THOMA MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 1
Diversity Statement
Teaching and living in such a diverse society presents many challenges for educators. A
teacher must effectively teach students from a variety of backgrounds with a variety of
educational needs. Differentiated lessons are important to meeting the diverse needs of my
students. “Differentiated instruction is as important for students who find school easy as it is for
those who find it difficult. All students benefit from availability of a variety of methods and
supports,” (Lawrence-Brown, 2004). This lesson on Alaskan Animals is differentiated and
tailored to meet the needs of Kindergarten children based on their reading and writing abilities,
giving each child the appropriate scaffolding they need to be successful.
Exploring different cultures in genuine ways creates a classroom that feels like a small
community, encouraging a higher level of student engagement (Lawrence-Brown, 2004). The
lesson above helps students to explore their own culture as it highlights the local fauna and
includes a story about local wildlife. Stories and activities that focus on indigenous cultures and
the cultures of each of the students in the class creates an inclusive and nurturing classroom
environment for students of all backgrounds. To be truly culturally responsive teachers must take
the time to learn about their students’ backgrounds and incorporate them into lessons.
“Researchers have found that by the age of 8, disparities between the cultural values and patterns
of communication of the home and the school can diminish the desire of young people to learn
and to believe in their own capacity to learn,” (Vavrus, 2008). Students whose teachers take the
time to learn about their culture and apply it to their lesson creation are more likely to be
successful.
Utilizing technology appropriately can help address diverse needs in the classroom as
well. According to Lawrence Brown (2004) assistive technology helps students with disabilities
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as well as students that are English Language Learners (ELL), giving them access to appropriate
methods of knowledge attainment. Students in a study by Boon, Burke, Fore, & Spencer (2005)
showed that randomly selected students with access to certain types of technology significantly
outperformed their peers. Haelermans, Ghysels, & Prince (2015) discovered similar results in
their study of 8th graders-those students that were given activities and formative assessment that
integrated technology did much better than those that did not. Technology can be an incredibly
effective scaffolding method for the most diverse group of learners.
Using pictures and rich vocabulary throughout the school day helps scaffold
appropriately and helps ELL students immensely. Students typically come to school with a wide
variety of vocabulary knowledge (Lane & Allen, 2010) and so it is important to expose and
immerse children in fresh vocabulary throughout the school day. It is also important to model
using rich vocabulary. Children who are exposed to a rich vocabulary in this way typically know
more words, especially when taught this explicitly (Lund & Douglas, 2016). The amount of
vocabulary knowledge a child has is a direct indicator of their reading comprehension abilities
(Lane & Allen, 2010). ELL students as well as those hard of hearing (Lund and Douglas, 2016)
can learn vocabulary quicker and catch up to their peers if the vocabulary immersion is coupled
with imagery to describe new words and access to books and stories with a limited vocabulary
(Tran, 2006).
Teaching to large and diverse groups of students is guaranteed these days. I will address
this through culturally responsive actions such as getting to know my students’ backgrounds,
creating differentiated lessons, exposing my students to many cultures and a rich vocabulary.
THOMA MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 3
References
Boon, R.T., Burke, M.D., Fore, C., & Spencer, V.G. (2005). The impact of cognitive organizers
and technology-based practices on student success in secondary social studies
classrooms. Journal of Special Education Technology, 21:1.
Cox, S.G., (2015). Differentiated instruction in the elementary school classroom. The Education
Digest. 73:9, 52-54. Retrieved from ProQuest.
Haelermans, C., Ghysels, J., & Prince, F. (2015). A dataset of three educational technology
experiments on differentiation, formative testing and feedback. British Journal of
Educational Technology, 46:5, 1102-1108. Retrieved from EBSCOHost.
Lane, H.B., & Allen, S.A. (2010). The vocabulary-rich classroom: modeling sophisticated word
use to promote word consciousness and vocabulary growth. The Reading Teacher, 63:5,
362-370. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Lawrence-Brown, Diana. (2004). Differentiated instruction: inclusive strategies for standards-
based learning that benefit the whole class. American Secondary Education, 32:3, 34-62.
Retrieved from JSTOR.
Lund, E., & Douglas M.W. (2016). Teaching vocabulary to preschool students with hearing loss.
Exceptional Children, 83:1, 26-41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Tran, A. (2006). An approach to basic-vocabulary development for English-language learners.
Reading Improvement, 43:3, 157-162. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Vavrus, M. (2008). Culturally responsive teaching. 21st Century Teaching: A Reference
Handbook, 49-57. Sage Publishing.