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Dimensions of Diversity

CultureLanguageGenderAbility differencesExceptionalities

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Culture The knowledge, attitudes, values, customs, and behavior patterns that characterize a social group.

Cultural DiversityThe different cultures that you’ll encounter in classrooms and how these cultural differences influence learning.

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Cultural Attitudes, Values, & Interaction Patterns

Learned at home and in neighborhoodInfluence school success, both positively and negativelyRequire both teacher sensitivity and adaptability

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Educational Responses to Cultural Diversity

Multicultural education: salad bowl or mosaic versus melting potCulturally responsive teaching

Accepting and valuing cultural differencesAccommodating different cultural interaction patternsBuilding on students’ cultural backgrounds

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Language Diversity

Maintenance language programs: use and sustain the first languageImmersion programs: emphasize rapid transition to EnglishEnglish as a Second Language (ESL) programs: focus on English in academic subjectsTransition programs: maintain first language while students learn English

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Bilingual EducationControversial because critics fear the loss of English as U.S. language26 states have official English language legislationDe-emphasized by No Child Left BehindProponents claim it is effective, humane, and practical.Critics claim it is divisive, ineffective, and inefficient. What d

o you think?

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GenderGender influences career choices.Gender-role identity creates differences in expectations and beliefs about appropriate roles and behaviors.Stereotypes create rigid and simplistic caricatures of groups of people.Single-gender classrooms and schools separate male and female students.

Brainstorm: Gender Stereotypes

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Multiple Intelligences

Gardner’s theory:Suggests that intelligence is not unitary but multidimensionalSuggests that classrooms should attempt to develop different kinds of intelligenceWhile accepted by teachers, is controversial because of a lack of a firm research base

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Responses to Differences in AbilityAbility Grouping

Places students of similar aptitude and achievement together for instructionBetween-class ability grouping divides students for all subjects.Within-class ability grouping divides students only in certain subjects, such as math and reading.

TrackingAt the secondary level, divides students across the curriculum.

What do you think? What does the research say?

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Learning StylesDescribes students’ personal approaches to learningPopular with educators, viewed skeptically by researchers, and difficult to implementSuggests we should develop metacognition—students’ awareness of how they learn most effectively

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Students with Exceptionalities

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

Passed in 1975Guarantees a free, appropriate, public education (FAPE) for all students with exceptionalities

Mainstreaming: moves students from segregated settings into the regular classroom

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Students with Exceptionalities (continued)

Inclusion: more recent and more comprehensive approach, advocates a total, systematic, and coordinated school-wide system of servicesLeast restrictive environment (LRE): places students in as normal an education setting as possibleIndividualized Education Program (IEP): individually prescribed instructional plan created and implemented by multiple stakeholders

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Categories of Disabilities under IDEASpecific learning disabilityCommunication disorderIntellectual disabilityEmotional (behavioral) disturbanceOther health impairedAutism

Multiple disabilitiesHearing impairmentOrthopedic impairmentDevelopmental delayVisual impairmentTraumatic brain injuryDeaf-blindness

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Students who are Gifted and Talented

Students who are at the upper end of the ability continuum who need special services to reach their full potential.

Controversy about Gifted and Talented programs in the era of NCLB

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Exceptionalities: Implications for Teachers

Collaboration: working with other educational professionals to create an optimal learning environment for students with exceptionalitiesYour role:

Aid in identification processCollaborate on IEPsAdapt instructionMaintain communication