week 6 assignment #1

The sky is the limit

presentation

week 6 assignment #2

In my observation classroom, I was lucky to be guided by my kids’ ESL teacher. She shared with me a lot of tangle materials, e.g. textbook, posters designed by her, handy websites, and demonstrated me how to teach ELLs, how to do reading and writing teaching. Furthermore, she invited me to join the discussion of assessment of a student’s ability to decide whether he can skip a grade from K to 2. One of these days, I had even tried teaching phonic to a Haitian girl as well due to her trust.

During the three-day-observation, I realized an ESL teacher faced many difficulties since she started her teaching in this school. She was very proud of herself due to understanding the needs of her students and fighting for their rights all the time.  She also shared with me the dramatic changes in this school district. Back to ten years ago, for instance, there were no Chinese-speaking students in this area, but now there is increasing population every year. "Apart from other students," she said," ELLs never have the discipline problem. They respect the teacher and study very hard." She added, "But I know there is still some discrimination on campus, that's why I stand up for them, and every teacher at this school knows that I am very, you know, it's better not to offend me." I did appreciate what this teacher had done, my children were also beneficiaries. Because her endeavors, the school district have changed some approaches during these years. 

First, they retrieved all ELLs from extended school to the main campus. The gathering of all ELLs made school think more and willingly provide the efficient and effective environment for ELLs.

Secondly, they placed the ELLs in the ordinary class all the time since 2016.  Now she just pulls out the ELLs to one table during the center period and reteach or reinforces them the concept in the same space. She told me she loved this idea, most of the time students didn’t recognize she was an ESL teacher, “ they just treat me as a co-teaching teacher. And honestly, I help other students if needed as well.”  When she taught phonic to a Haitian girl, she always reminded her to learn carefully and efficiently so that she could go back to her center. And the pedagogy was encouraging to this one-year-English-learning girl because she couldn't wait to go back to her peers!

The most important thing I have learned from this teacher is giving confidence to students, which is always her priority. When she rectified the ELLs' writing, she focused on content first. " I often need to figure out what they wrote by speaking out because, after some certain of time, they catch the idea that there are connections between sound and words." she laughed," when I read their sentence, I am so proud of them. Even there are so many wrong spellings. But we are communicating! And check this one(the sentence from the authentic American student),  he also made some mistakes, didn't he? We are all processing. Just give them some time, they are smart and grateful."

This teacher shared with me meaningful teaching materials. At this school, they have some specialists who decide which textbook they can use. But after the experiment, they would rather choose the package with fewer supplements( so she needs to prepare more.) but with more content-area meaning.  

With developing technology and more co-teaching strategies, I know she can do better. But her spirit and passion inspired me to be a good teacher. Not only teachings but bringing happiness and sense of safety to our later generations as well. When I saw her and the ELLs giggling together, I realize this is what I want in the future.

week 5 assignment #1

         I am not good at knowing religion, this assignment was made up by lots of references from websites. But this assignment definitely helps me clarify different religion and its taboo.

We're All the Same, We're All Different

week 5 assignment #3 Please help me to answer the question designed by me

Please,

1. Go to https://smile2.stanford.edu/#

2. Create an account

3. Go to "Most recent question" section and you will see my question as below:
   Do you think which period of time should students start to learn the diverse culture?

4. Click your answer and don't forget to rate the question!

THANK YOU!!!

week 5 assignment #2

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Evaluation

Reflection

week 4 assignment #1-2 Cultural Immersion Experience

      Even I speak Mandarin as Chinese, my experiences embodies that culture could be different within the same language, but the same language enables me to communicate with them smoothly and help them eliminate their vigilance naturally. And since this video related to Chinese descendant, I decide to pick up the target who is the Chinese family in this area.

  (1) Research the cultural background of students' families,

       My Chinese friends came from mainland China, they suffered the political persecution and applied for asylum a decade ago. The family first moved to Holland and had their only child over there.  Later on, they got some assistance and eventually fulfilled their dream moving to the U.S. In the beginning, it's difficult for them to fit the mainstream with the zero English level, they chose to dwell in Flushing which most residents are from China. They worked hard and didn't have much time to take care of their son's academic development.  On top of the language barrier, they felt helpless because the democracy was way different from communism, which meant the way people thinking, doing, communicating were all new territory to them.   On the other, their boy also strove hard in terms of living and schooling. His parent relied on him to translate and low expectation toward him from school didn't motivate him to achieve a higher standard.

  

 (2) Visit local community centers to find out about the cultural activities and beliefs of the students,

     Now, they move from Flushing to Orange County where they don't really have many Chinese countrymen in the local community. But my friends still make connections with other Chinese, they not only support the celebration of  Chinese traditional holidays but also organize a lion dance group to performance for parades or other local activities, let alone go visiting and shopping in the Chinese-run stores and continue presenting a petition for their belief.   

