Teaching Diversity

I am posting an article that talks about confronting diversity in your classroom. It focuses on keeping the parents involved and talking to them about the differences to help you understand why the child may do something a certain way. It has some really good tips and is helpful. I liked how it focused on early childhood too.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/teaching-diversity-place-begin-0

Fun website for ESL students

I found this website a little while ago, but I thought it was a really good tool for teachers to have. This website just has a lot of games, printable worksheets and videos for your students who are just learning english. They even have flash cards you can print to help your students study different words. I really think this website could be an asset to your students.

Language Barriers

In this article, Sandra McNally discusses the language barriers in classrooms in England. I find it interesting to compare these language barriers with the ones here in the U.S. I am very interested in how to overcome language barriers, especially as I head to India for my internship this summer. Don't worry, the article is short! Enjoy!

Physical Impairment

In this article I learned how to meet the needs of a blind student in my classroom. I have a blind student that is in one of my classes. Everyday I am just amazed at what she can do, and how she handles things she couldn't do. I know she has to be tired of me asking her questions everyday about how she does things. She made me want to learn more about how to handle a blind student in my classroom. This article was very helpful and just gave me a couple ideas of what I could do to assist my student but still hold her accountable like my other students.

Teaching in a Diverse Classroom

A classroom can be diverse in several different ways, not just culturally, but also by ability (high vs. low ability), and special needs such as physical impairments.  Focusing first on cultural diversity, according to our textbook right now US schools are serving more than 14 million children who come from households in which English is not the primary language.  This accounts for so many children now, and that number is only supposed to increase.  As future educators I really think we need to welcome cultural diversity into our classrooms, not only to benefit those students of minority by making them feel more comfortable, but to also educate those of the majority.  A sad fact that personally I can say I have experienced is that teachers tend to have lower expectations for language minority students or English language learners in their classroom.  This is just a natural assumption I made when cadet teaching in a third grade classroom.  I assumed that one of the boys in the class, who spoke what seemed like only Spanish, would struggle with reading books, but low and behold he was one of the best readers in the class!  As teachers we need to avoid making assumptions just based off a child's cultural background.  I really like a few of the tips the textbook gave about assisting English language learners in a classroom such as including a variety of books from the students' native language and translations of these books in a classroom.  I think this along with showing similarities between English and Spanish (for example) words would really help with literacy development for ELL students.  Although there are several approaches to bilingual education, as we know even with non-bilingual students, there is not one perfect method of instruction for all students.  So it is important that we get to know our students to discover what type of bilingual education is going to be best for them.  

As I mentioned before there will be diversity in our classrooms that has to do with high ability (gifted & talented) and low ability (may have learning disability) students.  Differentiating assignments to make them more challenging for high ability students will accommodate their special talents.  As for students who may have a learning disability it is important that as teachers we recognize this and modify assignments and class procedures.  Special needs such as physical impairments can create a diverse classroom environment as well.  Examples of physically impaired students include visually, hearing, or mobility impaired.  Personally all throughout elementary school I always seemed to share class with one or more of these students, and I just found it so interesting how they could keep up with the class despite their impairment.  I think it is so important that as future educators we know how to modify our instruction for this form of diversity in our class.  My Aunt is a Kindergarten teacher and one year I went into her classroom and saw that she had a student who had under developed hands, she could not even hold a pencil to write.  But she still kept up with the class because my Aunt had modified all of her assignments so that this student could complete them as well.  I also believe that communicating with parents would be a great way to start modifying a lesson for a student who has special needs.  Parents would be able to give insight on what a child can and cannot do and what would be best for them.  

So far in my college career I have been told over and over that I will need to differentiate instruction in my classroom so that I can accommodate for Gardner's multiple intelligences and for all of this diversity that will be prevalent in my future classroom.  This would include modifying assignments for high and low ability students, working with ELL students, and modifying instruction for any students with special needs.  Anytime I think about this I always have this fear that I may not have the materials or enough time in the day to meet every individual's need in my future classroom.  Does anyone else have this same fear?

