unit 4

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Strategies for Promoting Inclusiveness and Welcoming DiversityINTRODUCTION
As an educator, you are likely working with students who demonstrate more types of diversity than ever before. Therefore, you should develop a repertoire of strategies for making learning accessible to all students and ensuring that your learning environment promotes inclusiveness and welcomes diversity in all its forms. In this unit, you will focus on two main ideas: implementing strategies to promote inclusivity and value diversity, and using critical thinking skills to support your work as a learner and educator.
LEARNING ACTIVITIESCollapse All
Toggle Drawer[u04s1] Unit 4 Study 1Weekly Planner and Reflection Journal
Use the Weekly Planner and Reflection Journal to help you keep track of your activities so you stay organized and meet all required deadlines. The tool also contains a section for you to record your reflections on your learning goals and experiences for the week. This space provides a private, informal area for you to record your thoughts on your strengths and challenges as they relate to inclusivity and diversity in learning environments. Your entries won’t be read, responded to, or graded by the instructor; however, you are strongly urged to make weekly journal entries, as you will need this content to complete the Unit 10 Course Reflection assignment.
As you prepare your weekly reflection entry, remember to connect at least one of Brookfield’s Four Lenses to your entry:

Autobiographical experiences.
Eyes of students or clients.
Relevant theories.
Colleagues’ perceptions.
Complete the Weekly Planner and Reflection Journal to track your activities.

Toggle Drawer[u04s2] Unit 4 Study 2Develop Your Toolbox
Critical thinking skills help you in your own studies and development as well as in helping your colleagues and clients. The following Capella media will provide a framework for understanding critical thinking skills:

Click Critical Thinking Model to view the media piece. Use the guidelines and questions as helpful critical-thinking tools as you conduct your research in this and future courses.
Click Resource Toolbox to investigate the Critical Thinking section. There are many linked resources there for you to learn all about critical thinking in general, as well as how those skills can help you as a learner.
Click Bloom’s Taxonomy  to learn how to use the levels of Bloom’s taxonomy to enhance the way you think about and approach your assignments.
If you find these resources particularly helpful, remember to add them to the list of resources you started in Unit 1.
Resource ToolboxBEGIN ACTIVITYICONTranscriptCritical Thinking ModelBEGIN ACTIVITYICONTranscriptBloom’s TaxonomyBEGIN ACTIVITYICONTranscript

Toggle Drawer[u04s3] Unit 4 Study 3Diversity and Inclusion Strategies
Readings
According to the 1995 UNESCO Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, “Tolerance is respect, acceptance, and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression, and ways of being human” (para 11).
Use the Internet to complete the following:

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Teaching tolerance. Retrieved from http://www.tolerance.org/?source=redirect&url;=teachingtolerance

As part of increasing your understanding of the need to value diversity in all educational settings, explore the Teaching Tolerance Web site, noting any interesting strategies that you could use in your own instruction.

Use the Capella library to read the following:

Brown, M. R. (2007). Educating all students: Creating culturally responsive teachers, classrooms, and schools. Intervention in School and Clinic, 43(1), 57–62.
Occasionally, the traditional curriculum and instructional strategies must be modified or adapted to be successful. Remember, making accommodations for diversity in learners is not a “crutch;” it helps to level the playing field for someone who has a disability, someone who does not speak English as his or her first language, or someone who does not have the prerequisite background knowledge for learning.
Multimedia
Click Adapting and Modifying Instruction for Inclusive Classrooms for strategies for modifying or adapting instruction for diverse learners in a traditional classroom environment.
What If I Am Not a Classroom Teacher?
Your professional role, or the one that you are preparing for in your Capella program, may not involve classroom teaching. If that is the case, consider the more general concept of providing adaptive experiences for those students or clients with whom you work. It will be helpful to review the Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment section of the Definitions [DOC] for a broader perspective. Review the KWL chart you completed in Unit 1, in which you reflected on how curriculum, instruction, assessment and multiculturalism are involved in your own professional role. You may also find one or more of the following articles pertinent to your specialization:

Dalton, J. C., & Crosby, P. C. (2013). Diversity, multiculturalism, and pluralism: Moving from hospitality and appreciation to social inclusion on campus and beyond. Journal of College and Character, 14(4), 281–288.
Goodman, N. (2016). Diversity is reality; Inclusion is a choice. Training, 53(5), 56–57.
Hart, J. E. (2009). Strategies for culturally and linguistically diverse students with special needs. Preventing School Failure, 53(3), 197–208..
Higbee, J. L., Schultz, J. L., & Goff, E. (2010). Pedagogy of inclusion: Integrated multicultural instructional design. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 41(1), 49–66..
Luther, F. D., & Pickering, J. (2015) Using Web 2.0 learning environments to address diversity: A diversity-education example. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 81(3), 28–34.
Ryan, J. (2016). Promoting inclusion in Ontario: Principals’ work in diverse settings. International Studies in Educational Administration, 44(2), 77–93.
Wood, R. (2015). To be cared for and to care: Understanding theoretical conceptions of care as a framework for effective inclusion in early childhood education and care. Child Care in Practice, 21(3), 256–265.
Reference
UNESCO. (1995, November 16). Declaration on principles of tolerance. Retrieved from http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13175&URL;_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL;_SECTION=201.html
Specialization-Specific Resources
This media piece provides a starting point for further learning. Note that some of the readings in your area of specialization may be required for successful completion of your course. Others are recommended or optional enrichment. Refer to your unit studies for required readings.
If you are in the Teaching and Learning Program, which is based on a personal, customized approach rather than specializations, we encourage you to explore the range of P–12 specialization-specific resources in this presentation as appropriate to your interests.
Click Specialization-Specific Resources to view the media piece.
Adapting and Modifying Instruction for the Inclusive ClassroomBEGIN ACTIVITYICONTranscriptSpecialization-Specific ResourcesBEGIN ACTIVITYICONTranscriptLearning Components
This activity will help you achieve the following learning components:

Identify challenges experienced in relation to inclusivity and diversity.
Review outcomes of applied inclusivity and diversity practices.
Analyze strategies for integrating inclusivity and diversity in an educational setting.

