EDSP 443 Spring 2013 Professor Roberta Kaufman

Powerful Practices by Melanie Hadjes “Special education teachers have a RESPONSIBILITY to be aware of and sensitive to the needs of DIVERSE LEARNERS as well as provide them with an appropriate education.” ~Powerful Practices pg. 9

WHAT ? Responsibility! HOW ? Learn about their cultures and language background! TO WHOM ? Diverse Learners!

“The competencies of teachers are just beginning to catch up to the needs of a growing student population.” ~ Powerful Practices pg. 8-9 Being a special education teacher in training, I can tell you that is true. The expectations of and for todays teachers is increasing. Praxis II is required before student teaching even begins, that’s a start! And lucky for me I don’t have to “catch up” alone. Collaboration is crucial!

What do you mean Collaboration is crucial? Collaboration creates new possibilities & opportunities which wouldn’t otherwise exist. Work with parents, students and colleagues to learn, grow and share ideas.

Professional Practices  watch?feature=player_de tailpage&v=tfa7VWxtS7k watch?feature=player_de tailpage&v=tfa7VWxtS7k  In The Culturally Responsive Teacher, Sonya Whitaker shows you how to provide a safe, respectful, and professional place for teachers to discuss cultural conflicts and learn to be culturally responsive educators.

Culturally and linguistically Diverse Learners? How do I teach methods/resource/6039.html

Appreciate and accommodate the similarities and differences among the students' cultures. Build relationships with students. Focus on the ways students learn and observe students to identify their task orientations. Use a variety of instructional strategies and learning activities. Communicate expectations. Certain behaviors and instructional strategies enable teachers to build a stronger teaching/learning relationship with their culturally diverse students. Many of these behaviors and strategies exemplify standard practices of good teaching, and others are specific to working with students from diverse cultures.

Effective teachers of culturally diverse students acknowledge both individual and cultural differences enthusiastically and identify these differences in a positive manner. This positive identification creates a basis for the development of effective communication and instructional strategies. Social skills such as respect and cross-cultural understanding can be modeled, taught, prompted, and reinforced by the teacher. Offering variety provides the students with opportunities to learn in ways that are responsive to their own communication styles, cognitive styles, and aptitudes. In addition, the variety helps them develop and strengthen other approaches to learning. Developing an understanding of students' lives also enables the teacher to increase the relevance of lessons and make examples more meaningful.

What have we learned? “Special education teachers have a RESPONSIBILITY to be aware of and sensitive to the needs of DIVERSE LEARNERS as well as provide them with an appropriate education.” ~Powerful practices pg. 9 “All teachers must be culturally aware and culturally responsive.” ~Inclusion pg. 241 The curriculum should be integrated, interdisciplinary, meaningful, and student-centered. It should include issues and topics related to the students' background and culture. It should challenge the students to develop higher-order knowledge and skills (Villegas, 1991).