Diversity Inside and Out

When looking at a typical classroom today there are many forms of diversity. You might see a child that doesn't speak English, a child that excels in their classwork, or even a child with a physical disability. Knowing that these differences in learning are present in the classroom every teacher needs to be ready to accommodate for all the children's needs based on their abilities. One statistic that stood out to me early in the chapter was, "It is projected that by 2030, 40 percent of the school age population in the United States will be English language learners". That is only 15 years from now so no matter what us as teachers need to start preparing for any sort of diversity.

As teachers we need to realize that diversity is never a bad thing. Diversity, no matter what form it's in makes a child who they are and they should never be made to feel that it is anything different than that. Students are often taught to push their uniqueness aside and act and talk a certain way to make it 'easier' on the teacher to teach the children. When that happens children become 'outsiders' because of lack of understanding or inability, their boredom or disruption, or even their sadness because of their ethnic or language differences. In the text they suggested different activities and strategies that could help students with their learning differences. Some of the examples were working in groups and assigning a more advanced student to a struggling student to add more assistance. A quote from the text that I love was, "Differences do NOT mean deficits". It is our job to help the students achieve greatness in every way in the way that they understand and are able to do.

When I was a Cadet Teacher in high school I assisted in a fourth grade classroom. In that classroom there were students that had different learning disabilities and required more instruction and assistance than some of the other children. Part of my job was to take them aside and give them some of the extra help that they needed. When I wasn't there some other students were assigned to the struggling students and were sat next to them to help incase the teacher was busy during work time. One activity that was mentioned in the book that she also used was a math group with four students in it; one was an exceptional math student, two were moderate level math students, and the last one was a student that struggled with math. In these group the students were able to work together, help each other, and at the same time provide the one student with something extra to do while helping the struggling student.

Ethic and language differences can also be helped through acceptance of the teacher. Children can see how the teacher treats certain students and if you are excluding them or even just treating them as if they are incompetent the other students will pick up on that and treat them the same. As the text suggested that you can have them play teacher for the day and teach the other students about their culture and/or language to make them aware of how awesome differences can be. When also looking at physical disabilities students need to be accommodated but also accepted. No matter what the difference we need to embrace them and help the students succeed. For my conclusion I have a question. How would you as teachers approach diversity and how would you make them feel comfortable in your classroom?

Diversity in The Classroom

     While reading this chapter, the section that really stood out to me talked about diversity in the classroom. There is a statistic at the beginning of the chapter that states that there are over 400 different languages spoken in the United States. This shocked me because I did not know there were that many languages. It also says that Spanish is the most widespread, that part did not surprise me at all. In this same section the book also states that if English is not a child's first language, then the child is less likely to be as successful as a native English speaker. Lack of acceptance and inclusion of students home culture in school is one of the reasons for this gap.
      Cultural diversity is something that must be welcomed into classrooms. I agree with the book that every child has the right to be respected and to receive a quality educational experience. I also agree that by doing this, it will enhance the students self-images. "Differences should be the norm rather than the exception." I really love this quote from the book because I agree with it completely. Teachers need to show interest in their students' native languages. At the beginning of the book it says that it is predicted that by 2030, 40% of school-age population in the United States will be English language learners. For this reason, I agree with the book when it says that teachers need to try and learn at least a few key phrases on each of the languages represented in their classroom. If you know at least some of their language, it will be easier to communicate especially when they are just starting to learn English. I also think that it will show that you care about their cultural heritage and value their native language, which is very crucial.
     

The Gifted, The At Risk, and Early Intervention

After reading chapter three in our textbook, I feel that it is important to discuss the topic of gifted and talented students, as well as at risk students and early intervention. In our book it is stated that before the 1980s a lot of focus was on gifted and talented students and providing adequate services for them but as the need to provide services for children that were struggling became evident the services for gifted students kind of dwindled. All throughout elementary, middle, and high school I was considered a gifted and talented student. Now I am by no means the smartest person but I did get to benefit from these services that our textbook slightly touched on. I believe that serving the gifted and talented is just as important as serving any child that is exceptional even though some people do not believe this statement. Last semester, I took a course about teaching special education students in the general education classroom and we talked about gifted and talented students, I even did a presentation on these types of students and found that many gifted and talented students that do not have programs in their schools drop out and live below the poverty line even though they have the mental capacity to live way above. With that being stated, what do you believe should be done about gifted and talented programs and/or students?

