NCCRESt

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Learning Strategies

• Encouraging Students To Analyze/Articulate Their Beliefs about Cultural Diversity
  This paper offers suggestions for teaching high school and college students about cultural diversity and for providing them with multicultural educational experiences. After presenting a background and rationale for such teaching, the paper gives a list of classroom activities, including student reactions to statements regarding racism and affirmative action and a video analysis exercise.
• Evaluation of Supplemental Instruction at the College Level
  Describes a new method of evaluating the Supplemental Instruction (SI) model as implemented in a high-risk biology course at an urban multicultural university campus. Examination grades indicated that the average grade of participants in classes that had SI sessions was significantly higher than that of participants in classes where SI sessions were not offered.
• Improving Student Perceptions and Academic Performance in the Multiethnic Classroom
  Describes a study that examined the effects of collaborative group learning within a multiethnic classroom at the community college level. Confirms that when community college teachers utilize collaborative learning skills in conjunction with traditional learning skills, academic performance increases and student ethnic perceptions improve.
• Language Barriers and Teaching Music
  Maintains that every public school student deserves an opportunity to study a musical instrument. Asserts that a limited command of English should not prevent a student from being accepted into instrumental music class or hinder that student's progress.
• Learning through Community Service in International School Settings
  States that many international schools have taken on the role of being community centers that support families adjusting to life in a foreign country. Describes several community-service programs that are not strictly school-based and that help students and families be aware of the broader community's culture as well as the campus'.
• Let's Play Mancala and Sungka! Learning Math and Social Skills through Ancient Multicultural Games
  This article describes how teachers can use two African and Asian games (Mancala and Sungka) to help students with learning disabilities succeed in school. It discusses the history of the games, how to play, the benefits of the games for children with disabilities, and choosing which game to use.
• Multicultural Technology Integration: The Winds of Change Amid the Sands of Time
  This case study describes how a high school language arts teacher in a poor border community in southern New Mexico combined technology-based teaching strategies with multicultural elements to ensure learning and equitable access to technology for her minority students. Discusses bilingual and bicultural students, constructivist classrooms, and instructional flexibility.
• Nations Within. American Indian Scholar Karen Gayton Swisher Envisions Effective Education for All Indian Children
  An interview with American Indian educator Karen Gayton Swisher explores the learning styles of American Indian children and the application of ideas about these learning styles in the programs at Haskell Indian Nations University. Native American children should be taught from a constructivist, rather than a deficit, point of view.
• Teaching Young Children about Native Americans. ERIC Digest
  Noting that the terms "Native American" and "American Indian" are both legitimately used to refer to the indigenous people of North America, this digest identifies stereotypes about Native Americans that children gain from media portrayals and classroom role playing, and suggests strategies for teachers to use to counter stereotyped portrayals and to reflect cultural diversity among Native Americans.
• The European School Model Part II
  Argues that in the European School (ES) program, younger students should learn in their own language, as opposed to in English, which is widely practiced at international schools. Suggests specific language learning according to ES' four stages: (1) nursery school; (2) primary school; (3) middle school; and (4) upper school.
• Using Multicultural Cinderella Books To Engage Students in Comprehension Strategies. Classroom Connections
  Teachers can help their young students build a strong foundation for multicultural understanding by introducing them to stories from many cultures and teaching them to use the cognitive strategies that enable them to comprehend and experience cultures different from their own. Multicultural literature can become a powerful tool that illustrates for children the similarities that exist between cultures and begins to ease cultural prejudice and intolerance.
• Voicing Differences: Encouraging Multicultural Learning
  Student-affairs graduate students (N=70) adopted a "voice," other than their own, for a semester. Journal entries reveal steps the students took in learning to see through the eyes of individuals different from themselves.