4.

3 Diversity, Cultural Understanding & Global Awareness - model and facilitate the
use of digital tools and resources to support diverse student needs, enhance cultural
understanding, and increase global awareness.
Reflection
The diversity blog post was completed in ITEC 7430. The goal of this assignment was
to discuss ways diversity is addressed in my classroom. This journal describes the
ways in which diversity is addressed in my classroom.
In the blog post, I discuss ways in which I support students with diverse needs. Each
student who comes through the doors of my classroom has a different set of needs, and
it is my job as their teachers to do everything in my power to meet those needs. One
example of how I meet the diverse student needs is for students who struggle with
reading. In those instances, we have digital textbooks and text-to-speech software that
helps those students learn the material. I also have students who were hearing
impaired. For those students, I sat them at the front of the room and close to my desk
where I was always close by. I also wore a microphone to help them hear what I was
saying to them.
I also address diversity by helping students understand other cultures. As a health
teacher, we talk often about the health disparities around the world. We use the World
Health Organizations fact file on health inequities to discuss and raise the awareness of
our students about the care some cultures around the world receive. Each time we
discuss this in class is a very eye opening experience for students. I believe this is very
important because it connects students to cultures other than their own. Often, students
come to my room whose view of the world is one that does not accurately represent the
diversity that our country has come to embrace. This assignments purpose is two-fold.
Students come to appreciate what they have, but the second thing it does is broaden
their awareness of what is going on around the world. The students complete a health
around the world report, which discusses these inequities.
From completing this blog post, I learned a lot of different ways to increase cultural
awareness in my classroom. One thing I would change is I would use one of the
resources with my students called Quadblogging. Quadblogging, designed it so four
teachers from around the world agree to have their students comment on partner blogs
weekly. Each week, one class is the spotlight class, and the other three classes
comment on the blog posts. Over the course of a month, every students work gets
read and commented on. Along the way, this teaches students about respectful online
communication while exposing them to diverse cultures around the world. They may, in
turn, revise their thinking if a commenter raises a perspective they had not considered
previously. To improve this artifact, I would actually attempt to use Quadblogging with
my students. I think that being able to work with students around the world would
provide a unique perspective for my students and it would be something meaningful for
the students to participate in.

The work that went into this artifact enhanced student learning by informing them of
cultures around the world. The impact of this assignment was assessed by the health
around the world report. Students gained a new perspective and got to learn about
health inequities around the world and developed an appreciation for what they have as
well as a global awareness.