As I read I also thought about an interview that I watched in another class. This interview was a debate on a talk show about standardized testing, two of the guests were for standardized testing and the other two guests were against it. During the debate, discussion about children at risk came into play especially when it came to income. The host made a great point in saying that a lot of children that are at risk have the possibility of being exceptional or are exceptional but simply do not perform well in school because it is not made of importance at home and they are not taught how to perform well in school by their families. I was a considered a student at risk because my parents are from Africa, when I was growing up my family was considered low income, and my parents native language was not English. Luckily, I was able to receive early intervention in the form of Head Start and I was not only able to keep from falling behind but I surpassed a lot of my classmates. With that being stated, what do you think about the fact that funding for early intervention programs like Head Start are being cut? Is early intervention important? Is there another way to make early intervention available?

Diversity in the Classroom

In today's society we are seeing more and more diversity in the classroom, whether that is culturally, religiously, or children with special needs. As future educators, we need to recognize these differences among our students and use them as a learning experiences and benefit from the world of diversity. Students that come from a different culture or even speak another language may think that being different from everyone else is negative. As educators, how do we address this situation without pointing out the specific student and making them feel uncomfortable?

Students that do not speak English as their first language are less likely to succeed versus a student who is well-rounded in English. Yes, English may be a the primary language that most people around us speak but what if one of our students speaks a whole different language and it is difficult for them to understand English? How can we as teachers help them excel in their academics just like the other students who speak English?

We do not want to disregard the diversity we have in out classroom but we still want to be sensitive toward the students culture and language differences. But before we try to incorporate the differences in our students, we need to be educated and have a well-rounded knowledge of the different cultures, languages, and learning disabilities. We also need to accommodate to those students needs in the classroom. The book gave us multiple ways to adapt to the differences in our students but also educate the other students on the diversity in the world. Things such as teaching the students a new language, having books written in another language, and learning out different cultures around the world. As I was was reading this chapter, it reminded me of a way I saw a 2nd grade teacher incorporate diversity into her classroom.

I observed a 2nd grade teacher in high school and she did a very good job in the way she incorporated diversity in her classroom. Every Friday, the students would get the take a "field trip" to a different part of the world. Each students had their own passport and every week they would travel to a different country. They would "board the plane" and use Google Earth to travel to the specific country. Once they arrived at the specific country, they would do activities related to that culture. For example when they went to China, they learned about the Chinese calendar, made Chinese dragons out of construction paper, and even learned how to write their name on Chinese. When they went to Africa, the students learned an African dance and made an African necklace out of beads. The students always looked forward to traveling to another country on Friday. Students were able to learn about different cultures and see how everyone is different. This brought about diversity in the classroom in an interactive and positive way. What are some other ways you can incorporate diversity in your everyday classroom?

Standardized Testing Problems

I really enjoyed reading a study I found on Partnerships for Smarter Schools.org.  It discussed the negatives of standardized testing and practically put my exact thoughts into words. I am against the huge emphasis we place on standardized tests in education today, and like our book states, I think "major decisions are being made from the result of one test score," and they shouldn't be. The piece that I found online goes into depth about why standardized tests currently exist, and it does a great job of drawing attention to counter-arguments that people may have about standardized testing. This piece is very opinionated toward one side, but I like how it addresses any unbiased person's questions. It states common questions people have about these extremely "important" tests. My favorite part of the piece though, is it's explanation of how these tests don't actually access students on what they should be examined on. Standardized tests are more about being the best test-taker or knowing the best strategies for big tests, and that's wrong. For something that is so important for students of all ages to do well on, the way it's being done is ridiculous.

