Week 10

Freedom to be: Diversity and accessibility for all

The most useful part of this week's readings (chapters 35-38) for me as a future teacher was chapter 36, which is in regards to diversity and accessibility.  So often students are expected to learn the same way and to produce the same output (a la standardized tests, where schools are punished if students don't perform well on culturally biased questions), but I feel as we delve deeper into the twenty-first century students are finally able to be recognized for being individuals with wildly different needs and backgrounds that influence what they know and how they learn.

I found the personal stories in this chapter to be really eye-opening and it made me consider how much easier it is to learn something after making a personal connection--I wonder if this could be applied across disciplines?  For example, how much easier would it be to learn about the tenets of Islam if a Muslim were to come to class and discuss his or her experience?  Anyway, reading about Stephen's and Joel's respective experiences gave me insight into what problems they faced and gives me ideas about how to reach out to and connect with students who might be facing similar struggles.  Also, the multimodal diversity model will surely be something I turn back to regularly to think of ways to make the content accessible for all, regardless of cultural, physical, or cognitive considerations.