Portfolio Project
Activity 1
Exit Tickets
The Activity: At the end of a class period, pass out an exit ticket to each student. Give them about 5 to 10 minutes to complete the slip. Each student must complete the ticket in order to receive participation for the day. Feel free to encourage collaboration among peers.
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This is a great way to assess students' learning each and every day! Not only is it a great formative assessment for myself as a teacher, but it allows students to mark their own progress and see what they still don't understand. In regards to CLD students, this gives them a chance to ask questions privately that they might not have felt comfortable asking in front of the whole class. This activity gives ESL's a chance to work on their comprehension of a lesson taught in English as well.
Activity 2
Learning Buddies
The Activity: The teacher will pair students up to summarize and discuss the lesson. These pairings should be done strategically by pairing ELL and language speakers together (Levine & McCloskey, 106).
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This activity promotes collaboration and discussion in the classroom. By switching up pairings every once in a while, it allows students to branch out and socialize with new friends. ELLs would majorly benefit from this type of oral presentation. By pairing them with a language speaker, they will get practice with oral English language and mannerisms.
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Activity 3
Lemon Peels
The Activity: The teacher will give each student a lemon. The student is instructed to study the lemon, looking for any identifying marks or anything that sets it apart. The​n, the teacher takes all the lemons and puts them into a basket. The students should easily be able to pick out their lemons. The next day, the teacher will peel all the lemons and have the students attempt to find their lemon. This should obviously be impossible.
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This activity focuses on social justice and respect. The students will automatically judge their lemons, trying to find anything different about their lemon they possibly can. This represents the judgements placed upon culturally diverse people. Once the lemons are peeled, there is virtually nothing different about them. This shows students that no matter how different they may feel from their peers, we're all the same on the inside.
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Activity 4
Pictionary
The Activity: This is classic Pictionary! Have a list of vocabulary words that the students are working on. Divide the students into two teams and have one student draw a vocabulary word. Then, the student will draw out that word and the teams will try to guess the word.
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This activity is a fun way to get everyone involved in learning the vocabulary words. For ELLs, it may be more difficult to regurgitate vocabulary words and definitions. By adding a visual component, it deepens the connection between the word and its meaning.
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Activity 5
Think, Pair, Share
The Activity:
1. Teachers ask students to think about a question
2. Then, students pair up and talk about their own answers to the question
3. Finally, the pairs are asked to join another pair and discuss or share with the whole class
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This activity promotes collaboration and discussion in the classroom. These quick discussions allow for socialization. For ELLs, this allows them ample time to comprehend and bounce their ideas off of language speakers. TPS can be used in any content area or age level as well, leading to extreme versatility.
Activity 6
Learning Stations
The Activity:
Set up different stations pertaining to the lesson or skill being taught. Ideas include:
- playing a game
- reading an article or passage
- listening to you lecture
- working on puzzles
Allow students approximately 10 minutes at each station to fully understand the material, then reconvene and discuss as a class.
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This activity allows different types of learning styles to flourish. For CLD students, it takes into account that they might not learn best in a traditional lecture environment.
Activity 7
Talking Chips/Tokens
The Activity:
1. Separate students into small groups
2. Give each student a predetermined number of talking chips and a bowl in the center of the group
3. Each time a student participates in the small group discussion, they place a chip in the bowl
4. The discussion continues until all the chips have been placed in the bowl
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This activity ensures participation from each and every student. ELLs can shine in this environment by knowing they are guaranteed to have their ideas heard within their small groups.
Activity 8
Word Wall
The Activity:
Teachers should print out the week's vocabulary words and put them on a wall where they can be easily accessed and moved around. Students can reference the word wall throughout the week during their other activities.
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This activity gives reassurance to students who might have issues with comprehension and long-term understanding, like ELLs. This word wall can give them confidence in their weekly activities because they can use it as a reference if they get stuck on a word.
Activity 9
K-W-L Charts
The Activity:
1. Give students a sheet of paper divided into 3 sections. Have them label the sections "What I Know, What I Wonder, and What I Learned" respectively.
2. Tell the students a brief outline of the lesson prepared. Have them some ideas down in both the "Know" and "Wonder" categories.
3. After the lesson, have them write down their findings in the "Learned" category and look back upon their "Wonder" category. They can then ask questions based on their second column.
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This activity is similar to the exit ticket in that it tracks their progress and ensures active listening. ELLs can use the "Wonder" category to ask questions and better understand the material at hand. If using this model while teaching about another culture, students could use the "Wonder" category to jot down questions and ask a classmate that represents that culture to find the answer.
Activity 10
"I Am..." Poems
The Activity:
Have students create poems about themselves starting out with "I Am...". The only rule is that the poem needs to be positive in nature.
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I wanted to end with this activity because I think this is such a great way to sneak in positive affirmations into your classroom. For CLD students, these positive affirmations could help them inside and outside of the classroom.
Overall Reflection
This class has broadened my horizons when it comes to teaching diverse students. I personally had not given much thought to the different backgrounds my students may come from. I grew up in a predominantly white community, so adjusting my mindset to teach in a culturally responsive manner has been tough. The content in this course has been mostly new material for me, which I found both daunting and exciting. I feel that this course overall has taught me how to open my mind to new cultures and ideas, not just how to teach to these students. I feel I have become overall more tolerant and understanding through materials like the Levine & McCloskey text and especially the Pain and Privilege text.
My teaching philosophy has always been to give students a space where they could be fully themselves. I feel the activities I chose helps that idea. I think activities like the Lemons and the I Am poems cultivate kindness and humanity in my students. These might not be the most "educational" activities in my selections, but I feel they would be beneficial to all of my students, especially my CLD students.
Being in both ELA and Social Studies content areas, I am bound to teach ELLs at some point in my career. This idea scares me because I know I am not the best person for the job. There are many more qualified, bilingual, culturally diverse teachers who would probably serve the students much better. However, my duty as a teacher is to provide the best possible education I can to my students, regardless of ELL status. This means I need to focus on building lessons and activities that cater not only to the main group of students, but also to my ELL students. My favorite example of this would be Pictionary. I think giving ELLS another way to think about vocabulary words (i.e. visually) is an understated way of teaching. Drilling definitions into these students doesn't always work, so I think Pictionary would be a fun way to engage all of my students while truly focusing on my ELL students.
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All in all, this activity pushed my out of my comfort zone and forced me to put on my teacher hat. I had to think outside of the box to come up with culturally diverse activities that middle schoolers would enjoy. I am happy with the selections I made and plan on utilizing all of these in clinical and in my own classroom one day.