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Instructional Materials

• Celebrating Cultural Diversity: We Are the Children of the World
  Describes a series of activities presented at the 1996 Annual Cultural Diversity Celebration. The activities are designed to provide teachers with ideas that focus on family values, traditions, and homes.
• Creating a New Borderland on the Screen
  Discusses a research project at the University of Gent (Belgium) that created materials for teaching literature from a European perspective. Concludes that a global revision of the literature course design should be made in which hypertext and multiculturalism play a key role; illustrates with examples of hypermedia applications for "Don Quixote" and "Robinson Crusoe." (AEF).
• Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms
  This article provides the following guidelines for creating culturally responsive, inclusive classrooms: use a range of culturally sensitive methods and materials, create a classroom atmosphere that respects individuals and their cultures, foster an interactive classroom learning environment, employ ongoing and culturally aware assessments, and collaborate with other professionals and families. (Contains references.) (CR).
• Cultural Awareness through Biographies
  One teacher educator's approach to developing cultural awareness among future teachers was to have them read biographies and autobiographies about teachers in a variety of situations. Student responses to the personal stories are discussed.
• Cultural Diversity and Conflict Resolution: An Interdisciplinary Unit for the California Fourth-Grade Classroom
  Proposes an interdisciplinary, fourth-grade conflict resolution curriculum that integrates content area activities that take into consideration the cognitive and moral development of fourth graders. The curriculum focuses on conflict resolution skills, diversity and conflict, and mediation.
• Cultural Reflections: Work, Politics, and Daily Life in Germany, Social Studies. Grades 9-12. Update 1997/1998
  This packet contains three lessons designed for the high school classroom. Lessons include: (1) "The German Worker"; (2) "Government in Germany"; and (3) "Culture and Daily Life in Germany." Student activities focus on comparative economic systems, worker training and apprenticeship programs, structure of government with case studies of the health care system and the federal budget, the role of the press in Germany, and leisure activities.
• Cultural Resources for Mexican American Education. ERIC Digest
  Even though Mexican Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, their history and literature receive limited attention in schools. Incorporating Mexican American culture and history into the curriculum should help minimize the cultural myopia characteristic of many students and the cultural alienation that may contribute to school failure by Mexican American students.
• Equity for Black Americans in Precollege Science
  Explores many of the experiences that Black Americans have in science education in the United States and proposes changes so that Black Americans have an equitable opportunity to engage in and learn quality science. Suggestions include preparing multicultural science teachers, eliminating tracking in schools, equipping classes with science curriculum materials and technology, and supplying financial resources.
• Exploring America in Computer Simulation Games
  Describes and evaluates seven computer simulation games that help students learn about United States history, geography, and other cultural groups living in the United States. These simulations help students learn by having them experience life as an explorer of an unknown land that is now part of the United States.
• Expressing a Global Perspective: Experiences in a Mexican Classroom
  Argues that expanding the global perspectives of students requires strategies focusing on knowledge and point of view. Provides four exercises used in a Mexican high school to allow students to identify, express, and understand their own global perspectives.
• Finding a Path to History and Culture
  Maintains that music technology growth can assist teachers in implementing interdisciplinary approaches involving history, culture, and music. Presents suggested classroom strategies utilizing CD-ROMs and other interactive media technology.
• Folktale Themes and Activities for Children. Volume 1: Pourquoi Tales
  This book helps educators design story times that extend and explore a variety of how-and-why stories with students.The tales are also organized by cultural and geographic groups, providing opportunities for integrating multicultural concepts into science, literature, and social studies. Activities include Venn diagrams, shadow puppetry, and multimedia projects.
• Globalizing Instructional Materials: Guidelines for Higher Education
  Discusses issues in training students to be culturally literate and the process for creating, designing, and developing cross-cultural (globalized) instructional materials. Defines terms associated with globalizing instructional materials and the process of adapting these materials to other cultures.
• Hidden Messages: Instructional Materials for Investigating Culture
  This book, intended to be used in the middle and high school classroom, provides teachers with unique ideas and lesson plans for exploring culture and adding a multicultural perspective to diverse subjects. "Hidden messages" are the messages of culture that are entwined in everyday lives, but which are seldom recognized or appreciated for the powerful influence they have on the way people think and behave.
• How Big is Africa?
  Presents three activities adapted from the "How Big Is Africa?" Curriculum Guide developed by the African Studies Center of Boston University. Includes activities designed to make students aware of the diversity extant in Africa and the vastness of the continent.
• Intercultural and Multicultural Education as Cultural Encounter and Reflection: Innovative Programs at the International Center for the Study of Education Policy and Human Values
  Describes the International Center for the Study of Educational Policy and Human Values at the University of Maryland. Asserts that it has achieved its two original goals of assisting experienced leaders to integrate an intercultural dimension into programs and develop model intercultural programs and training materials.
• Making Global Connections in a Chicago Classroom
  Discusses the development at Bowen High School (Chicago, IL) of firsthand experiences to create connections for students between their local and global worlds. Outlines the course, explains specific projects, and discusses links between the classroom and community.
• Meeting the Needs of Multiracial and Multiethnic Children in Early Childhood Settings
  Addresses the needs of preschool children whose biological parents come from two or more traditional racial/ethnic groups. Advocates the extension of multiracial curriculum in early childhood programs to support and embrace these multiracial and multiethnic children.
• Mixed Media: A Roundup of New Microform and Electronic Products
  Reviews some microform research collections, ranging from government records to privately published historical materials. Topics reviewed include American Indians, educational reform in Japan, African American newspapers, women's issues, and various aspects of American history.
• Supporting Multicultural Awareness at Learning Centers
  Suggests that through the integration of positive multicultural experiences and materials into common classroom activities, teachers can help ensure an understanding of these concepts and enrich children's experiences with diverse populations and subjects. (SW).
• Teaching Tools
  Reviews books and videos for multicultural education and cultural awareness in elementary and secondary classrooms. The 28 works reviewed focus on gender and minority experiences, U.S.
• Technology for Tolerance
  Reviews teenager-tested and educator-recommended software packages for teaching tolerance in elementary (primarily upper elementary) and secondary grades. The 12 products cover aspects of American and African American history, multicultural awareness, and values education in tolerance and cultural awareness.
• Technology Meets Diversity
  Describes the development of an electronic book that provides a forum on the history and culture of Native Americans in the Lakota Nation. Illustrates how such multimedia programs can help teachers with multicultural education.
• The Cradleboard Teaching Project: Using Curriculum and Cross-Cultural Partnering To Change Perceptions
  Native Americans developed core curriculum units at the elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels in geography, history, music, social studies, and science presented from a Native American cultural perspective. Mainstream classes are paired with Native American classes and learn authentic information through cross-cultural exchange via e-mail, telephone, computer live chat, and video conferencing.
• The Effects of Instructional Media and Ethnocultural Characteristics on Egalitarian and Utilitarian Learning: An Empirical Digest of Controlled Research Studies
  Many educational researchers have harnessed various technologies of instruction to improve the reliability of their egalitarian and utilitarian interventions. Their experiments with adolescents and adults yield important post-course effects, yet, little is known about the effects of instructional media with adolescent or adult multicultural subjects.
• Unequal Resources: A Group Simulation
  Presents a lesson plan designed to create an understanding of the concepts of interdependence and cross-cultural communication. Students are divided into groups.
• Using Multicultural Children's Literature in Adult ESL Classes. ERIC Digest
  This digest focuses on the use of children's literature in adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction. Because high quality children's literature is characterized by an economy of words, stunning illustrations, captivating and quickly moving plots, and universal themes, carefully chosen books can offer educational benefits for adult ESL learners.