Toggle Drawer[u04s4] Unit 4 Study 4Assignment Reminder
Be sure you have conducted your interviews with other professionals, as the interviews are a significant part of the assignment due this week. If you are having any difficulty finding interviewees or with scheduling the interviews, be sure to contact your instructor for guidance as soon as you discover the difficulty.
Toggle Drawer[u04a1] Unit 4 Assignment 1Lessons From the Field
Overview
In Unit 3 you interviewed two professionals about inclusivity and diversity in their professional settings. For this assignment, you will report on what you learned from those interviews, analyze your findings, and apply what you learned to your own professional setting.
Assignment Instructions
Create a paper comprising 3–4 pages of content plus title and reference pages. In your own words, develop headings for each bullet point and organize your responses under the appropriate headings. An efficient approach is to use level 1 APA-formatted headings for this purpose, with additional headings at lower levels as needed. A template that contains appropriate headings is provided for your use. Use of the template is optional but strongly recommended. Include the following:

A background statement. Briefly describe the two professionals you interviewed (work setting; years of experience in their professions; diversity of those to whom they provide services: students, clients, and so on; and any other information that you think is necessary for a reader to gain a basic understanding of the interviewees and their roles).
A description of how the interviewees characterize the current state of inclusivity and diversity in their settings. Specifically identify and give a brief description (several sentences) of at least two key issues related to inclusivity and diversity discussed by the interviewees.
A description of strategies the interviewees use for creating inclusive environments. Identify and give a brief description (one or two sentences) of at least two specific strategies that the interviewees discussed. When you are reporting strategies that you discussed with your interviewees, it will be most useful to focus on specific actions rather than on broad generalizations.
A description of strategies the interviewees use for demonstrating respect toward and valuing students or clients from diverse backgrounds. Identify and describe briefly (four–six sentences) at least two specific strategies that were cited by the interviewees. When you are reporting strategies that you discussed with your interviewees, it will be most useful to focus on specific actions rather than on broad generalizations.
An analysis of how well the interviewees are creating inclusive environments for all students or clients. Which respondent do you believe is more proficient at this skill? Assess the evidence you have to support this view. Focus on the actual strategies the interviewees use and how effectively they use them versus what they could do under different circumstances. Then, make an overall statement about which interviewee is more proficient at creating an inclusive environment.
Conclusions or big ideas you drew about inclusivity and diversity from your interviews. Use information given by the interviewees and summarize it into at least two big ideas.
An application of these big ideas to your own professional setting. Identify strategies you can use to apply these big ideas in your own setting to promote valuing of diversity and describe them briefly.
Submit your paper in the assignment area as an attached Word document.
Additional Requirements

Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Resources, citations and overall paper are formatted according to current APA standards.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 points.
Resources

Lessons From the Field Scoring Guide.
APA Style and Format.
Lessons from the Field Template.

Toggle Drawer[u04d1] Unit 4 Discussion 1Gathering Strategies
Based on your own experiences as an educator, what you have learned as you have developed professionally, the information you learned from your interviews, and what you have read, describe three strategies you believe would be effective for promoting inclusiveness and welcoming diversity in your professional setting. It will be most useful to focus on specific actions rather than on broad generalizations.

What was the thought process that helped you identify these strategies as potentially effective in your setting?
What evidence do you have to support your conclusion? Remember that evidence-based statements are different from unsupported opinions. Evidence-based statements are reached by considering some form of data or expert opinion that supports the claim the author is making: “According to Johnson (2016) …” and “Student responses on a post-seminar satisfaction survey indicated that…” are two examples of evidence-based statements.
How would you apply the chosen strategies in your educational setting?
Make a Connection
In addition to responding to the discussion prompt, pose a question or note an issue that interests you. This is meant to help engage your peers and let them know how they can best support you.
Response Guidelines
These guidelines apply to your responses to other learners, which are in addition to your response to the discussion topic itself.
Respond to at least one learner. In each response, first offer feedback on your peer’s thought process. Are the critical-thinking pathways easy to follow? Was there strong evidence provided to support his or her conclusions? Offer an additional strategy that he or she may not have considered. Make sure that the strategy you suggest aligns with his or her approach for determining effective strategies.
Post your initial responses in the discussion area by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. (Central time zone). Comments to other learners’ posts are due by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. (Central time zone).
Learning Components
This activity will help you achieve the following learning components:

Summarize professional experience related to inclusivity and diversity.
Identify challenges experienced in relation to inclusivity and diversity.
Review outcomes of applied inclusivity and diversity practices.
Analyze strategies for integrating inclusivity and diversity in an educational setting.
Provide evidence to support conclusions on the effectiveness of inclusion and diversity strategies.