Teaching students that come from diverse ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and academic abilities is a challenge. Through my graduate program I have learned more about the cultures that my students come from and because of that I have learned how to better teach them. Discovering the "norms" of the different cultures my students represent have allowed me to confidently discuss culture in my classroom rather than ignoring it. Teaching my students about who they are and who their peers are is important to foster a productive learning environment for each child in my classroom.
Below I have attached a lesson plan that I developed in ECI 500: Teaching Diverse Populations. This lesson is a multicultural lesson designed to teach students about social justice, democracy, and dignity in a global world. I taught this lesson to my students, and wrote this paper describing my procedures and outcomes.
Below is a summary of what I learned after doing research about Abraham Maslow's theory of the Hierarchy of Needs. I completed this in ECI 550: Foundations of the Middle Years. In this assignment, I discussed how his theory plays out in the classroom and why it is important for teachers to take it into consideration every day for each individual child.