Academically Diverse LearnersREAD 6709

Beth A. Morgan

Teaching Diverse Learners• Because all students have special needs, they must

be acknowledged and taught appropriately(ACC, n.d.).

• Use various non-cognitive assessments to identify interests and strengths of your students.

• Teach using various teaching styles, learning styles, and the multiple intelligences.

• Offer tasks that are interesting, important, and engaging.

Diverse Learners

• Adapt and modify materials and procedures to address the special needs of each student including breaking complex learning into simpler components. May use RTI strategies.

• Appreciate the uniqueness of each person and foster mutual respect for all.

• Understand student diversity and know how to plan and teach learning experiences and design assessments that are responsive to the differences among students and that promote all students’ learning.

• Plan interesting learning activities that help students connect what is being learned with the real world.

• Recognize students family, cultural, and socio-economical differences and identify how these things may influence their learning and behavior on a daily basis.

Teachers must be able to:

Information from various sources including ACC, n.d.

Oral and Social Language Development

• Developing English Language Learners’ (ELLs) oral language, then, means developing the skills and knowledge that provide the foundation for their listening, speaking, and writing.

• ELLs should have labels in their native language for many aspects of the physical and social world. These words need to be connected to English words.

• Effective instruction to build oral language included language- and content-based learning experiences that provide plenty of opportunities for reading, writing, and meaningful discussion that are related to real life/authentic events.

Academic Language Development

• The ability to understand the language of academic texts, also called ‘academic language (AL),’ is fundamental. Students will struggle to learn from what they have read if they have not understood the language of the text.

• Scaffolding is dynamic and responsive supports that enable learners to develop their full potential and eventually become autonomous learners(NYCDE, 2015).

• When teaching words from informational texts you should use concept maps to build understanding in relation to other critical words needed for students to understand the big concepts.

• For students to be successful with CCSS’s and High Stakes testing they must have a fundamental understanding of how to read and write using AL.

English Language Learners (ELL)

The single biggest error made in placing English language learners (ELLs) into special education is misinterpreting language acquisition as a learning

or language disability(NYCDE, 2015).

Literacy TeamEach literacy team operates under its own set of rules and procedures.

Literacy teams:• Meet frequently and regularly to analyze data

• Set common goals• Collaborate on instructional planning

• Discuss the results of implementing the lesson• Reflect on success or challenges

• Continue the cycle

(Collins, 2013)

Benefits• Can partner with community members to develop goals and understanding.

• Create a “big-picture” plan for schoolwide literacy improvement.

• Focus on discovering teaching practices to improve student learning by allowing a safe environment to investigate and try new practices.

• Collaborating with colleagues can provide teachers with support and offer opportunities for professional development.

• Collaboration can provide us with opportunities to improve reading achievement.

(Collins, 2013)

Challenges• Finding the time in already busy schedules to keep meetings.

• Eliciting teacher buy in.

• Creating a strong and motivated team.

• Serving a better purpose while staying on task.

• Collecting and putting data to use in a meaningful ways.

Community Outreach

• Parents have the most crucial and critical role in a child’s education. Not only are they their child's first teacher but their views on education affect how their child sees their schooling.

• Building a positive teacher/parent relationship allows students background, culture, and interests to be easily conveyed. It also allows both parent and teacher to address concerns that they may experience during the year.

• When schools, parents, families, and communities work together to support learning, students tend to earn higher grades, attend school more regularly, stay in school longer, and enroll in higher level programs(NEA, n.d.).

• Incorporating community resources into the classroom allow students and families to become more comfortable with the resources that are available to them.

~It takes a village to raise a child~

Social Change

• Teachers are looked upon as the individuals who can help to bring about positive changes in the lives of people. They are seen as natural leaders who can give advice on various affairs of the communities(ILO, n.d.).

• Everyone wants to feel like they have made a difference. We need to realize that change does not occur based on one person but instead due to many people working together and believing.

• Sharing of ideas, instructional strategies, and data can lead to a decreased feeling of social isolation in teachers and can pave the way to large scale changes.

Sharing is Caring! Change doesn’t happen overnight…

References• Austin Community College(ACC). (n.d.). Teaching Diverse Students. Retrieved from

http://www.austincc.edu/teacher/files/documents/Lesson15TeachingDiversestudents.ppt

• Collins, P. (2013). What Can Literacy Teams Do for You and Your Readers? Ohio Resource Center, 5. Retrieved from http://www.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/Literacy_K5/3GRG/PIP/3GRG-PIP-05.pdf

• International Labour Organization (ILO). (n.d.). Teachers, educators and their organizations as agents of social change. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Partners/Teachers/Teacherseducatorsandtheirorganizationsasagentsofsocialchange/lang--en/index.htm

• National Education Association(NEA). (n.d.). Research Spotlight on Parental Involvement in Education. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/tools/17360.htm

• NYC Department of Education (NYCDE). (2015). Educator Resources. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/Academics/ELL/EducatorResources/Supporting+ELLs+Literacy+Development.htm