Standardized Testing: The Problem with America's Education System

According to this video, standardized testing is the only problem with America’s Education System. In this video you can find different opinions from Ken Robins who is known to be an expert in education and Alfie Kohn an author in education and parenting. Some of the “facts” stated in this video include, Standardized testing measures superficial thinking.” Another fact includes, “ Sacrificing programs for test prep.”  I believe this video has some good thoughts but I do not think that standardized testing is the only problem with America’s Education System. Standardized testing is not all bad. Our book talks about how parents like the concrete information the test gives and it is still a formal type of assessment. So, even though this video states some good facts, there are more factors hurting our education system than simply standardized tests. What do you all think?

Ch. 2 online resource

This resource gives a good definition of what assessment is and how to go about it with children. It also sheds light on how teaching and assessments are interconnected. In the article, there were “steps” on what “principles should be considered in designing an assessment program.” I found these principles extremely helpful because I thought of them as one big checklist that we could use in our classrooms. The article also defined some of our vocabulary words from chapter 2: words such as standardized testing, anecdotal, and portfolio. Ideas for assessments were given along with an explanation for each one. The conclusion of the article (How Assessment Benefits Young Children), in my opinion, covered all of the bases- from teachers needing to know and understand their students to helping them become “lifelong literacy learners.” I loved this source and I hope each one of you do too! Enjoy :)

Standardized Tests Failing Students?

This article asks if standardized testing is doing more harm than good. It takes a look at both sides of the argument. It also talks about performance based assessment. Which do you think is the best? Or is there merit in both?

Authentic Assessment

This article is based on authentic intellectual work in social studies. I think that it helps us understand what authentic assessment really is. I like how it provided an outline of four basic principles of authentic assessment for us to follow and keep in mind. They want students to apply their knowledge instead of just simply answering multiple-choice questions. I think that this article does a nice job of explaining authentic assessment step by step and helps us really understand because sometimes reading a definition in a book isn’t enough. 

Assessment in Early Literacy

Most educators and future educators agree that standardized testing is ineffective and is part of the reason that authentic learning experiences are lacking from most schools in America. One thing that stuck out to me was how inaccurate some standardized test results can be. I know of how much anxiety and the biases of these tests but I always assumed they were providing pertinent and accurate information. On page 46 of the text book it says, “ One child might pass all portions of a standardized test, and still isn’t ready to read. Another child might not pass any portion of the test, but is already reading.”(Morrow, 2005) This makes me really wonder why so much is based on standardized testing. The high stakes of these tests can cause anxiety in students and teachers alike. Yet even if the students are prepared their relative scores may not give an accurate depiction of their skills. With so much relying on standardized testing and with the potential of such inaccurate results gives me a better understanding of teachers that teach to the test instead of trying to provide authentic learning opportunities.

            This chapter presented many different types of assessments that are at the disposal of teachers. One that really caught my attention and one that I would like to implement in my future classroom is the student evaluation method. I think that giving students time to reflect on what they have learned that day and having them write out in their own words what they discovered will give great insight on the depth of their understanding. As well as helps solidify what they have learned that day in to long-term memory. I think that student interest should be included when literacy is being taught. A teacher could use the survey or interview method to determine a student’s interest in certain topics or books. Using this information the teacher could make better selections that the students will want to read. This text does a very good job on highlighting the importance of using multiple methods to get an accurate understanding of each student’s strengths and weakness to be able to fully utilize instructional strategies. I have witnessed a kindergarten teacher playing a recording of one students reading and taking a running record of it without the students present because she knew this student got nervous reading to the teacher. Knowing our future students this well will better help us assess their strengths and weaknesses and plan to improve each student’s literacy skills. Has anyone else observed one of these assessment methods utilized in a classroom setting?

