|  Hi friends, I am always told that it is better to have someone proof-read your paper before submitting it. So if anyone out there would be so kind to help I owuld appreciate it.
The requirements were to write a three paragraph paper on a professional development activity, what the activity was about, why its important, and how I will apply it in my classroom.
Its actually four paragraphs, but thats because I belived it needed to be.
Thank you in advance!
Professional Development Activity
Spicola Conference
On Saturday, February 2, 2008 I attended the Spicola conference. The first session featured Kathy Short and discussed her study on intercultural understanding. I also participated in a class session titled, “Pre-K literacy: Eyes, Ears, Voice, and Hands Engaged.” Kathy Short gave an excellent presentation on her research of teaching intercultural understanding rather than multiculturalism. In her most recent study she has developed a four level program to use while integrating intercultural understanding. This begins with students identifying their own personal cultural identities. After this has been established the unit will move towards a cross-cultural study, following this, the teachers will begin integration of intercultural/Global perspectives, and finally the unit will move into inquiries into global issues. The Pre-K class was taught by Dr. Judith Gasser and Darthi Pitts. This class taught me about how to teach literacy to 3 and 4 year olds. We spoke about read alouds, interactive read alouds, as well as shred text experiences. We also talked about even Pre-K students can have a beginning understanding of phonological awareness, and a basic concept of print. We also experienced a few alphabet books, which are beneficial for Pre-K. Finally the class described what a language rich environment looked like including the walls, library, dramatic play centers, and much more.
I believe its important to have an understanding of many cultures. The presentation taught me how to incorporate intercultural understanding in the lesson plans, as well as incorporate many TEKS with each lesson. Kathy Shot said something that was interesting. She said, “it is important to point out that our kids perspective may not be, and probably isn’t the norm”. To point that out to our students is imperative. The sooner we can reduce stereotypes formed from TV, and historical books, the better.
The Pre-K class was extremely informative on the proper techniques to teach literacy. I believe it is very important to use proper techniques when molding our youngest students. I came to the understanding that it is never too early for children to comprehend literacy. Reading to children, and more importantly involving children in the process of reading, is an easy objective, yet so important. I want my students to be prepared for first grade, and doing reading activities is a great way to accomplish that.
My classroom will be filled with many different cultural books. I now understand that history books on other cultures are not good enough, and may actually cause more stereotypes. I will provide lesson plan structures that include an individual assessment of my students own culture. I will do research and find as many diverse books that are available. I will then give my students an option to choose what culture they want to study. This will provide them the opportunity to research a topic they are actually interested in. As well as searching for culture books I will make sure that I have an immense amount of information books, and functional texts all around my classroom. I will use the book list given to me in the Pre-K class to use as a guide to find quality texts for my students. All of these ideas are new to me, and I am excited to incorporate them into my idea of an effective classroom.
|
