Diverse learners

Diversity in learners is clear in any classroom I have ever walked into.  Diversity can take on so many branches.  You can talk about the diversity seen in Learning disabled, gifted, or "regular" students.  Is there such a thing as a "regular" student?  You can talk about diversity in culture also: Hispanic, Asian, Black, White.  Which one is regular here?  Next you have the multiple intelligences: musical, linguistic, kinestetic.  The list goes on and on.  There is no regular here, is there? 
I know  I need to look at is each individual student and what do they need.  This is difficult, at best.  So when I create lesson plans, I need to look at all of these factors.  Begin by looking at providing as much authentic learning as possible for all learners.  When I am providing instruction, I need to be as explicit as possible.  Offer as many concrete examples as possible.  A great example of this is the new math curriculum we have been using in Harrisonville.  It is based on teaching students with concrete examples first, then work your way to abstract.  When a teacher moves onto the abstract, she can go back to the concrete for an example when needed.  This helps students with ADHD, Learning Disabled, ELL, and Autistic students, to name a few.   However, the math curriculum does provide extension activities to help gifted students with an open ended activity that allows for divergent thinking and problem solving.  This is great for math, but what about reading, writing, science, spelling, and social studies? 
This last year in my second grade classroom, I had the most diverse group of students I have ever had.  I had 3 students with LD, 6 students with a speech IEP, 2 students who were emotionally disturbed, 4 students with ADHD, 2 students with only one eye, and one student with a club foot.  We spent most of the year building a community that cared for each other despite all of our differences.  One of the first things we did as a class was we created a self portrait of ourselves.  We used Gardner's multiple intelligences.  We talked about how we are all smart in different ways.  Some people are word smart, music smart, body smart, and so on.  Each time we talked about a "smart", the student would talk about if they felt they were a little smart or really smart in this area.  In the end, each child was filled with different colors of smarts.  We all look different, but we are each smart in our own way.  This is keep in our classroom all year long.  I refer to it often throughout the year when any relational problem might occur.  I remind the students about what we learned or I ask them to remind me what we learned.  I ask them to apply this knowledge to the situation at hand and they are able to grasp the understanding that we are all different, but all smart in our own way.  Next year, I will add technology as one of my smarts. 

After reading an article on multicultural classrooms
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/buildingblocks.html
I changed my thinking about my teaching in February.  I felt teaching about famous African Americans during the month of February was a great way to highlight many people who had changed the world.  I never looked at this as saying to my students, 8 months of Whites versus 1 months about African Americans.  Look who is superior.  I need to make an effort in include read a louds from multiple cultures during each unit.  I need to spotlight different people for what they have done, with less emphasis on what color they are.  This can be included in units from science, social studies, or reading. 
I believe the biggest and most important culture in the classroom begins with me.  I need to be open.  Open teacher = open class = open lines of communication.  I want my students to see in me, what I want to see in them.  I have to model it first.  I need to learn to not make assumptions about behavior before understanding the culture from which the student comes.  I need to be open-minded to not making any assumptions about a student's culture based on the color of their skin. 
The beautiful thing is this doesn't cost any money to do.  Books are free at the library.  Attitude is free for the taking. 

Emerging Technologies for 2nd grade

I love technology.  My children love technology.  My students love when they are allowed to use technology.  I come from a district with the basics.  2nd grade classrooms have Airliners, student response clickers, and projectors.  The new district I just started working for values technology and has the money to invest in it.  My summer school classroom has a Smart Board.  I have basic knowledge of how to use.  At this point, I think my students might know how to use it more than I do.
However, I love to learn.  I know I have access to the internet to try to discover as much as possible on my own until I can get formal training.  I want students to work on authentic learning activities.  I want to be able to quickly assess my students understanding of the topic and provide immediate feedback.  I want my students to be able to apply their learning to new situations.  If computer games, clickers, Pinterest, or any other form of technology is a tool that helps me meet these goals, then I want access for my students.
For me, the top 3 elements in a 21st century classroom are
1. Collaboration
2. Critical thinking
3. Problem solving
We don't know what the future holds.  My students will graduate in 2022.  Our life could be so different by then.  If I teach them how to think critically and problem solve, then they can apply that to whatever technology or challenges life provides.  I think this leads into what type of learning environment I want to create for my classroom.  I want a classroom that learns to work together, despite our differences.  A classroom that sees others strengths and that each of us has areas we are stronger in.  We are all smart.  We are all smart in different ways.  I want to create a community of students who realize this and when they leave my class, they realize this is true of all individuals.


http://www.pbs.org/teachers/digitallearners/

The PBS video is a great place to find out we are not alone.  A revolution is taking place.  Teaching kids to solve authentic projects is the way today.  Technology is a resource to make this happen.  If we don't use it, we are robbing our future.  I love the quote "Things will go wrong and we won't have all the answers."  I think this is because students will see we have to problem solve real world problems.  Things do not go according to our plan on a daily basis.  Daily we have to problem solve.  Students need to see this, need to see how we handle this, and need to see there is not only one possible answer to the problems we face.