Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Week 1: Diversity in school
The two articles that we read this week allowed me to become more knowledgeable of specific teaching strategies that can be used to adapt and adjust instruction to better educate students. The first article, Using Flexible Technology to Meet the Needs of Diverse Learners: What Teachers Can Do by Lisa Wahl and Julie Duffield investigated the use of technology integration into the classroom to better assist students with disabilities. The strategies shared throughout the article give students access to technology advancements that can enhance their learning ability in the areas in which they can improve upon. The second article, Chapter 2 of Diverse Teaching Strategies of Diverse Learners by Marietta Saravia-Shore shares strategies that teachers can utilize on a daily basis to reach out to their diverse learners. Through the utilization of these strategize one can further strengthen their relationship with students and allow them to strengthen both their academic and social abilities.
One use of technology I would like to discuss is talking text. As discussed by Wahl and Duffield this type of text to speech functionality can assist a variety of students. Working in a classroom that contains students with severe and multiple disabilities, I see students utilizing pieces of assistive technology to communicate on a daily basis. Additionally, students who have difficulty with comprehension, students who are at a low reading level or even those who enjoy listening to a book can expand their abilities through this assistive technology. As a person who works in this environment in a daily basis, I can safely say that through the use of assistive technology students confidence in their to complete a task is greatly increased.
Not only can talking text be a useful tool to help those who have reading comprehension difficulties or struggle at communicating, but it can also help those who will profit from the reinforcement of both print and oral language such English Language Learners. As laid out in the article, Teaching Diverse Learners, Equity and Excellence for All: Oral Language “Many ELLs go through a “silent period,” during which they listen and observe more than they speak. Effective teachers are aware that ELLs who are quiet in class may be hard at work listening and comprehending. ELLs may take longer to answer a question or volunteer a comment because they need more time to process the meaning and to formulate an appropriate response. Effective teachers monitor students’ listening comprehension.” (p. 1) As educators we must take into consideration our students background and culture to successfully engage them in everyday learning allowing them to be successful. This often is a time consuming process to become successful but in the end can be greatly beneficial to both student and teacher alike.
Many great tools exist on the internet to help bridge the communication gap for students with disabilities and ELL’s. Educators need to take the time to get to know their students and select tools that will benefit students in their quest of communication.
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Dale,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the post. I liked how you brought in your experience and tied it to the readings. It sounds like you are getting some good experience. Where are you working? I also liked how you brought in another area ELL to the talking text technology. Finally, I liked how you put the ownership of all of this on the teacher. It is not one size fits all, but rather the teacher has to do see what is going to work best for each individual student.
Joe- I work for Monroe #1 BOCES in their District Based program at Webster Schroeder High School in a 12:1:4 classroom for students with severe and multiple disabilities.
DeleteAs a child I grew up in a bilingual household speaking both English and Thai. I attended a small private school for elementary that either did not appreciate the importance of having the ability to speak two languages, or simply was not equipped or educated enough to deal with such children. Often times I felt my language, heritage, and culture were being minimized or ignored, and I frequently felt ashamed because I was "different." I did not do very well in elementary or middle school and sat quietly during instructional time. Eventually I realized that Thai was not welcome in school and as I stopped speaking it in the classroom I slowly stopped speaking it at home. Now as an adult I have lost the majority of my ability to communicate in Thai and have very little expressive language, although my receptive language is still there in bits and pieces. I regret losing out on an entire language and know that if my school, teachers, and friends had been more supportive of my language and culture I may have had a much different experience in elementary and middle school. Luckily in high school I had some amazing teachers and was able to turn my disdain for school around and become a successful student, and now a teacher. I like how you talked about the importance of “taking into consideration our students background and culture to successfully engage them in everyday learning.” I can say first hand that this is true; I was not engaged in school because I felt devalued. Validating a child’s culture or language can make a difference in their engagement level, for instance when I was seven I was in Wegmans with my grandmother and an employee was giving out free samples of shrimp from Thailand. I became so excited that Wegmans had “Thai shrimp” that I bought a bag even though I don’t even eat seafood. Wegmans had validated my heritage more so than my schools had!
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