  (3) Tour students' neighborhoods to identify local resources and "funds of knowledge." 

      My friends' house is around 15-minute driving distance from mine. In their neighborhood, there is as few Chinese family as mine. They usually need to drive half an hour to buy Chinese grocery, get more information about Chinese newcomers, or get Chinese version newspaper at Chinese-run supermarket in another bigger town. Recently there is a new open tea shop in the same town and as I know, they often have gatherings there. And since there are 77% white people make up in this area, they even work harder to pay the tuition for their son to study in the English-Chinese bilingual private school.  And luckily, they figure out the way if they really need the necessary, they can drive back to Flushing or buy it online!

week 4 assignment#2 Describe your plan to involve families and communities with 3 specific examples

1. Language is not a problem

     I believe everyone feels comfortable when they speak the same language. I would like to organize some bilingual parents to have their own groups based on their languages. In the beginning, they can help me to write the bilingual invitations to the parents and make a call to encourage them to participate my open house time. And then, on the day, volunteers can interpret my teaching ideas for them and help parents express their concerns without the language barrier. After open house day, schedule out for family visiting with translators if they need further communication.

2. Blogger can boost communication

      I will like to form an atmosphere that every culture is welcome in the class and educate parents that any relevant activity, festival, the celebration is a portal for our children to experience the different culture. I will create a Blogger for my class and encourage the volunteer parents to share some information about cultural activities, ask them to provide some incentive to motivate parents to bring their children there. Through this platform, teacher, family, and community can collaborate, get know each other more and set a respectful environment.

3. Tell your  story, say your language

       I heard people mentioned the shortest distance between two people is a story. we should listen to a firsthand story from the person's lip not from the appearance or behavior even they do mean something sometimes. In my class, I would like to have all my students' families to prepare a family storytelling. The best part, I would invite parents to do the presentation in their native language and their children do translation simultaneously. Even students are the English speakers, they need to translate it in Spanish or Chinese depending what language speakers in the class.  I would cooperate with ESL teachers and other volunteer parents to help the students' script out when they need to translate in advance. There are two purposes in this activity. One is for all students to understand it's not easy to learn another language and hopefully, they can generate the empathy; the other purpose is to understand each group more and make minority family feel involved.

week 4 assignment #1-1

I am not your Asia stereotype is a grappling speech that demonstrated the fact Asia- American encounter here and left me a bittersweet thinking because my race can help me identify the position that Canwen mentioned. It's also a food for thought in our society that what kind of stereotype we hold maybe a poison in others' life. When I watched the video, lots of relevant videos popped out and make me ponder this phenomenon has been existing for such a long time and will exist if we don't take any action.

 If I were the teacher, I would like to have an open house activity to get to know my students' families, instead of particular ones. As I know, the stereotypes are handed down by family mainly and the air in society. Teachers need to solve this problem once and for all on both sides, even usually it meant we will fight with the whole system. Through observation in open house, I would know more about parents and have a chance to express or negotiate the proper expectation for our children. For the minority in my class, I would like to build a deeper relationship with them and invite them to give me some inspirations to design the cultural or moral curriculum that helps them clarify the identity. Next step, I willingly demonstrate to the whole class how to rethink the concepts where they came from, are they reasonable? Or are they obsolete? Are they the historic product?

Then, give students like Canwen confidence by providing her a stage to speak out, to break the role she should play, to empower her to "fail". And since everyone is individual, I would expand the scale to every aspect of prejudice and engage my students in putting themselves in others' shoes and allow then to digest this issue for one or two weeks. Furthermore, show them how to communicate, educate the importance of "asking before assumption" and "listening". I believe listening can build empathy and later on empathy can generate understanding, it is the approach that you respect or value the person even you don't agree with him/her and the solution for a harmonious society.

Week 3 assignment #3 Question #2

• Question#2 How can teachers use their understanding of students' home cultures to teach in culturally responsive ways?

         Let me share my boy's stories and it can exactly explain the importance of this theory. In Taiwan, we have a break combined lunch time and napping at 12-13:30, we follow this routine throughout preschool to college. When we moved to this nation, his teacher often assumed he's a lazy boy due to my son often yawned during that period of time. The teacher never really understood the cultural background and labeled him as a reluctant learner. The ESL teacher helped us a lot then and later on the school district decided to retrieve all ESL students back to the main campus for saving some transportation fee of ESL teachers. Since then, my boy started to have smile. After I realized what he suffered from the previous school I started to have strong motive to help other diverse students. So in this case, if I were the teacher, I would have communicated with parents first to understand the reason behind the phenomena and adjust my schedule or teaching style during that time, I would like to have more physical movement in class instead of only sitting there. Even just do close-reading, I will design some session for engaging students to discuss, circulate in classroom writing some ideas. Now, my son is getting better and better, most of the time he is even the high honor student, and in my heart, I always acknowledged the ESL teacher, thank her patience and her understanding.

