Monday, April 22, 2013


Cultural Differences
It is very important to take cultural differences into consideration when working with the students in your classroom.  What may be considered rude in one cultural setting can actually be considered completely appropriate in another.  One of the most important things to remember when dealing with cultural differences is that the differences you may not always be able to link to certain cultural stereotypes, for example if you are from the some general location and have the same general group as your neighbor but your family was a coal mining family or a farm family you are going to have different cultural roots then other families even within your same general area.



Take a few minutes to reflect on your experience preparing for your presentation.
    •       Provide rationales for your choice of activities. Why did you choose your activities? Did you consider other possibilities before deciding?
·         We thought it would be more powerful to point out how even the littlest difference/interaction from a student could actually be fueled by their cultural difference and each one needs to be taken into consideration in your classroom. 
·         The activities allowed us to not only show how cultural differences came to play a large role in the classroom, but how stereotypes can cause additional damage if steps to understanding there effect are not taken into consideration.
·         Truthfully, there was actually going to be more to the last activity but my husband accidentally ate part of my activity.  The activity was also going to include small bite sized candy bars of various types with different colored sticker dots on them.  I was going to have them open their candy to compare their differences within the same color groups.  This was going to show how even if you may look the same on the outside that the inside can still be different.  This would have been reflected in the image on the handout of the visible culture and the invisible roots.  I really wanted everyone to understand that even cultures have sub-cultures and sometimes those that appear different initially may share similar root structure.  I am just sorry I didn’t have the time to redo that portion before class since my classes started at 8 and I had 3 classes in a row.


    •       Describe how you chose what role each presenter would play in the development and delivery of your presentation. What personal strengths did you consider in the process? 
·         We both had certain items we wanted to focus on.  Catie had some really good experiences at TSD that allowed us to express how these little things can completely alter a classroom setting.  You should never jump to conclusions; you always need to interpreter the situation to understand what started the fire in the beginning.  I wanted to be sure to add in how it could be applied in the classroom to all cultural differences and groups.  We both work pretty well together.  Catie can be a little shy and nervous at times and I can normally keep things structured and on track, but am not great with technology that I have not used before.  
Take a few minutes to reflect on your presentation experience.
    •       Describe how your presentation most accurately reflected the instructional strategy you used. What criteria of your teaching style did you address?  How might you have improved your presentation? 
·         I think we did well at getting everyone to think about how culture and stereotypes can play a large role in the classroom.  Most students commented on how much they enjoyed learning how the Deaf culture was a lot different than what they expected.  While a few address that they felt a little lost on the stereotyping game since they did not feel like they could follow along with the idea of stereotyping those that where deaf/HH.  I wished we had more time to go into greater detail that allowed more discussion at the end since our technical error delayed the presentation a bit.
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    •       Reflect on your learners’ responses to your presentation. What aspects do you feel worked well, what would you change, and why
·         I would have liked to have them add their own discussion as to how they pictured their own classroom being affected by different cultures and stereotypes.  Since not everyone will have a deaf/HH student or Hispanic student then we could have addressed a larger group in discussion.

How is your personal theory of learning demonstrated in your activities and the reactions of your peers? Use specific examples of your teaching as well as peer comments/responses as evidence for your analysis.
·         I strongly believe people will be building upon their current beliefs about cultures and stereotypes, but by allowing them the social interaction they can explore new ideas, theories if you will, of how they will alter their lens and biases.  One student responded with “I am now aware of cultural differences I was not aware of before” and they were pleased that they were “engaged the whole time though multiple visuals and activities”.
·         Also a lot of students remarked about how they enjoyed the video clips (including the ones given outside of class) and they felt like they were able to draw a lot from those resources that then will allow them to alter their own cultural lens and biases. 

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