Diversity within Unity
Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Society
By James A. Banks
Summarized By
Suhail Naaman
Introduction:
A group was formed from a political scientist, a sociologist, four multicultural education specialists and two psychologists. There were other members from other universities. This panel was modeled to write reports for the national Academy of Sciences and to solve problems through the most effective actions that can be taken to solve it. These panels are called essential principles, which lead to the improvement of the educational policy and its practices, eventually help to improve the intergroup skills.
The 12 essential principles are summarized below.
Principle 1: Professional development programs for teachers to know more about
Ethnic groups in the American society.
Principle 2: All students should have equitable opportunities to learn.
Principle 3: Curriculum should cover all social, political, and economic contexts.
Principle 4: Supplementary material to develop knowledge.
Principle 5: Developing intergroup relations.
Principle 6: Stereotyping that has effect on racial and ethnic relations.
Principle 7: Learning about values.
Principle 8: Teacher should create the right environment to interact with students.
Principle 9: Students from different racial groups should interact with each other.
Principle 10: Members of the school should learn collaborative skills and dispositions in order to create a caring environment for students.
Principle 11: Funds should be distributed equitably.
Principle 12: Teachers should use different cultural techniques for assessment.
Conclusion:
School must respect diversity groups for a unified nation-state.
Reference:
Banks, James A.(2001). Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Society.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Reflection as a Critical Component of the Technology Adoption Process
By: Koszalka, Tiffany A
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
Introduction:
Today’s educational technology training focuses on only how to operate the equipment. But there should be a reflection component that is added to the professional development program which helps educators attend to the cases beyond skills development and move toward educational technology adoption.
Adoption of Innovation:
The educator has to form an attitude towards the behavioral intent to pursue or reject the innovation. And this begins when the individuals learns of the innovation.
Interaction, successful practice with an innovation, and careful reflection about new situations and outcomes will make a good base for adopting technologies.
An Approach to Prompting Reflection:
Structured, short, open-ended questions help educators move through the stages of adoption. “Educators pay more attention to strategies of inquiring about their reasoning and develop greater abilities to enhance teaching and learning through the innovation” Koszalka (2003).
Conclusion:
The most successful development sessions support educators in a cyclical reflective process to help them specify for themselves the relationship between the theoretical benefits of an innovation and successful practice.
Reflections help educators also to integrate technology strategies that lend themselves to the configuration of the classroom.
Reference:
Koszalka, Tiffany A (2003). Reflection as a Critical Component of the Technology Adoption Process
Selecting Media For Distance Education
By: Ely, Donald P
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
Introduction:
This is a kind of learning where learning group is separate, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors.
The following will show what the kind of Medias used is.
Online Learning is only one type of distance learning:
Online learning is another way to distance learning where the teacher does not meet the students face-to-face. Using the computers and the contemporary technological tools will enhance the process.
Print:
This kind of learning is called correspondence learning which is conducted largely by mail. Paper – books were being used so is now in addition to eBooks.
Radio and Telephone:
All learners have to listen to the radio at the same time, later on was replaced by phone conferences.
Audiotapes and Television:
This is another way of distance learning through disc recordings and recorded tapes.
Traditional versus distance education:
The computer has changed the traditional offerings of distance learning, now technology is more integrated than the traditional learning. Now they are using emails, chats, telephone conferences ---etc.
Selection of the appropriate Media:
This section depends on the objective of the course itself. If the course needs audio or printed materials or some instructional designs.
Conclusions:
“Special considerations for distance learning
· Determine your primary delivery approach.
· Review the course outline to determine where media can be used to facilitate learning.
· Ascertain availability of student access to the media selected.
· Locate appropriate resources to fit your objectives or plan to create them”.
Ely, Donald, P (2003)
References:
Ely, Donald P (2003). Selecting Media for Distance Education. Eric Digest.
By: Ely, Donald P
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
Introduction:
This is a kind of learning where learning group is separate, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors.
The following will show what the kind of Medias used is.
Online Learning is only one type of distance learning:
Online learning is another way to distance learning where the teacher does not meet the students face-to-face. Using the computers and the contemporary technological tools will enhance the process.
Print:
This kind of learning is called correspondence learning which is conducted largely by mail. Paper – books were being used so is now in addition to eBooks.
Radio and Telephone:
All learners have to listen to the radio at the same time, later on was replaced by phone conferences.
Audiotapes and Television:
This is another way of distance learning through disc recordings and recorded tapes.
Traditional versus distance education:
The computer has changed the traditional offerings of distance learning, now technology is more integrated than the traditional learning. Now they are using emails, chats, telephone conferences ---etc.
Selection of the appropriate Media:
This section depends on the objective of the course itself. If the course needs audio or printed materials or some instructional designs.
Conclusions:
“Special considerations for distance learning
· Determine your primary delivery approach.
· Review the course outline to determine where media can be used to facilitate learning.
· Ascertain availability of student access to the media selected.
· Locate appropriate resources to fit your objectives or plan to create them”.