Week 3 assignment #3 Question #1

•         Question#1 How are high expectations especially critical for culturally and linguistically diverse learners?How can teachers learn about students' home cultures?

        I am a preservice teacher, I always remind myself every lesson or every moment I teach will have some meaning in someone's life and that encourages me to push the envelope when I study. To me, if we don't have high expectation on our culturally or linguistically diverse learners, the misunderstanding or ethnocentric attitude will blind our eyes to vision the fact that our next generation will make this nation more diverse when they age. And namely, when we don't hold high expectations, we partly overlook the strength we have had and walk away from the foundation of the establishment of this country. Educators or relevant policies maker would just make more excuses for our failure on the culturally or linguistically students. In their life, we give up them and somehow we give up our mission unknowingly. We need to recognize that students from the different background could suffer the different level of difficulties here in their life. A new immigrant child may need to cope with the school and the pressure from the family financial issue. They don't have enough resources for learning or even worse they don't know they should have. These solutions rely on teachers, administrators and district's caring and communication among students and their families. 

         Every teacher is a learner, that is what I believe because everyone is individual and we can't just copy past experience or concept to new students. I would like to take these kinds of students as a good chance for the rest of class to learn history, geography or culture. Besides home visiting, I will assign the class to publish a newspaper targeting on newcomers and their relevant information investigation. We can even cooperate the earlier comers to share their stories and teacher can learn the students' home culture just like other students through this medium and I believe the families can also feel respected and work with the teacher for their kids.The boundary settled between race, gender, language, or the ability eventually will become vaguer and vaguer if we put our effort and have our appropriate expectation. The expectation will be the fuel for the teacher to develop better- /multi- curriculum and gain the sense of accomplishment.

Week 3 assignment #2

The Face: Do You See What I See

         Everyone is individual, even in the same group. Our concepts are nurtured not only by our culture but many aspects, like society status, socioeconomy, the process of growing and obstacles we encounter. They are the notes in our Life Symphony and the up-and-down melody enriches our wisdom. BUT, it's in the view of the optometrists.

         Appreciation the beauty of life is an easier-say-than done task, learners need to expand their perceptions and compassion, even tolerance continually. Through education, teachers can utilize role-playing or some instructional approaches, e.g. jigsaw approach, group investigation model, etc. to create a cooperative learning environment for students. But as I mentioned in the beginning, everyone is individual, we also have to learn to accept the original, existing disposition of our students and always optometrically provide more diverse learning opportunities for them to explore themselves and make connections to this society.

Week 3 assignment #1

Define Culture

      The definition of Culture varies based on a common geographical location, common attitudes, practices, rules, customs, and structures. (Roselle Kline Chartock, Culturally responsive teaching p.102) But it is quite easy to be labeled as out-group don't have sufficient knowledge about them or only know few members in the group and develop a generalized idea of the group. Understanding cultures could be a life-long learning even for insiders, let alone outsiders from all over the world. But teachers can apply real-life phenomena to make connections and help students reflect their counterpart. Having this kind of experience, learners can open their mind and boost their social skills, both capabilities would pay the way for their future in all aspects of life.

        After reading lesson plan 3, I agree with the idea that culture is learned, and to me, it implies it can be shared by out-group. And the most important thing is culture is necessary for people to know certain values and courtesy if they want to blend into the cultural group.  So boil down to how to learn a culture effectively and efficiently, education plays a crucial role. Basically, school is a miniature of our society, through the well-designed curriculum, instructors can refine the spirit and condense the essence when they convey the knowledge.  And in a diverse classroom, no matter where do the students come, they can feel respected and have the confidence or even contribute their cultural values for the local students to rethink and reflect their understanding and position in the world.  

         Throughout my experiences, Observation and honesty are my tips to fit in the new environment.  Finding the difference between my culture and others', asking more when I can't figure out the logical reason even from the students, I believe these are the correct path for me to learn and a good attitude to teach one day.

week 2 assignment #3

CRT is an interdisciplinary approach, this field requires educators learning while teaching. People get used to staying in their comfort zone and expanding the view of the world somehow is complicated feeling and need to put more effort. For instance, when you teach math, you can apply equation in real world scenario using foreign capitals to calculate the distance, but in the meantime, you have to do some research about foreign capitals.  As long the more I acquire the knowledge of CRT, the wider range teachers can apply it. Namely, not only ESL teachers but also other subjects instructors can tape onto this idea, because the definition of " Culture" is a wild spectrum that can incorporate every disciplinary.

