Prior to
taking this course, I was aware of the certain struggles that English Language
Learners face. However, I did not realize the larger picture with the refined
details in those struggles that each student may come across in their lives. This
class not only taught me to differentiate my lesson to different learners and
ELLs, but to also be able to communicate these ideas whether it be through
social interactions, hands-on activities and/or visuals. I always envision my
students to feel safe and inclusive to the discussions, however, I first must
be able to approach them in a situation where they can feel comfortable at
their own pace whether it be through writing or speaking. Wright mentions multicultural
education can help prepare all students to live in our multicultural society,
with attention to complex social challenges such as racism, discrimination and
other issues of inequality (Wright, 2015, p. 15). Therefore, students do not necessarily
need to have the similar cultural background to succeed emotionally and
academically, but I believe teachers need to help build the bridge to allow
ELLs feel welcomed to the community in the classroom.
A topic
that I found most relevant to my content area of teaching consist of differentiated
instruction with Science. Courses that significantly helped me identify
different instructions were: Differentiated Instruction for Diverse Learners
and Teaching Science for Grades 4-8. Science is known to include many hands-on
activities to explain difficult concepts through many kinds of instructions. However,
ELL students must be given the opportunities to practice sustained English
while focusing on scientific tasks (Wright, 2015, p. 280). For example, activities
through modeling, think-pair-share, and/or visuals through graphic organizers
could improve the comprehension of not just ELL students, but all students in
general when communicating with their peers. With this thought in my mind, I
could modify my lessons from a teacher-led to a student-centered lesson.
After taking
this online course, I found it to be challenging with some of the assignments.
Although I enjoyed doing the video blogs, interviewing individuals for Vlog #2
and #3 required additional flexibility to my schedule and theirs’. In addition,
just like any other online course- students are responsible for their independent
learning. I found the textbook very useful to read, but it was quite a struggle
keeping up with the amount of readings per week with student teaching. However,
there was an advantage of taking this course online. Just like any other online
course, I could work on my assignments whenever and where ever.
As for the
video blogs, I did enjoy making them to a certain extent. Although it opened up
our outlet of documenting our perspectives via online, it relied too much
heavily on other individuals (interviewing). I think these assignments could
have suffice with either recording a video or writing a reflection- not both.
In addition, comments and replies made the class more active in looking at
different perspectives, but I think the amount per comment/replies were just
too many to do as a student teacher. However, I did like how we were able to self-grade
our self using the rubric.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English
Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia,
PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
