Author: TCR Staff

Teaching Tips

Tips for Working with Different Cultures in the Classroom

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Consider the cultural differences before engaging in any of the following:

  • Appropriateness of using telephone to communicate with parents
  • Patting a child on the head as a sign of affection
  • Expecting children to look you in the eye when being scolded
  • Looking people you’ve just met in the eye when simply talking
  • Shaking hands, pointing, gesturing “come”
  • Being informal vs. courteous (e.g., it’s better to overdress than underdress)
  • Asking them their preferences and explaining your behavior

Ways Teachers Can Make a World of Difference

  • First of all, Do No Harm!
  • Be respectful and respectable.
  • Be inviting and caring.
  • Give the benefit of the doubt when your “cultural” feelings are hurt.
  • Be flexible with plenty of wait time.
  • Try more to understand than be understood, then teach and explain.
  • Be hypercritical, not hypocritical, of your own behavior!

Multicultural Education Isn’t…

  • About everyone agreeing and getting along
  • Only applicable to Language Arts and History
  • A process of watering down good curriculum
  • Related only to curriculum reform
  • Only for teachers and students of color
  • Achieved through a series of small changes
  • Modeled through cultural bulletin boards, assemblies, or fairs
  • The responsibility of culture-based student clubs or organizations
  • A single in-service workshop

Multicultural Education Is…

  • About naming and eliminating the inequities in education
  • A comprehensive approach for making education more inclusive, active, and engaging in all subject areas
  • A process for presenting all students with a more comprehensive, accurate understanding of the world
  • Related to all aspects of education, including pedagogy, counseling, administration, assessment and evaluation, research, etc.
  • For all students and educators
  • Achieved through the re-examination and transformation of all aspects of education
  • Modeled through self-critique, self-examination, and cross-cultural relationship-building
  • The responsibility of teachers, administrators, and school staff

When Using Multicultural Activities . . .

  • Be able to change the type of activities and exercises you use. Possible examples are whole class or large group, small groups, or partner share; simulations; role play; narrative; storytelling; and project making.
  • Have plenty of time for the students to dialogue and process.
  • Always start your lesson plan with concepts, and then add activities—never the reverse.
  • Whenever possible and appropriate, show the students you are willing to participate in the class exercises and activities. This gives strength to the position that everyone can share.
  • Role-playing is good, but it also needs to be balanced with real personal experiences followed by discussions.
  • Films can provide excellent illustration of concepts and lead to fruitful dialogues, but they should be short enough to allow for class dialogue.
  • Be creative. Too often, educators and facilitators become dependent on one or two activities or exercises. Canned activities and exercises are not designed to be used for every situation. After you’ve done it enough, you will have a sense for what will and will not work within that context.

Adapted and used with permission from Strategies for Choosing and Using Activities and Exercises for Intergroup Learning by Paul Gorski.

Lesson Plans, Teaching Tips

Working with Students with Special Needs: Part VI – Activities for Gifted and High-Achieving Students

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Teachers with gifted children in their classrooms need to pay particular attention to developing the upper three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy: (1) Synthesis, (2) Evaluation, and (3) Analysis.

Below are several creative-writing topics that emphasize the use of the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Again, it is not only gifted students who will benefit from activities like these. They are enjoyable activities that stimulate higher-order thinking skills in everyone.

