Social Fabric

1. Social Fabric Weaving the World into Your Life

2. Setting: Ohio University Lancaster • EDCS 301 (L): Education & Cultural Diversity • required course for pre-service teachers • Textbook covers DMIS model • Instructor also teaches: • Intro to Teacher Education • Technology Applications in Education • School, Society & Professional Education • Intro & Advanced Personality Type Theory • Demographics • 96% of the population is white • Only 1 student of color in the teacher education program. • Current assessment shows that only 34% of pre-service teachers can proficiently develop strategies for improving student learning related to student diversities • Technology Access • 3 open labs on campus with dual platform access • High-speed, uncensored internet, Audacity, iMovie, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and more already installed for free student use.

3. Throughlines • Humanizing Differences • Professional dispositions dictate that practices regarding diversity are not only modeled by educators, but also used as planning tools regarding classroom management and curriculum development as well as taught to students.  • NETS-T-2008 • To reinforce previously learned content • To meet NCATE standards for technology

4. Generative Topic Course Generative Topic Targets of Difficulty • Humanizing Differences • Targets of Difficulty • Students often congregate in homogeneous groups and need to learn to understand and work with differences. • Students don't often understand the blinders they wear in looking at the world.

5. Targets of Difficulty Enlarge World View Recognize Personal Prejudices • This is a perennially difficult task because of the narrow set of demographics in the area. • It is critical for teachers to be able to deal with differences in the classroom and see different perspectives regarding the content areas.  • Technology, such as web conferencing and social networking tools will allow us to enlarge the world of Lancaster, Ohio to include a more global perspective.  • Reflection is difficult with an unconscious incompetence. • From a constructivist standpoint: • Need to know starting point to relate new learning to prior knowledge & scaffold learning. • To help students construct who they are in the world around them, they need to understand themselves as well as others.  • Online tools such Project Implicit, and assessments for MI, learning styles, and personality, allow students to understand the lens from which they currently view the world.

6. Understanding Goal # 1 • Learning about Me • How do I develop a personal awareness of who I am as a person (including my personality, prejudices, culture/heritage, and other preconceived notions) and as a learner (including my intelligences, learning styles, etc.)?  • How do I develop an understanding of how who I am affects my perception of the world?  • How do I get along with others who are different from me? • How do I move in a positive direction along the DMIS continuum? 

7. Understanding Goal # 2 • Learning about Others • What cultural differences do I notice around me?  • How do I learn more about the cultures around me and begin seeing the differences as fascinating rather than threatening?  • How do I recognize and realize the importance of the similarities and differences between cultures?  • How do I view the world from the lenses of multiple cultures?  • How can I integrate different cultures into my identity and worldview?  • Why is tolerance of others' diversity important and what consequences can its absence lead to? 

8. Understanding Goal # 3 • Diversity in the Classroom • How do I effectively use technology to support the teaching and learning of cultural diversity.  • How do I use technology to broaden the world for local students?  • How do I deal with and differentiate for differences in the classroom?  • How do I teach my students to humanize differences?  • How do I prepare curriculum that faces differences rather than puts them in a null curriculum? 

9. Performances of Understanding • Am I a Bigot? • Defining Myself • Denial • Defense • Minimization • Acceptance • Adaptation • Integration • Collaboration } DMIS Model

10. Relationship of PU to UG * Implicitly, the process is being modeled to students throughout the course.

11. Ongoing Assessment • Assessment is primarily formative and very reflective – most often demonstrated through the use of journal – like blogs that focus on guiding questions. • Closer Look: Social Fabric Ning Site • Looking for changes in attitude, vocabulary, honesty and openness in sharing, etc. • Culminating Assessment is a summative, project-based assignment. • Looking for working relationship with partner. • Strong curriculum design & technology support for teaching & learning. • Elimination of null curriculum. • Depth of understanding and application of ideas from DMIS model. • Lack of personal bias showing through in design.

12. Acceptance Sees in Perspective Reveals Self-Knowledge Demonstrates Empathy

13. Insight #1 • Now, I layer multiple curriculum models in order to reduce or eliminate weaknesses inherent in each framework when it stands alone. • Previously used backwardsdesign and the MI/Bloom’s matrix when designing.

14. Insight #2 • “The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself.” • John Dewey • The underlying assumption of the [DMIS] model is that as one’s experience of cultural difference becomes more complex and sophisticated, one’s competence in intercultural relations increases. • Milton Bennett (creator of DMIS model)

15. “To think of knowledge as design is to think of it as an implement one constructs and wields rather than a given one discovers and beholds. The kinesthetic imagery implicit in knowledge as design fosters an active view of understanding worthy of emphasis in teaching and learning.” ~ Perkins – quoted from TPCK

16. Puzzles • How do I (or do I even need to) differentiate for learners who start at different stages of the DMIS model? • Because so much of the lessons are focused on personal growth and reflection, it can be difficult to measure. How would you want to be assessed if you were taking this course?

17. Collaboration Partners • Instructors • Dr. Stone Wiske • Shane Tutwiler • Teacher Partner • Jane Johnsen • Peer Partners • Shaheer Khan • Robert Schuman • Cultural Diversity Specialists • Erin McCloskey