daughters homework help needed

QUESTION ONE, PROVIDE FEEDBACK.

Looking at the students in my classroom one may think the class is not very diverse.  Only three students (out of 27)  have darker skin tones.  However, there are several students who are first generation Americans as the school has a large Eastern European population.  In our community we have a Polish grocery store and deli and  an Eastern European restaurant.  In the neighboring community a church offers  Sunday Mass in Polish and a Polish grocery store.  The  schools and community may not look diverse,  but the diversity is present.  Throughout the district diversity is celebrated with multicultural fairs, awareness activities, providing books in the library in other languages besides English, our district has an EL director who works with the director of curriculum development to engage the community in school functions.  In addition, the district employs a community liaison whose job it is to connect with the hispanic community.   This person was instrumental in communicating the need to be vaccinated against COVID-19.  She called, assisted with appointment scheduling, and transported ELs and their families to district site based vaccination clinics.  

Overall, I believe all of my students are unique at some level.  Perhaps I have a child who is  Russian, which may make her feel unique.  I also have one child in my class who has a younger sibling dying from Leukemia, which makes him unique.  Another child’s parents are going through a divorce.  Several children in the class have special needs related to their learning.  Yes, looking around the classroom, the children look similar, but each child is diverse in their own way.  Therefore, I promote inclusion and acceptance for all my students through development of a classroom environment of mutual respect.  Corcoran, 2022, states, “As educators, we have responsibilities to create an equitable and accessible learning experience for our diverse and talented student body” (1).  This cannot begin unless mutual respect is established and maintained.   COVID-19 brought about one-to-one technology for all students in the district.  The students all have iPads, which allows easier means to engage, represent, and express information or knowledge.  Students this week watched  a video (without words) as a way to practice “reading” and thinking about what they see.  Math had students working on their iPads to submit end of the lesson exit slips, which provides immediate feedback to the teacher on who understood the day’s objective.  Students worked in partners, small groups, individually, and as a whole class throughout the first week of school.  Engagement was maintained throughout the week with flexible seating options, activities that required movement, talking with peers before sharing ideas, visual support and more.  Universal Design for Learning (UDL) may be a new approach for upper grades and higher education, but at the elementary level UDL has been occurring for quite some time.  

QUESTION 2 PROVIDE FEEDBACK

In what ways are your student population and outside community diverse?

I teach second grade at a K-6 elementary school. We have a diverse population of students; approximately 40% of our students are Asian, 2% are black, 25% are Hispanic, 21% are white, and 4.7 % are Filipino. 28% of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, 2.7% are homeless, and 10.2% of students have disabilities. 17.6% of our students are classified as English Learners.

How do the leaders in your school embrace diversity and uniqueness?

One way in which school leaders in my district embrace diversity is through implementing a Learning Center Model. Through this model, many students who would otherwise be pulled out of a general education setting and placed in a modified setting, are placed in general education classrooms. Often students receive support through a “push in”, a paraeducator pushes into the classroom rather than students being pulled out. Services are still provided on a pull-out basis when appropriate, but the focus is on inclusion within the general education setting.

Describe your efforts to (a) adapt to the backgrounds and unique characteristics of your students, (b) address social injustice, or (c) promote inclusion and/or intercultural understanding?

At the beginning of the school year, I spend a great deal of time getting to know my students and their families. I send home a questionnaire that helps me acquire information about students’ families, religious beliefs, cultural traditions, etc. I meet with the special education team to get background information about my students with special needs. Early in the first trimester of school, we complete a social studies unit that focuses on ancestry, culture, and traditions. We spend time doing projects and presentations whereby we learn about each other’s culture and family traditions. Students learn about one another and make connections which helps to garner respect and understanding of differences.

Universal Design for Learning is described in week one. What evidence of this have you seen in your curriculum and school?

One example of the use of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) at my school site is the inclusion of Social Emotional Learning or SEL in our curriculum. CAST (2018) provides many UDL Guidelines for Learning and one of those guidelines includes providing coping skills and strategies.  SEL instruction is one way of addressing that need. In addition, CAST (2018) also recommends providing background knowledge to help make connections to new material. One way to do that is to use advanced organizers. My school site utilizes graphic organizers called Thinking Maps to help students capture and organize their ideas. These graphic organizers are used schoolwide, in Kindergarten through sixth grade, and can be used in many different ways to provide scaffolding for students.