This document discusses strategies for teaching diverse learners across three chapters. Chapter 9 focuses on principles of effective math instruction and constructivist and sociocultural theories. Chapter 10 discusses improving literacy through introducing reading purposes, modeling comprehension strategies, and allowing student choice and expression. Chapter 11 recommends making social studies relevant by learning other perspectives, relating history to current events, fostering identity, and incorporating student experiences and media.

1. Diverse Learners in the
Mainstream Classroom
Chapters 9 – 11
Angela Shin
Liz Stachowicz

2. 9 - Teaching Middle School Mathematics for All
Six principles of effective mathematics teachings:
• Equity principle
• Curriculum principle
• Teaching principle
• Assessment principle
• Technology principle
• Learning principle
Teaching mathematics for understanding through five mental
activities:
• Constructing relationships
• Extending and applying mathematical knowledge
• Reflecting on learning experiences
• Articulating knowledge
• Personal involvement in the construction of knowledge

3. Constructivist Theory: SocioculturalMathematics
Learning Theory:
• Emphasizes the importance of
learners receiving instruction at • Cultural – develops from a
the appropriate level for their age, culturally historic past that forms
to social cognitive theory and generalized knowledge and skills
information-processing learning • Personal – values are attached to
theory actions and goals derived from an
• Connects new ideas to previously activity
learned information • Students express reasoning
• Encourages students to make through dialogue with peers and
conjectures without fear of teachers
criticism

4. Informal Assessment:
• Careful listening, asking thoughtful questions of students
• Making observations as students work on tasks provides teachers with
insights into students’ thought processes and solution strategies
Formal Assessment:
•Reproductions: Basic level of mental activity that involves the recall
of facts, procedures, and definitions (ie: completing calculations,
constructing graphs, using formulas)
• Connections: “Real world situations”; students illustrate different
approaches to solving a problem and reflect their understandings
• Analysis: Requires students use discriminate thinking to choose
appropriate strategies and tools for the solution

5. 10 - Literacy in a Diverse Society
Three phases of the reading process:
• Before: Two goals for teachers before reading include introducing
the topic and setting a purpose for the reading, in order to help
readers set their own purposes for reading
• During: Using “think-alouds” help students monitor and improve
their comprehension
• After: Students can increase comprehension of text through
checking predictions, relating what they read to own experiences,
posing and answering questions, responding to text through arts

6. How to Improve Comprehension:
• Allow students to chose reading that interests them which is also at a
comfortable reading level
• Encourage silent reading as opposed to round robin reading
• Introduce a topic and give a summary, provide a hook for reading
• Give a purpose for reading
• Encourage students to make predictions
• Model think aloud to get through difficult parts of the text
• Allow student to creatively respond to the text using art, drama,
music, and writing
• Provide multicultural literature so that students can see themselves in
the story and relate to the character

7. How to Improve Writing:
• Allow students to write about what they know from
personal experience and background knowledge
• Allow students to chose their own topic
• Allow students to write in their own language
• Write every day
• Provide students with an authors chair where they can
share what they wrote (Apply this to an art class – Artist’s
Chair)
A lot of these ideas can be applied to art

8. 11 - Understanding the Human Experience through
Social Studies
Ways to make socials studies current and relevant to students of
different backgrounds:
• Learn how others lived outside their own culture and think from other
people’s perspectives, move beyond ethnocentric views
• Participate in the global economy and marketplace of ideas
• Use bilingualism as an advantage
• Teach from multiple intelligences
• Relate historical events to current events
• Analyze current issues that affect them their community, state, and the
world
• Foster a positive ethnic identity, empower students, and instill a sense
of pride in their culture

9. Ways to make socials studies current and relevant to students of
different backgrounds cont.:
• Allow students to speak from their own experience and express their
unique voice
• Bring in different types of current media for children to analyze: TV,
radio, political cartoons, journals and diaries, newspaper articles
• Role play things that happened in history
• Read multicultural children’s literature
• Use cooperative learning and problem solving
• Use technology to enhance your lesson