Diversity
Diversity surrounds every aspect of our society. It is through diversity that we as a people find great strength. Diversity has taught us to embrace our differences, encourage our strengths and support our weakness. In education we need to celebrate our differences and support one another.
As a technology specialist and educator, I have made it my purpose to encourage all students, regardless of physical, emotional, gender, economic and racial differences. As an educator I try to see past the external and harness the brilliance that lies in every student. It is important to leverage technology to reach all students to encourage and motivate everyone to succeed. Only by using assistive and adaptive technology along with culturally responsive pedagogy, can diversity be embraced for the betterment of everyone. Technology has the ability to offer instruction that is truly differentiated, targeting the needs of a diverse population. Technology can offer each student an education that is custom tailored to each student's individual needs. Utilizing instructional technology can help educators reach low social economic status students (SES) and bridge the digital divide through programs such as 1:1 computing and low cost internet options. Students utilizing instructional technology, have the ability to learn and thrive together, working towards greater understanding and acceptance.
Throughout this course I have had the opportunity to develop, design and implement lessons that utilize technology to enhance both teaching and learning for a diverse student population.
Successful Diversity Integration Include;
As a technology specialist and educator, I have made it my purpose to encourage all students, regardless of physical, emotional, gender, economic and racial differences. As an educator I try to see past the external and harness the brilliance that lies in every student. It is important to leverage technology to reach all students to encourage and motivate everyone to succeed. Only by using assistive and adaptive technology along with culturally responsive pedagogy, can diversity be embraced for the betterment of everyone. Technology has the ability to offer instruction that is truly differentiated, targeting the needs of a diverse population. Technology can offer each student an education that is custom tailored to each student's individual needs. Utilizing instructional technology can help educators reach low social economic status students (SES) and bridge the digital divide through programs such as 1:1 computing and low cost internet options. Students utilizing instructional technology, have the ability to learn and thrive together, working towards greater understanding and acceptance.
Throughout this course I have had the opportunity to develop, design and implement lessons that utilize technology to enhance both teaching and learning for a diverse student population.
Successful Diversity Integration Include;
- Developed lessons that utilize universal design principles to enhance teaching and learning for diverse population.
- Evaluated new and emerging assistive technology devices for use in special needs classrooms.
- Designed grants to empower schools to purchase assistive technology devices for classroom use.
- Designed, developed and taught lessons to a special needs child using assistive learning devices while adhering the students Individual Education Program (IEP)
- Held STEM workshops and camps that demonstrated the latest in assisted learning technologies.
- Taught workshops that showed teachers how to use distance-learning tools to reach students who are unable to attend class.
- Created lessons that used Web 2.0 tools to enhance the needs of students with disabilities.
- Worked closely with ESOL to design lessons that incorporated culturally responsive pedagogy and assisted learning devices to better server the non-native English-speaking learner.