Education: Diverse Learners - Coursework Example

Education: Diverse Learners Introduction Schools systems in recent years have been founded keeping in mind that they have to accommodate all people, regardless of their background. In line with that, when the systems are put in place, every student regardless of their culture, special needs or social background is entitled to quality education to be productive citizens later on. It is because of this that educators must be able to extend their vision similar to that of teaching a global citizen’s class. Education is opportunities for students to look beyond social, economic, physical or cultural barriers and enable them pursue their dreams. Ideally, the perfect place for the students to embrace cultural differences, eliminate racism and sexism or prejudice is their diverse classrooms. Therefore if the educators want to educate, they must be sensitive to their students’ cultures. This is only possible if the educators learn to create a culturally sensitive, develop teacher- student- parent relationship and provide lessons designed to motivate all students to learn. Classroom Diversity. Taking an example from the US, about 25% of the population there is non-European (Tomkins 2005). With the Influx of migrants together with the increased birthrates of the Hispanic and Asian populations have grown by almost 20%, with the African American population increasing by about 12%. There is also a fact that about 40million citizens move each year causing a reduction to class room population change between fall and spring. Because of such facts, more culture are brought in schools and more foreign language is also being spoken more than ever before (Rasmussen 1988). Most classrooms also have students with documented intellectual, physical or emotional challenges. It is important that such students are educated in the least restrictive environments according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Managing Classroom Diversity In this report, I would like to discuss the four forms of diversity and how to strategically manage them as an educator. 1. Teaching Students with Disabilities Students with disabilities have a harder time learning and socializing than the able students. These students sometimes are withdrawn and not contributing in the classroom exercises simply because they don’t think they are as perfect as the rest of the students. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the teacher to be able to strategize the classroom interactions so as to be inclusive of these students. By doing this, the teacher is going to understand the needs of these students and make them better learners in future (Friend & Bursuck,2009). It is a requirement to write an individual education plan (IEP) for every student with disabilities according to Public Law 94-142. The IEP describes the students’ abilities, development levels, social/ emotional needs and the behavioral/academic expectations. In addition to that, they also identify required models and accommodations for these students. Using this information, the teachers are required to formulate instructions and their delivery of information to the understanding of the students with special needs. This is by creating outlines, concept marks and other visual aids for those students who have a hard time processing complex instructions (Friend & Bursuck,2009). Teachers can record step-by-step instructions to the students struggling in science labs and while incorporating the traditional lab approach to educate these students. In arts classes, teachers can use the optical readers to share education with the challenged readers. There are also those students who have difficulties recording stories or have scribes. The educator can encourage the use of the multiple language system. There are challenges in every other educational unit and the educator should use the necessary appropriate method to teach the student. Other forms of lesson modification include the, the individualized instructions modified, modified work sheet assignment and many others. Use of assistive technology like braille, TTY telephones, voice activated software and also motorized wheel chair are encouraged to those students that cannot participate in the learning process without them. 2. Culture, linguistic, family background Language, linguistics and culture’s effect to the students learning cannot be ignored. To begin with, the different cultures have different norms. The students that have been brought up in different cultures have had different forms of exposure. Use of different facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures and personal space is different in different cultures. The family background is another area of consideration when educating. In line with this, the educator should understand that the students from the poor background have challenges that the children from the middle class or rich have no idea of. These challenges include the low self-esteem and hard time fitting in (Salend, 2005). Different environment when growing up leads to the students to have different linguistics. The pronunciation of words from an Asian is different from that of an American. Therefore, the student might not be confidence contributing in classrooms for fear of not being linguistically at par with the rest. The educator has to keep in mind that the students being educated have these form of challenges and therefore find the necessary methods of including these students in the lessons. Therefore, when dealing with these students and also parents from other cultures, the educator must try to be aware of their non-verbal cues and automatic responses so as not to send the wrong signal/message to the student or parent. It is also important to have a positive mind when facing the challenges and be prepared to adopt different approaches to students or parents of the different cultures. 3. ELL’s (listening, speaking, reading, writing skills) Different students have different abilities. This abilities in reading, speaking, listening and writing skills range from student to student. When in classrooms, there are students who are confident and good in public speaking while others are not. Some students can be able to write logical narrations and even articles and not able to speak in public. More so, other students can read fluently in class as others struggle (Salend, 2005). The educator must keep in mind the issues and be able to address each students by encouraging his places of mastery while also taking into consideration the places of weakness. When approaching a student with poor reading skills, the educator is encouraged to give him/her personalized assignment to read out loud for themselves. This should be the same to students with poor writing skill (Salend, 2005). By boosting the confidence of the poor public speakers, and encouragements, the student is able to learn in due time. This requires identification of the areas of weakness and personally dealing with them not as a classroom but as an individual student. Conclusion: According to Harry Wong, first days of school. An educator must be able to educate his students effectively. For an educator to do be successful in educating the students, he/she must be able to have an accommodation plan. This way when teaching, there will be a surety that the students are progressing well in the education. A good accommodation plan should include all the following facts below: A classroom management plan sample: Challenges Questions: Accommodation Suggestion for instructions Student has difficulty reading words Does the student have difficulty in producing complex sounds? Does the student have a difficulty in reading words? Provide tape recorder. Use video tape or movies Use assistive technology Reduce amount of required reading Teach phonemic awareness skills Teach word reading strategies Students have poor reading fluency Does the student read with prosody (inflection)? Does the student have adequate reading speed? Reread the same text multiple times Pair good and poor readers for activities Let the student use books written slightly below their reading level Model appropriate reading speed and prosody Provide multiple interactions with the same text Encourage repeated readings using motivating and interesting activities Students have trouble with fine motor control and handwriting. Does the student have large handwriting that doesn’t stay within the lines? Does the student have small, cramped handwriting? Is the student’s handwriting legible? Let the student write directly in the workbook or on a copy of the workbook page Provide an outline where students have less to write Reduce the amount of written work Consider a referral for Occupational Therapy service Teach handwriting skills to improve legibility, fluency, or letter retrieval Teach handwriting skills both separately and within writing assignment According to Harry Wong, “One of the greatest gifts a caring teacher can contribute to children is to help them learn to sit when they feel like running, to raise their hand when they feel like talking, to be polite to their neighbor, to stand in line without pushing, and to do their homework when they feel like playing (Wong 2009).” Therefore this should be the dream of all the educators in class. Reference: Cartledge, G., Gardner III, R., & Ford, D.Y. (2009). Diverse Learners with Exceptionalities: Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Inclusive Classroom. Upper Saddle, NJ. Pearson Education, Inc. McPartland, J.M., & Nettles, S.M. (1991). Using community adults as advocates or mentors for at-risk middle school students: A two year evaluation of project RAISE. American Journal of Education, 99 (4), 568-586. Rasmussen, L. (1988). Migrant students at the secondary level: Issues and opportunities for change. Las Cruces, NM: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service Number: ED 296 814). Salend, S.J. (2005). Creating inclusive classrooms. (5th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc. Friend, M., & Bursuck, W.D. (2009). Including Students with Special Needs: A Practical Guide for Classroom Teachers. (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc. Harry K. Wong & Rosemary T. Wong (2009). The First days of School, How to Be an Effective Teacher (4th ed.). Mountain View: Harry K. Wong Publications, Inc. Read More