Collecting, analyzing, interpreting : using mathematical graphs to promote ASL and English academic language

Many new technical and mathematical jobs require that Deaf and hearing students have excellent critical thinking and interpreting skills to support them in the workplace. This curriculum sought to increase Deaf students' critical thinking, analysis, and interpreting skills through the use of mathematical graphs in the classroom while incorporating the English and American Sign Language (ASL) academic language that students need to interpret the graphs. The students spent eight days working with various types of graphs (pictographs, line plots, bar graphs, and Venn Diagrams) and learned different ways to collect data including making lists, filling out surveys, and interviewing their peers. As a culminating project they created their own graphs using the data they collected from their peers, wrote English sentences to describe the graph, and presented them in ASL to the class. An evaluation of the curriculum suggested that students experienced different types of graphs and methods of collecting data, developed the skills needed to analyze mathematical graphs from a set of data, improved their understanding of graphs in the real world, and were able to discuss their graphs in ASL and English as shown by their final project