4.3 Diversity, Cultural Understanding & Global Awareness
|
|
Candidates model and facilitate the use of digital tools and resources to support diverse student needs, enhance cultural understanding, and increase global awareness. (PSC 4.3/ISTE 5c)
Meeting the diverse needs of each individual learner based on their learning style, IEP, 504, pre-assessment knowledge, or whatever other accommodations the student has is difficult to implement, while enhancing cultural understandings, especially in larger class size settings, simply put, is challenging. While all of this is occurring, increasing the student’s global awareness also is expected. Just going through one’s day is not good enough to achieve all of these expectations so a school, a grade level and content level, and the teacher him or herself needs to have a plan of action to meet this achievable expectation.
During my time working with English Language Learners (L), I was able to create a google sheets document that translated Spanish written in one cell to English in another cell. It really was useful when students had difficulties with a word while trying to find its English counterpart. It helped the students better express their thoughts on paper as they were allowed to use this tool as a thesaurus translator. I was also asked by another teacher to create app for students with disabilities. The app consisted of pictures of everyday tasks and when the correct picture was tapped upon, a celebration picture appeared. It was used on the school iPads as an in house solution to these students’ specifically diverse needs.
By utilizing blogs in the classroom setting, my students were encouraged to share their experiences and ask others questions about their specific culture’s holidays, customs, and traditions. The students were shocked to find out that the students in the same room as themselves also have different religions, cultural experiences, and that those differences are not all that different from their own. This lead into a larger scale of investigation of a global proportion as the blogging morphed into a research like task to find other schools websites in other countries. They then contact teachers in that school through school email and asked them questions. The level of cultural understanding that was obtained directly from other places in the world led students to a deeper understanding of other world cultures. Some received responses, some did not which provided a perfect example of the real world!
During my time as a teacher teaching eighth grade Georgia Studies, I try to relate the past to the future as much as possible. I also try to relate Georgia to the rest of the world. Georgia’s triumphs and tribulations are not special to Georgia, as they happen in not only every state, but are very similar to everywhere in the world. Money drives all decisions (for the most part). My students took their knowledge of Georgia’s past and were able to link it to other countries’ pasts and present times. This was made possible by utilizing the digital tools and resources (social media, internet, email…) which undoubtedly increased the students’ global awareness.
I learned that we take for granted the people around us, each and every day. Many of the people that share the same learning space can provide a deeper understanding and learning opportunities if we tap into each other and learn more about one another. What I would do differently would be to better understand each of my student’s background, ethnicity, and diversity to help make the classroom more of a multi-cultural learning experience. This will be a challenge for me as we do not have that much diversity in terms of a global experience, but I can try.
The work that went into creating the artifact (ITEC 7430 blog post on diversity and global learning) can impact the individual, classroom, and school by opening the student’s world beyond rural Georgia. The world is a big place to explore, and it is my responsibility to provide opportunities for them to see it, even if it is digitally. This can be assessed through conversations of different cultures and dare I say it, acceptance.
During my time working with English Language Learners (L), I was able to create a google sheets document that translated Spanish written in one cell to English in another cell. It really was useful when students had difficulties with a word while trying to find its English counterpart. It helped the students better express their thoughts on paper as they were allowed to use this tool as a thesaurus translator. I was also asked by another teacher to create app for students with disabilities. The app consisted of pictures of everyday tasks and when the correct picture was tapped upon, a celebration picture appeared. It was used on the school iPads as an in house solution to these students’ specifically diverse needs.
By utilizing blogs in the classroom setting, my students were encouraged to share their experiences and ask others questions about their specific culture’s holidays, customs, and traditions. The students were shocked to find out that the students in the same room as themselves also have different religions, cultural experiences, and that those differences are not all that different from their own. This lead into a larger scale of investigation of a global proportion as the blogging morphed into a research like task to find other schools websites in other countries. They then contact teachers in that school through school email and asked them questions. The level of cultural understanding that was obtained directly from other places in the world led students to a deeper understanding of other world cultures. Some received responses, some did not which provided a perfect example of the real world!
During my time as a teacher teaching eighth grade Georgia Studies, I try to relate the past to the future as much as possible. I also try to relate Georgia to the rest of the world. Georgia’s triumphs and tribulations are not special to Georgia, as they happen in not only every state, but are very similar to everywhere in the world. Money drives all decisions (for the most part). My students took their knowledge of Georgia’s past and were able to link it to other countries’ pasts and present times. This was made possible by utilizing the digital tools and resources (social media, internet, email…) which undoubtedly increased the students’ global awareness.
I learned that we take for granted the people around us, each and every day. Many of the people that share the same learning space can provide a deeper understanding and learning opportunities if we tap into each other and learn more about one another. What I would do differently would be to better understand each of my student’s background, ethnicity, and diversity to help make the classroom more of a multi-cultural learning experience. This will be a challenge for me as we do not have that much diversity in terms of a global experience, but I can try.
The work that went into creating the artifact (ITEC 7430 blog post on diversity and global learning) can impact the individual, classroom, and school by opening the student’s world beyond rural Georgia. The world is a big place to explore, and it is my responsibility to provide opportunities for them to see it, even if it is digitally. This can be assessed through conversations of different cultures and dare I say it, acceptance.