I hope one day I will...

1. Try to have students discuss in the small group, i.g. apply jigsaw approach or investigation model, guide them have more aspect of discussion and appreciate the effort from every individual.

2. Combine entertainment/news and education, i.g. sharing a variety of ethnic issues movies or news clipping to stimulate deep discussion. If it's available, invite the author, screenwriter, columnist to share their ideas like the video provided this week by the professor.   (for young students, "Postcard from Buster" is a good series.)

3. Hold some activities to help students know their position in the world. In the beginning, middle, and final of a semester or other comparatively relaxing days teacher can encourage students to share their culture through potluck, book-reading, folk song singing or just picture-sharing, language-teaching. It's fun and could empower students to gain confidence and understanding.

feedback from classmate:
Yiyi, I would like to add games to that list. Teachers should use games when teaching academic content. It appeals to all students of diverse backgrounds. Gaining the students' attention is the first step to learning. Also, using games to learn skills and content is very effective because it provides lots of repetition and requires students to make connections and use active processing.

week 2 assignment #2

        Taiwan in a very "tricky" country in the world. Some nations recognize it as an independent country while some don't. The controversial topic "It is a province of China" has become a chain that bothers Chinese and Taiwanese more than a century. To some extent, I am a mix in Taiwan due to my father came from HuiBei, China, and my mother came from Tainan, Taiwan. I lived in a veteran village before I got married.  So I would like to share some personal experiences with privilege and/or prejudice in my society.

 RACE

         Even though some Chinese traveled to Taiwan since the 17th century, after WWII, lots of Chinese followed the government to Taiwan and treated this island as a foothold if one day they could fight back to mainland China. The earlier comers became Taiwanese and newly comers called Chinese. Chinese people have been in the higher status among these races in society since then. I was lucky because my father was a Chinese, my friends always envied my Chinese speaking without Taiwanese accent also because the only Language permitted was Chinese. Ironically, now I am in America, but I still have to clarify my nationality but in an opposite way. I can sense local people have no friendly attitude toward Chinese who are notorious for their behavior in the world. And every time after my clarification, I could have kind of relief between my new friends and I. Honestly, I don't like it, and that's why I would like to put more effort helping Chinese to adopt this society. 

 RELIGION

       To some extent, Taiwan definitely has freedom for a variety of beliefs. But sometimes it also gets some impact from politics. For instance, Falun Gong is a sensitive issue in Taiwan. It originated from China since 1992 and spread to more than 114 countries and areas so far, it's a traditional Qigong practice and popular among people due to help people get the healthy body and peaceful mind. People can learn it for free and practice it anytime/anyplace. But China Communist Party started to persecute it due to the political interest and stigmatized it as a cult. I am also a Falun Gong practitioner. In Taiwan, I suffer the same pressure under the atmosphere. Taiwan government has very strong connection with China Communist Party and our medias get lots grant from relevant China companies. Most people don't know the truth and try to avoid talking about the topic. It causes many practitioners being marginalized and labeled as the gullible group. 

GENDER

        Taiwanese share most cultures from Chinese and it is a patriarchy. Many men have privilege in all walks of life. They are offered more salary and respect in companies. During the process of physical and mental development, boys are provided more chances and fewer limitations not only from school but also from family. Many young couples can not afford the parenting cost and cause the situation that Taiwan has the lowest birth rate in the world. Under that circumstance, most families choose to have a boy instead of a girl. In my marriage, I also experience that unfair treat. It is always my obligation to take care y three children and do most of the house chore. If I want to buy something to pamper myself, I usually need to wait until my husband has extra budget.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

       Taiwan is a new country in comparison and people there would like to embrace new ideas. Recently, it is going to pass the law having the legal right for LGBT. But it's still long way to go in my opinion. Including myself, I respect others' identities but I would try my best to prevent my children from being one of the groups. 

 ABILITY/DISABILITY

         We have been imprinted for generations that the scholars have the supreme position in society. Students with outstanding grades can do whatever they like to some extent. Teachers would tolerate their bad attitude just because they are brilliant intelligent. I was an excellent student when I studied in middle school, and my parent treated me like a princess. But after I started to ponder the meaning of life during high school and college, and became reluctant to my academy, my parents thought I was a looser. No matter what I did, i.g. earning pocket money through part time jobs and accumulating my social experiences, they just turned their heads and assumed I didn't follow the correct path.

         These experiences allow me to realize this world needs more time to fix the problems, and people who are at the moment need to put aside the burden, learn the lessons and find the strength that can really help us get our own stand.

week 2 assignment #1

Cultural Autobiography and Identity Collage

Presentation

Prezi content