THOMA MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 1

Diversity Statement

Teaching and living in such a diverse society presents many challenges for educators. A

teacher must effectively teach students from a variety of backgrounds with a variety of

educational needs. Differentiated lessons are important to meeting the diverse needs of my

students. “Differentiated instruction is as important for students who find school easy as it is for

those who find it difficult. All students benefit from availability of a variety of methods and

supports,” (Lawrence-Brown, 2004). This lesson on Alaskan Animals is differentiated and

tailored to meet the needs of Kindergarten children based on their reading and writing abilities,

giving each child the appropriate scaffolding they need to be successful.

Exploring different cultures in genuine ways creates a classroom that feels like a small

community, encouraging a higher level of student engagement (Lawrence-Brown, 2004). The

lesson above helps students to explore their own culture as it highlights the local fauna and

includes a story about local wildlife. Stories and activities that focus on indigenous cultures and

the cultures of each of the students in the class creates an inclusive and nurturing classroom

environment for students of all backgrounds. To be truly culturally responsive teachers must take

the time to learn about their students’ backgrounds and incorporate them into lessons.

“Researchers have found that by the age of 8, disparities between the cultural values and patterns

of communication of the home and the school can diminish the desire of young people to learn

and to believe in their own capacity to learn,” (Vavrus, 2008). Students whose teachers take the

time to learn about their culture and apply it to their lesson creation are more likely to be

successful.

Utilizing technology appropriately can help address diverse needs in the classroom as

well. According to Lawrence Brown (2004) assistive technology helps students with disabilities
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as well as students that are English Language Learners (ELL), giving them access to appropriate

methods of knowledge attainment. Students in a study by Boon, Burke, Fore, & Spencer (2005)

showed that randomly selected students with access to certain types of technology significantly

outperformed their peers. Haelermans, Ghysels, & Prince (2015) discovered similar results in

their study of 8th graders-those students that were given activities and formative assessment that

integrated technology did much better than those that did not. Technology can be an incredibly

effective scaffolding method for the most diverse group of learners.

Using pictures and rich vocabulary throughout the school day helps scaffold

appropriately and helps ELL students immensely. Students typically come to school with a wide

variety of vocabulary knowledge (Lane & Allen, 2010) and so it is important to expose and

immerse children in fresh vocabulary throughout the school day. It is also important to model

using rich vocabulary. Children who are exposed to a rich vocabulary in this way typically know

more words, especially when taught this explicitly (Lund & Douglas, 2016). The amount of

vocabulary knowledge a child has is a direct indicator of their reading comprehension abilities

(Lane & Allen, 2010). ELL students as well as those hard of hearing (Lund and Douglas, 2016)

can learn vocabulary quicker and catch up to their peers if the vocabulary immersion is coupled

with imagery to describe new words and access to books and stories with a limited vocabulary

(Tran, 2006).

Teaching to large and diverse groups of students is guaranteed these days. I will address

this through culturally responsive actions such as getting to know my students’ backgrounds,

creating differentiated lessons, exposing my students to many cultures and a rich vocabulary.
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References

Boon, R.T., Burke, M.D., Fore, C., & Spencer, V.G. (2005). The impact of cognitive organizers

and technology-based practices on student success in secondary social studies

classrooms. Journal of Special Education Technology, 21:1.

Cox, S.G., (2015). Differentiated instruction in the elementary school classroom. The Education

Digest. 73:9, 52-54. Retrieved from ProQuest.

Haelermans, C., Ghysels, J., & Prince, F. (2015). A dataset of three educational technology

experiments on differentiation, formative testing and feedback. British Journal of

Educational Technology, 46:5, 1102-1108. Retrieved from EBSCOHost.

Lane, H.B., & Allen, S.A. (2010). The vocabulary-rich classroom: modeling sophisticated word

use to promote word consciousness and vocabulary growth. The Reading Teacher, 63:5,

362-370. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Lawrence-Brown, Diana. (2004). Differentiated instruction: inclusive strategies for standards-

based learning that benefit the whole class. American Secondary Education, 32:3, 34-62.

Retrieved from JSTOR.

Lund, E., & Douglas M.W. (2016). Teaching vocabulary to preschool students with hearing loss.

Exceptional Children, 83:1, 26-41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Tran, A. (2006). An approach to basic-vocabulary development for English-language learners.

Reading Improvement, 43:3, 157-162. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Vavrus, M. (2008). Culturally responsive teaching. 21st Century Teaching: A Reference

Handbook, 49-57. Sage Publishing.