the parents and ask if there is anything I can help with at home or suggest a program that the family may qualify for that could help with children's clothes. 

Traditional- If the children have been told at the end of each chapter there will be a math quiz, and each quiz has to be passed before you go on to the next chapter. This will measure their knowledge and skills of the material to see if they can move on to the next chapter or not.

Authentic-If I were to come up with an assignment and tell the students that they need to plan a dinner party. They would need to come up with invitations, four recipes for six people with ingredients and directions, recipes for three or twelve people with ingredients, and one recipe with ingredients for 30 people. This could be a nice introduction to fractions, teach the children recipes, and how to plan and invite people to a dinner party. I would grade the student projects on creativity and neatness and make sure that they met all the requirements in the rubric. 

Criterion-referenced- If I were to give my students a quiz on literature about chapters that they were supposed to read in the book I would find out who really read the material and who really did not read the material just by their answers. 

Norm-referenced-If I were to give my students a quiz on literature about chapters that they were supposed to read in the book I would find out who really read the material and who really did not read the material just by their answers. I would now know who the readers in the class were and who did not read at all by comparing all their answers/grades on the quiz with each others.

Paper-pencil-If I were to give my students a vocabulary quiz, I would sound out each word and have them write it down on a piece of paper. Then the students would turn their vocabulary quizzes into me,  I would grade them, then I could assess which children new how to spell which words.

Performance-If I were to assign my students to do a history presentation I would have them pick a person in history, dress up like that person, and explain in great detail their life story and their contributions to society. I could then assess which children worked really hard on the presentation and which children did not do very much research on their person by the quality and creativeness of their presentation.

Standardized- At the end of each year I would have to give my classroom a standardized test called the TCAP. This test would evaluate what each child learned that year in math, science, writing, social studies and english. This test also sometimes determines if the child fails or passes the grade for that year.

Teacher-developed- At the beginning of the year I would give my students a test on math, science, writing, social studies, and english to see what they remember from last year. This will allow me to see where each student is on a scale to see where we may need to do more work for that school year. I would give them the exact same test in the middle of the school year to see their improvements. This will allow me to, again, see exactly where each student is and see what we need to make the most room for before the school year is over. Then I would give them the exact same test one more time before the end of the year and hopefully all the students have made improvements throughout the year if I did my job right.