Diversity

My school, for a private school, has students with a wide range of Socio-Economic standards who come from many areas in the city and surrounding counties. We have students whose families are in a position to give enormous donations to fund raising campaigns and some with many close family members who are in jail, and are able to pay fees due to school grants and non-profits around the city. It makes for an interesting mix that is a real selling point to many. Of course it comes with its own challenges! There is a fledgling operation where we have about a half dozen Chinese students who attend our school and stay with host families during the year. These students have wide levels of English and ability too.  It all makes for an interesting mix.  

3 of my five classes are middle stream Freshmen students where I get a good range from motivated to lazy, well off to struggling financially, but bar one students there is no real issue with English. My one student is a recent immigrant and his language is giving difficulty in the class room. I believe that he should be treated as all other students but with some accommodations to help him catch up. I tend to give the students copies of my powerpoints but when I have students working taking writing notes or assignments I try to make sure that I spend time with him or put him in a handpicked group so there is support for him.  I give him the vocabulary up front for new chapters and he can check to see what the words are in his native tongue in order to be prepared. I have emailed his parents to try and involve them but they are unresponsive. I understand they have limited English too.

With this student, and all my others, I think it is important to expect high standards and to treat them all in the same way. Whenever in a PD session, or at the beginning of this course when we spoke about teachers we liked and respected, Fairness is always a common theme and I try to exhibit that in class. These two points are tenets of culturally responsive teaching, and set the tone for the classroom (Snowman & McCown, 2015).

UDL is based on 3 principles; multiple representation, multiple actions or expressions, and multiple means of engagement. The teacher is supposed to teach in a broad fashion so that students are presented with the information in as many forms as possible. Then students are allowed to interact with materials and then express what they have learned in multiple modes. This is to ensure that the diverse learners in your classroom are given lessons in the way they like to learn (CAST, 2010). As mentioned I use and provide students with the powerpoints which I have prepared from the book. Students also have an eBook which we use for reference, questions and often when I have the students read and prepare notes. I also use online videos which, using a clever program, students watch at home and answer questions on. The software compiles a spreadsheet of information on how long the students took and how many questions they got correct. I also use projects and experiments where possible to make sure that students are using their hands and thinking about how to correctly collect, tabulate and disseminate data. This allows for creativity in the forms of assessment beyond essays and multiple choice questions. 

My classroom is far from perfect and there certainly are areas I need to improve on. I need more projects and I think I should find a way to incorporate more Portfolio work also. I think the benefits of that are easy to see. Tests are isolated and when content changes so much it can be difficult to get students to reflect, and attribute scores to the content or process. I think with portfolios it is easier to review and show an overall (if not constant) improvement, with the addition of new skills and knowledge. This tangible proof could be a real motivator for some students, especially those with a low self-esteem.

As always, it’s a work in progress…

Thanks

 

References

CAST (2010). UDL At A Glance. Retrieved from  https://youtu.be/bDvKnY0g6e4

McCown, R. & Snowman, J. (2015). Psychology Applied to Teaching (14th ed.). Stamford,

Connecticut: Cengage Learning

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset; The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books