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Understanding Our Students

Module by: Fred Mednick. E-mail the author

Figure 1: Boats on the Yellow River
Figure 1 (boats.jpg)

Protecting the Ethnosphere

Throughout the world, we are experiencing an alarming decline in cultural richness. Indigenous cultures are being diminished or wiped out, and with them we lose valuable medical traditions, solutions to problems, the richness of art. We lose a diversity in points of view.

Just as we seek to preserve the biosphere in order to ensure a sustainable planet, we must seek to preserve the ethnosphere. It is essential that we consider cultural learning and celebration as a central feature of our teaching.

Celebrating Culture

We live in a time, when we have unprecedented access to technological tools by which we can share our cultures. We also live in a time where multiple intelligences and learning styles on an individual level have deepened our understanding of education, so, too, will celebration, and a sharing of cultures deepen our work with our students and with each other.

Learning Objective

In Course 4:

  • We will discuss the purpose, preparation, and practice of your own cultural competence in the classroom.
  • We will apply multiculturalism to problem-solving with a focus on the use of technology.
  • We will provide training on service learning.
  • We will discuss how to create and sustain connections with classrooms around the world.

Resources

Course material; Conversations with global colleagues.

Assignments

Assignment 1:

Assignment 2:

Assignment 3:

Assignment 4:

Assignment 5:

Assignment 6:

Assignment 7:

Assignment 8:

Assignment 9:

Assignment 10: Active Reading and Dialogue

Assignment 11: Survey for Course 4

Timeline

4 weeks

Suggested Reading:

An extraordinary curriculum exploring culture through art. PDF file below:

Exploring World Myths and Legends Through Art

HOW TO GET TO THE NEXT MODULE:

Usually, you just click "Next" to go to the next page. When you finish a section, however, (as you're about to do when you finish reading these two paragraphs), you need to click on the "Outline" button, which is on the bottom, right-hand side of the page. Look underneath the blue bar and click on the word "Outline."

When you click on "Outline," a screen will come up that will show you the outline for Course 4. Look for the next section to read and click on the first topic in that next section. For example, when you get to the outline now, look under the next section called "Developing a Sensitive Eye" and look for the first topic in black lettering called "A Teacher's Story." Click on "A Teacher's Story."

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Definition of a lens

Lenses

A lens is a custom view of the content in the repository. You can think of it as a fancy kind of list that will let you see content through the eyes of organizations and people you trust.

What is in a lens?

Lens makers point to materials (modules and collections), creating a guide that includes their own comments and descriptive tags about the content.

Who can create a lens?

Any individual member, a community, or a respected organization.

What are tags? tag icon

Tags are descriptors added by lens makers to help label content, attaching a vocabulary that is meaningful in the context of the lens.

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