Ely, Donald, P (2003)
References:
Ely, Donald P (2003). Selecting Media for Distance Education. Eric Digest.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
IT literature Review
Weblogs in Education
By Tan Yuh Huann, Ow Eu Gene John, Jeanne Marie Ho Pau Yuen
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
Introduction:
Weblogs are used to refer to journals. Also a weblog is accessible to the public and can be edited by the people themselves. And a blog can be created very easily in three or fewer steps.
The Potential for Blogs for Teaching & Learning:
Blogs has so many potentials for example,
· Exchange of ideas.
· Efficient information retrieval.
· Personal Journaling.
· Personal reflection.
· Community building Collaborative task.
· It contains text, audio and video in addition to hyperlinks.
Some issues and concerns on the use of blogs for Teaching & Learning:
The following concerns were found only in Singapore
· Scaffolding of learning tasks.
· Plagiarism
· Legal Liabilities
Conclusion:
Blogging is new in Singapore. From the above we can see that teacher can transfer their knowledge to the students. Also Blogs gives the students the opportunity to work individually and as a group. Also the blog is way of integrating technology with curriculum.
The blog is a big warehouse where you can store your articles and retrieve them by the editor and the public.
References:
Tan Yuh Huann, Ow Eu Gene John, Jeanne Marie Ho Pau Yuen. IT Literature Review, Weblog in Education.
By Tan Yuh Huann, Ow Eu Gene John, Jeanne Marie Ho Pau Yuen
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
Introduction:
Weblogs are used to refer to journals. Also a weblog is accessible to the public and can be edited by the people themselves. And a blog can be created very easily in three or fewer steps.
The Potential for Blogs for Teaching & Learning:
Blogs has so many potentials for example,
· Exchange of ideas.
· Efficient information retrieval.
· Personal Journaling.
· Personal reflection.
· Community building Collaborative task.
· It contains text, audio and video in addition to hyperlinks.
Some issues and concerns on the use of blogs for Teaching & Learning:
The following concerns were found only in Singapore
· Scaffolding of learning tasks.
· Plagiarism
· Legal Liabilities
Conclusion:
Blogging is new in Singapore. From the above we can see that teacher can transfer their knowledge to the students. Also Blogs gives the students the opportunity to work individually and as a group. Also the blog is way of integrating technology with curriculum.
The blog is a big warehouse where you can store your articles and retrieve them by the editor and the public.
References:
Tan Yuh Huann, Ow Eu Gene John, Jeanne Marie Ho Pau Yuen. IT Literature Review, Weblog in Education.
Fostering Foreign Language Proficiency
What the U.S. Can Learn From Other Countries
By
Donna Christian, Ingrid Pufahl, and Nancy C. Rhodes
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
By
Donna Christian, Ingrid Pufahl, and Nancy C. Rhodes
Summarized by
Suhail Naaman
Abstract:
The authors was trying to show how teaching other languages programs in other parts of the world are better than our programs here in the United States, and if there are ways to adopt these programs and implement them here in the United States.
Introduction:
Our country usually doesn’t look for any experiences from other countries because they think that their country is the leader of the world and they know everything, which is wrong of course. The statistics shows that 50% of the European adults know another language fluently while only 9% of the American adults are highly proficient in another language. On this level so many concerns from the federal and state pops up (e.g. No child left behind, Short of teachers---etc.) which makes learning a second language as secondary subject. But there is still a question that should be asked, how can we achieve the other countries in learning a foreign language?
Countries that Take languages seriously treat them as important core subjects:
Most of the European countries consider learning another language just like learning mathematics, reading, writing, science ---etc. Besides that some countries had established a very successful immersion programs like Canada.
Conclusion, what can the U.S. Do?
The country can promote foreign languages through government supported programs or state of the art language programs that begin instruction early. At the end we should learn from other peoples’ experience, and always try to integrate technology to curriculum, and one of the best ways is to use the blog in our schools.
References:
Christian, D., Pufahl, I., Rhodes, N. C., Fostering Foreign Language Proficiency: What the U.S. can Learn From Other Countries. Phi Delta Kappan 87 no3 N 2005.
Introduction:
Our country usually doesn’t look for any experiences from other countries because they think that their country is the leader of the world and they know everything, which is wrong of course. The statistics shows that 50% of the European adults know another language fluently while only 9% of the American adults are highly proficient in another language. On this level so many concerns from the federal and state pops up (e.g. No child left behind, Short of teachers---etc.) which makes learning a second language as secondary subject. But there is still a question that should be asked, how can we achieve the other countries in learning a foreign language?
Countries that Take languages seriously treat them as important core subjects:
Most of the European countries consider learning another language just like learning mathematics, reading, writing, science ---etc. Besides that some countries had established a very successful immersion programs like Canada.
Conclusion, what can the U.S. Do?
The country can promote foreign languages through government supported programs or state of the art language programs that begin instruction early. At the end we should learn from other peoples’ experience, and always try to integrate technology to curriculum, and one of the best ways is to use the blog in our schools.
References:
Christian, D., Pufahl, I., Rhodes, N. C., Fostering Foreign Language Proficiency: What the U.S. can Learn From Other Countries. Phi Delta Kappan 87 no3 N 2005.
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