Mnemonic Strategy

Within the past ten years, the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) has doubled. An increase of more than 2 million ELL students in the U.S schools, left professionals within the field of education with no choice but to face the challenge of understanding cultural differences. In addition to this, educators must understand how these differences affect students’ language development, learning style, academic achievement and most importantly, his or her performance on standardized tests. These differences must be understood, valued and respected by all service providers, especially those who are involved in the decision making process concerning the placement of students in special educational programs. (Roseberry-McKibbin, 2014).

The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) of 2004 has several different procedure and document that are to be followed when assessing individuals for a special education program. In Guiberson's (2009) research he suggests that some educators may be unprepared to work with diverse student populations. In a 200 participant survey of speech pathologist a study found that a third of the participants did not have sufficient training in multicultural issues (Guiberson, 2009). Studies have shown that students that learn in educational environment that reflect their cultural background tend to achieve more academically, which make multicultural instruction important in school with diverse populations (Ornstein & Levine, 2007). Guiberson's

“Where inability to speak and understand the English language excludes national origin minority-group children from effective participation in the educational program offered by a school district, the district must take affirmative steps to rectify the language deficiency in order to open its instructional program to these students.” (Smith, 1990)

We will teach a third grade class located at PS. 31 in Staten Island, New York. The classroom has a total number of 27 students; 15 girls and 12 boys. The classroom is ethnically diverse. Most of the students in the classroom are African-American, Haitians, Chinese and Portuguese. Even though the classroom is considered as a general education class, they are few students with learning differences, such as: visual, auditory, kinesthetic and linguistic.

Recently in the field of education, a great emphasis has been put on equal access to education and academic success in the school setting. With laws like No Child Left Behind supporting this belief, there has been an increase in academic accountability and success, especially for minority students, in the areas of reading and mathematics. The population of students is increasingly diverse and according to Sun, Nam, and Vanderwood (2010), the population of English Language Learners (ELLs) has increased significantly, representing 5.1 million students or 10% of the total public school enrollment (p. 1). In this population of ELL students 76% of students are performing below grade level in English reading, which is concerning as foundational literacy is important to academic success (Sun, Nam, & Vanderwood, 2010, p. 1). With the increasing demands of accountability and performance and the significant growth of ELL students, Response to Intervention (RTI) has been implemented to support students learning needs. Response to Intervention is a multi-tier approach, which provides struggling learners with interventions to increase learning. In regards to Response to Intervention and ELLs, there is not as much research as is present for the

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reported that African American students represent 17.13% of the total public school population while they account for more than 26% of the children served in special education classrooms (Banks, J. j., & Hughes, M. S. 2013). Across all ethnic groups, African American students are at the highest risk of being placed in special education (Harry & Klinger, 2006). According to researcher Banks, once labeled as having a learning disability, African American students are less likely to be given the opportunity to be tested out of the remedial classes. (Banks, J. j., & Hughes, M. S. 2013)

While observing in Mrs. Lewis’ Kindergarten classroom I noticed that there are several diversities that exist amongst her students. I am aware that two students in the room have IEPs and are accommodated for as needed, specifically in the time they are given to complete activities and the scale in which they are graded in comparison to their peers. Also, there several children that are a different ethnicity than Mrs. Lewis herself, but are always treated in an unbiased manner by Mrs. Lewis as well as her aid, Ms. Pam. In addition, I am aware that there are no ELL students within the classroom, but due to the presence of Latino children Mrs. Lewis has laminated posted taped to objects in the class that have the Spanish term

Research in this article was directed towards using effective culturally responsive principles for students with learning disabilities (LD) in an educationally setting. Utley, Obiakor, and Bakken (2011) have noted that schools are changing which requires new teaching skills that teachers have to acquire in order to successfully teach culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with LD. Educators have not been taking into consideration how multiple cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses affect learning. Based on their various backgrounds, CLD students have different learning styles than their white peers, which can result in low academics and can be referred for special education when their struggles in academics are a result of their cultural needs not being met. Mercer and Pullen (2009) reported 58% of white students have a learning disability. Hispanic and Asian students follow with 19% of the student population being diagnosed with a

In Case Study 5.1, Mrs. James not only effectively started her class with sharing her own experiences and building relationship with her students but also emphasized the importance of group work, which is in helping and learning from each other. She illustrated the following strategies and routines that supported cooperative learning: room arrangement, talk and movement procedures and individual accountability by building students’ social, explanation and sharing skills.

The article, Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners in FCS Classrooms, describes the changes in the ethnical make-up of today’s classroom and the challenges teachers face as they aim to teach children from different cultures. In addition, the article points out the different needs of multicultural learners in the classroom. Finally, the article also describes research based strategies and techniques teachers can use that prove to be effective for the diverse learner.

Education sets out to achieve many goals, among them are empowering students with the ability to learn how to think critically and solve problems, how to work independently and cooperatively with others, and how to become lifelong learners. Meeting the needs of students is a difficult task, but even more so when dealing with students who are not proficient or possess limited skills with the English Language. Public schools across the country have seen significant growth in student diversity in the last few years in regards to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and language (Johnson, 2015).

As a pre-service teacher it is important to shift the mindset of students from thinking of getting the right answer and instead encourage critical thinking. The purpose of group learning activities is to help struggling students.To properly implement heterogeneous groups in my teaching I will make sure to articulate my goals during group work, and include academic objectives. I want to make sure that students achieve social skills that they may want to develop. It is critical to helping groups get started therefore I will explain the group’s task. I will explain how the task involves individual accountability, and how they will be assessed throughout the process. During group work monitoring and regularly observing group interactions and progress, by circulating during group work is something I would do as a teacher. Circulating during group work will make it easy to observe problems, allowing me to intervene and help students move forward on the task. I think getting different perspective is important and I plan on discussing with future colleagues what works best and what curriculum we are finding more

Recently a friend of mine was involved in a car accident in which she and her son were hit by another driver. Although anyone was not injured, the car was not so lucky. After a few days of waiting to hear about a decision on the condition of her car, the insurance company informed my friend that the car could not be fixed and deemed it as a total lost. Upon hearing this news, of course, I was heartbroken for my friend, because I know that her car held a lot of sentimental value. It was her first car, she purchased the car without financial assistance from her parents, and she often referenced the car as her first adult purchase. After receiving her reimbursement from the insurance company, and a bit of internet research, we set a date to go car searching, early Saturday morning we set out with a couple of dealerships but no strategy to purchase a vehicle, this was a huge mistake, when having no clue as to how to

There are many factors that play a role in the learning process for every human being. Race, religion, language, socioeconomics, gender, family structure, and disabilities can all affect the ways in which we learn. Educators must take special measures in the delivery of classroom instruction to celebrate the learning and cultural differences of each of their students. As communities and schools continue to grow in diversity, teachers are searching for effective educational programs to accommodate the various learning styles of each student while promoting acceptance of cultural differences throughout the classroom. It no longer suffices to plan educational experiences only for middle-or upper class white learners and then

Availability of a course syllabus was one of the good things that defined the semester. The course syllabus explained the topics that would be taught throughout the semester. Thus, students oriented their minds with the requirements of the course. Such a situation contributed to a substantive part of the success achieved during the course. In addition, the professor encouraged groups work among the students. According to Brown (2014), group work enhance co-operation among the students. Undoubtedly, the teamwork resulting from the group work led to better understanding of business concepts as well contribution of new