Story Starters

  • Tell how to make a paper airplane (or anything else that is relatively simple to do).
  • Describe an object without naming it.
  • Write down all the actions of someone or something in the room.
  • Pretend you are a tetherball (or anything else). Describe your feelings during the day.
  • Describe a day in the life of a pencil. (Other nouns can be used.)
  • Write a fairy tale in modern or futuristic terms.
  • Invent a new machine; describe it.
  • What would you put in a time capsule, and why?
  • Invent a new holiday and tell how it came to be and how it will be celebrated.
  • Write an advertisement for a make-believe product.
  • Imagine the history of a discarded item in the junk pile.
  • Invent a new vitamin.
  • Re-design a piece of clothing you’re wearing and describe it.
  • Rewrite your favorite nursery rhyme and substitute slang words.
  • Analyze the qualities of a superhero.
  • Classify yourself as a car (or any object) and describe your parts accordingly.
  • Analyze what you would do if you were lost in the woods with nothing but the clothes you’re wearing, a pocket knife, and a match.
  • Write down a conversation between a cat and a dog (or any two people or animals).
  • How are your parents the same as and different from you?
  • Discuss the differences between cars and oranges (any two items can be substituted).
  • Analyze the construction of a chair.
  • Describe the special abilities that a ballet dancer needs. (Other nouns can be substituted.)
  • Describe the actions of an ant you are observing. (Other animals can be substituted.)
  • How does it feel to look down from a high place (or from any precarious position)?
  • Describe a meeting between your teacher and Superman (or any unlikely combination of two people).
  • Critique your favorite TV show.
  • Recommend three things that will be essential for those living 25 years from now.
  • Debate an issue (handguns, smoking in public places, etc.) by writing the pros and cons.
  • Write a note to put in a satellite to tell how good or bad Earth is.
  • Is it a good idea to tell a secret? Why or why not?
  • What is the most perfect place to be?
  • What is the “good life”?
  • What does generosity mean?
  • Defend the idea that Earth is round.
  • Describe your house from a visitor’s point of view.
Teaching Tips

Working with Students with Special Needs: Part V – Classroom Strategies for ADHD

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Environmental Interventions

1. Make sure this student knows what is expected.
2. Sit this student near the teacher.
3. Try using a carousel or separate seating.
4. Surround the child with others who know how to do the work.
5. Divide the workload into small, manageable “chunks.”
6. Be very structured and consistent.
7. Allow for extra time when needed.

Interpersonal Interventions

1. Understand what this child is capable of doing.
2. Connect briefly with the child during the day.
3. Give constant feedback.
4. Meet with the child one-on-one during the school year.
5. Give immediate rewards.
6. Give a lot of encouragement and praise.
7. Keep a log on this student’s behavior, good and bad.
8. Help student to expand his or her attention span.
9. Teach the student to ask for help when confused.
10. Recognize the child’s strengths and successes.
11. Look at the student often during the lesson.
12. Remember to use different modalities during your lesson.
13. Ask the student to repeat the instructions.
14. Make a plan for organizing the student.
15. Allow the student to stretch or take a break when needed.
16. Let the child know when a transition is coming.
17. Enforce rules and consequences immediately.
18. Redirect privately.

Teaching Tips

Working with Students with Special Needs: Part IV – Classroom Modifications for Special Needs Students

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Teacher Checklist

The following are some ways to modify the classroom environment for students with special needs:

  • Reduce the number of assignments.
  • Decrease the amount of writing in an assignment.
  • Modify tests (e.g., read math problems to student).
  • Extend time for assignment completion.
  • Participation at homework center.
  • Use a timer to determine the amount of time to be spent on a particular assignment.
  • Use visual aids when giving instruction.
  • Use short, concise directions.
  • Have a buddy repeat the directions to the student.
  • Student uses a personal chalkboard/whiteboard.
  • Provide a special study area.
  • Provide a special learning partner.
  • Have the student use a notebook/contract for organization.
  • Demand an organized desk area and notebook.
  • Timeout to another classroom.
  • Provide “activity breaks.”
  • Have the student dictate thought or story to an aide. Aide writes it down and student copies it.
  • Encourage student to use a marker while reading.
  • Change seating.
  • Put fewer problems on each page.
  • Assign short period of concentrated effort.
  • Shorten assignments.
  • Provide student with the opportunity to take the assignment home or to the homework center.
  • Provide written directions.
  • Encourage student to repeat your question before answering it.
  • Teacher lists assignment on board and student copies it.
  • Break complex directions into one- or two-step tasks.
  • Change class assignments.
  • Allow student to use earphones to screen out distractions while involved in a paper and pencil task.
  • Vary test format.
  • Deploy the student within classroom.
  • Have the student work with an aide or cross-age tutor.
  • Have the student use a computer for writing assignments.