4.3: Diversity, Cultural Understanding & Global Awareness:
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Artifact
Blog posts: Equitable Access for ALL Students – Problems and Solutions for Digital Learning The End of the Collectively Dehumanized ‘Other’ & the Rise of a Global ‘We’: Using the Internet to Promote Social and Cultural Consciousness Reflection I composed two blog posts that demonstrate my respect for supporting diverse student needs, enhancing cultural understanding, and increasing global awareness: (1) "Equitable Access for ALL Students - Problems and Solutions for Digital Learning"; and (2) "The End of the Collectively Dehumanized 'Other' & the Rise of a Global 'We': Using the Internet to Promote Social and Cultural Consciousness". The support of diverse student needs is discussed in the first blog post, and workable solutions to both the physical access problems and the cognitive access problems are discussed. Using the Internet to enhance cultural understanding and increase global awareness is discussed in the second blog post. I encourage teachers to employ techniques to help students understand themselves as part of a complex society then use literature and technology to encourage empathy and cultural appreciation locally and globally. The “Equitable Access for ALL Students – Problems and Solutions for Digital Learning” blog post models and facilitates teachers' use of digital tools and resources to support diverse student needs. In the blog post, I delineate the equitable access to hardware and to lesson content problems faced by students who have disabilities, struggle with poverty, or identify as an ethnic or racial minority. Students living in poverty, for example, are far less likely to use technology for higher-order thinking or creative purposes, and students with physical or mental disabilities often do not receive the accommodations they need to have equitable access to lesson content. To model and facilitate intentional solutions to the hardware and lesson content accessibility inequities, workable solutions are offered for increasing access at school and outside of school. At school, educators can encourage Bring-Your-Own-Device or 1-to-1 initiatives. In the absence of school technology funding or students’ families’ ability to purchase mobile devices, teachers can help parents scout local non-profits for refurbished and inexpensive or free student devices. Teachers can meet the needs of students with physical and cognitive disabilities by considering the tenets of Universal Design for Learning (CAST, 2012) when creating student learning experiences. The “The End of the Collectively Dehumanized ‘Other’ & the Rise of a Global ‘We’: Using the Internet to Promote Social and Cultural Consciousness” blog post models and facilitates teachers’ use of digital tools and resources to enhance cultural understanding and increase global awareness. The post begins with a discussion of the difficulty we all have with understanding the nuances of the lives in our own friend circles, much less across the world in places we’ve barely heard of. Students, then, need guidance and scaffolding to enhance cultural understanding and increase global awareness. In my post, I assert that teachers should begin by providing students with opportunities to self-reflect through writing prompts or guided projects, then use literature and collaborative technology to encourage empathy development and cultural appreciation that extends beyond stereotypical costumes and celebratory feasts. Relevant web resources such as NovelsonLocation.com, which provides a comprehensive interactive website for novels set in locations across the planet, and GlobalYouthDebates.com, which offers students worldwide a chance to engage in debate each semester, are linked, and lesson ideas for each resource are included. Through the research I did while developing these posts, I learned that the advent of the Internet has opened the door for educators to encourage powerful learning in all students and to significantly expand students’ perspectives. I also learned about the iceberg model of cultural appreciation and realized that much of the cultural study we do in schools today fails to breach the surface of cultural truth. To improve these artifacts, I would embed polls into each blog post. In the diversity post, I would ask readers for feedback on equitable access in their schools and communities. In the cultural appreciation post, I would as readers about their cultures and how appreciated they think their cultures are in public school curricula. The findings could substantiate my emphatic claims. I will use the resources in these posts with my students and encourage others to use as well. The Novels on Location source, for example, will become the resource students will be required to use for their choice novels. Their alternative book report assignments will include research into that location and discussion about how the book stimulated the research, a much more authentic and meaningful approach than having them write plot summaries or research the authors. The impact on student learning will be assessed through their novel project presentations, and the impact on faculty development will be determined by accounting of how many teachers adopt the strategy. References CAST. (2012). About UDL: Learn the basics. National Center on Universal Design for Learning. Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl. |