Authentic Assessment

Hey friends!  I hope everyone is having a great weekend.  The focus of my blog is about authentic assessment.  Luckily for me I have a retired fourth grade teacher for a Grammy.  She was also a graduate of Ball State with a focus in reading.  I had her read the part of the chapter about authentic assessment to get her opinion.  Her opinion goes like this: She personally believed that it is unrealistic and wouldn’t work in a modern day classroom.  Ideally this strategy will be perfect, but realistically classrooms are become larger and students have more physical, mental, and emotional problems and to leave them alone in centers might be unrealistic.  The teacher to student ratio is not ideal.  She sees the benefits of authentic assessment.  Throughout the years she was teaching she had created a checklist that is easier to just check off then she could go add notes to it later.  She thinks that creating a system like that is just being a good teacher.  She doesn’t think that the checklist or process that you go through needs to be done everyday.  Grammy states “kids don’t need the additional pressure of having the teacher constantly making notes about the work they are doing.  It is a teacher’s responsibility to be making mental notes on what their students are doing.”  She also wouldn’t want to do it in a group because students who have a reading issue would feel badly about themselves because students do know when they are bad readers.   If she grouped them by ability she would do a group assessment with better readers.  Although she saw many negatives to some of the authentic assessments she liked that you could give the students instant feedback with the authentic assessment.  The ‘listen to my voice’ example really struck her heart.  The idea that she is a firm believer of is that the top students with succeed no matter what setting they are in and that the kids that have an IEP with end up succeeding as well because they do get the extra help, it is the students in the middle that teachers really need focus on when it specifically comes to reading.   In the end, she believes that the teacher has to do what is best for the teacher and the students.  She also wanted me to say that her entire opinion on this topic is based on a reading program, not the other subjects.  I personally believe everything that she has said about it is true.   As future teachers I feel most of us idealize what our classroom is going to be like and we are probably wrong.  We won’t have 15-20 students, we will probably have 20-30; we won’t get all of the aids and help that we need.  It’s a hard thing to imagine, but we know that it is most likely going to be that way when we start teaching. Most classrooms have too many students in them these days and yes, individualized lesson plans are ideal but it is very hard to do that.  Lets say we are just working with one student on their reading checklist, what are the other 20 students in the classroom doing? Busy work? I know I don’t want my other students doing busy work.  It is finding the balance in the classroom on what type of assessment is best for you, your students and what your school requires.  I really would like opinions and questions on what my Grammy had to say about assessment and what you think would work best in your future classroom.

Thoughts on Assessment Strategies, Academic Standards, and Standardized Testing

I am going to start by evaluating the various assessment methods that are used in the classroom. Then, I will talk about my opinions regarding standardized tests and the academic standards.

Authentic assessment is an extremely important element of the elementary literacy classroom. Students need to be assessed on their reading progress in order to drive instruction. The best way to do this is by having multiple different types of assessments that show what a student knows. Since reading is a complex skill, it makes sense that it would take a lot of different types off assessments to track progress in the many literacy skills that must be learned. Out of the types of assessment in the chapter, I have determined that I am most interested in audio recordings, video, conferences, running records, and informal inventories. While all of the assessments suggested could work in the classroom, I think the ones I listed above could lead to the deepest insight on a child’s reading skills. Recordings and video could expose issues and strengths that could have been overlooked during the assessment. Why just write down a few notes for each student when you could have an archive of entire assessments that you can pick apart and look up at any time? With these things I could write down initial notes, and then take more notes when I watch or listen to the recording. I could also use these recordings to help explain things to students, parents, and principals.  Conferences are a useful tool because you can get to know students, and start to develop a working relationship and a plan for improvement. I wish my teachers met with me individually more often. I think both parties learn a lot, and children in particular get to know their teacher cares about them and their success. I think running records are a great way to find out what the reading levels are for students, and informal inventories seem like a great way to track student comprehension levels. I especially like the documentation that each of these methods provide.

I believe that academic standards are completely necessary tools in classrooms. They hold teachers and students to expectations, and they give a timeline for mastery. The school system needs standards that each individual grade works towards. It provides uniformity in the system, it allows students and teachers to move from place to place with standards being similar across schools, and most importantly it ensures every school is giving students a quality education.

I think it would be great to have standardized tests if the tests themselves did a better job of measuring what a child knows about a given subject. A lot of research has been done, and it shows that the current testing system discriminates and doesn’t provide a complete accurate measure of student progress. This is unacceptable. If we are going to use these tests as the backbone of measuring the quality of schools and teacher, they should be done differently. Politicians want to hold schools accountable for their success and failures, so why can’t they test schools in more appropriate and research based ways?