Reference no: EM133553482
Assignment: Technology
Part I: Teaching in a Linguistically Diverse Classroom: Understanding the Power of Language
Task
Clearly, establishing a linguistically diverse classroom like Mrs. McCord's first-grade class is fraught with both difficulties and possibilities. Put yourself in Mrs. McCord's place, at this early point in the school year, and answer the questions she is asking herself:
A. How am I going to create a democratic, linguistically diverse classroom culture when my students come from such different backgrounds and speak so many different languages and dialects?
B. How am I going to discourage standard English speakers from stigmatizing those students whose language differences are often rejected in American schools?
C. How am I going to provide ways in which all my students can participate fully in the life of the classroom?
D. How am I going to create a classroom environment in which students can teach each other effectively?
E. How am I going to organize instruction so that all students can have equal access to the material at hand?
Part II: Religious Pluralism in Secular Classrooms
Task
Quite unintentionally, indeed with the very best of intentions, Mrs. Morgan found herself in the center of a controversy that could have turned into a major issue both in her classroom and in her community. On reflection, it is likely that Melissa might have asked herself the following questions. Think about how you would answer these questions if you were in her place.
A. Once her students' project was under way, are there strategies she could have used that might have forestalled the objections voiced by some parents after they saw the exhibit at the open house?
B. Mrs. Morgan could have simply dismissed the objections raised to her use of religious information in the classroom as ignorant, unenlightened, or prejudiced behavior. How would that view have undermined her strong belief in religious pluralism?
C. When the episode was over, Mrs. Morgan began to think about some of the long-standing practices of American schooling, such as the way most schools use Christian holidays-particularly Christmas and 6. Easter-as sources for both curricular and extracurricular activities. Are such traditional practices fitting subjects for review and rethinking?