Peer
Guided Response: Respond to peers. Ask questions of your peers about their responses to encourage further conversation. In your responses, consider including a question about the inclusion of 21st century skills in a diverse classroom.
Responding to the replies given to you will further the conversation and provide additional opportunities for you to demonstrate your content expertise, critical thinking, and real-world experiences with this topic.
Peer post and teacher post.
1St response
TEACHER POST
All class post – (Note: Responding to any of my posts will also serve as your peer responses)
Since 2010, forty-one of the fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia have been members of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, while Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska, Indiana and South Carolina did not adopt the initiative at a state level. Minnesota adopted the English Language Arts standards but not the Mathematics standards. Although starting as a fast trend, the curriculum lost momentum and found at least 12 states introducing legislation to prohibit implementation. Four states that initially adopted Common Core have since decided to repeal or replace it: Indiana, Arizona, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. What are your thoughts? Was this just a “good idea” but had no real impact? As we move back to basics will the CCSS simply die out?
Warmest regards,
2nd Response
Week Discussion 1 Terry
Discuss how you would differentiate instruction for the inclusion of various learning styles.
Its essential for teachers to get to how their students strengths and weaknesses, their interest and their learning styles. A model for differentiated instruction is by area of content, process, and product in response by your students characteristics, (Puckett 2013). I would differentiate instruction in my special needs classroom by factoring students individual learning style and levels first before designing any lesson plan. When designing a lesson plan, which is based on student learning styles, grouping of students by their interest, formative use for assessing students' in learning and classroom management which creates a safe and supportive environment socially and academically for the students, (Puckett 2013).When teaching differentiate instruction, repetitive teaching the same material to all students using a variety of strategies to meet the need of all students learner's in your classroom.
Reflect on ways in which you would modify instruction for special education students.
Its essential that the teacher follows any plan that a particular student has, whether its an IEP, 504 plan or BIP. If a student has a plan I would modify all instruction for him or her as followed: allow extra time for test and quizzes, let student use audio recording if needed, so they are following the book and manipulatives for test. Modify instruction could include flashcards, pictures and small group instruction. If student needs help with his or her writing , i would use talk to text. There are several ways to modify for any special education student using books, technology or pairing up with a stronger academic peer.
Discuss how you would modify instruction to meet the needs of students who are designated second language learners.
When teachers modify instruction for ESL students, its important to know what their personal background and family culture is. Give students their assignments in their language will allow them to complete them at home. I would modify instruction by determining the content for each lesson so student fully understand the lesson either visual or auditory. I would incorporate cooperative learning strategies by having kids work in small group, ( Wardle 2013). Google translate also helps a lot of teachers in my school building which helps them translate when dealing with parents who don't speak any English.
References
Puckett, K. (2013) Differentiating Instruction : A Practical Guide. Bridgeport Education, San Diego, CA
Wardle, F. (2013). Human Relationships and Learning in the Multicultural Environment . San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education ,
PEER 3 -Jody
Analyze how you can maintain high standards and demonstrate high expectations for all ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in the classroom.
I am proud to be part of the Head Start organization. We believe that we should serve the community in which we reside and work to guide families though the educational journey of their children. We serve the children who show the greatest risk factors and highest needs. The risks include, being impoverished, homelessness, incarcerated parents, English as a second language, physical and mental disabilities, as well as learning and developmental challenges (ECLKC, 2021). Serving such a broad range of children requires us to become culturally competent and trauma informed. We have a child centered structure and meet every child where they are developmentally. We use the children’s ideas to craft the perfect learning environment for them. The classrooms will include family photos, the family wall includes a diverse gathering of the families making up their classroom. Parents are invited to be in our rooms daily. This is actually key to our funding (ECLKC, 2021). We work to make certain every child and lifestyle of the children in each classroom are represented. Their photos are used to label cubbies, places to sit, in and out boards, etc. The children’s actual photos are what we use to identify the centers, the daily schedule, and procedures, such as hand washing.
In order to best represent our children and our families we listen to the needs of the families we serve and this is where we begin. I believe this is the most valuable way to reach each family. These expectations are set through the Head Start Performance Standards (ECLKC, 2021).
Reflect on ways in which you will choose culturally relevant curriculum and instructional materials that recognize, incorporate, and reflect students’ heritage and the contributions of various ethnic groups.
The materials used in our classrooms reflect the unique characteristics of each classroom. For instance, we have our art easels open at all times. On our shelves we have all of the materials needed to paint a portrait with every possible skin color. We do not use costumed children in party gear as our representation of diversity. We instead use the children in our rooms to decorate our walls. After all, we are to celebrate the diverse culture in our classrooms, aren’t we? Very young children do not understand learning about France for instance, and putting on a beanie and taking a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower is not teaching them about that culture. Instead, we focus on honoring the cultural differences within our classrooms and reflect on where their families hail from (ECLKC, 2021). It is much more relevant and more appropriate to their age and developmental levels. Another way to honor differences is to have families be a real part of our program. We do this with parent volunteers, Parent Cafe’s, and Policy Council which is comprised mostly of parents.
Discuss how you would differentiate instruction for the inclusion of various learning styles.
Head Start is a program designed to help children who either have special needs or who are at risk for developing learning difficulties (ECLKC, 2021). We begin with each family at the time of sign up doing assessments for every child. As I stated before, parents are an integral part of our program. Parents actually do the first assessment. Then the teachers will repeat it within 45 days of attendance. By using these assessments, we are able to see where a child is developmentally. We are able to reach out to our community to bring in any type of services needed free of charge to our families. They actually come right to the center. In addition, when we write a lesson plan, we write a plan for the class and then we work to individualize it for every child. We look at the kindergarten readiness goals for each child based upon where they are developmentally and plan activities to bring them to the next level. We will do this for the entire year and plot where they started and where they ended. We begin this process at birth and will continue charting it until kindergarten. We change goals accordingly (ECLKC, 2021). We then meet with the kindergarten teachers and share all of the information gathered for each child. This helps the children move smoothly into kindergarten and sets the child up for the greatest success.
References
ECLKC. (2021). Updates to the Head Start Program Performance Standards | ECLKC.