Week nine reflections and thoughts

Please post reflections for week nine here, Thanks, Dr. Andy

Week eight reflections and thoughts

Please post reflections for week eight here, Thanks, Dr. Andy

Week Eight Powerpoint Presentation

Please note the attached powerpoint for Teaching Practices I. Thanks, Dr. Andy

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b2a8c0e/n/Teaching_Practices_I_Ed_6007.ppt

Week seven reflections and thoughts

Please post reflections for week seven here, Thanks, Dr. Andy

Filming of Sessions, please note

Hi everybody, just to inform you that we will be doing some filming of our classes for portions of the rest of this course as part of ongoing efforts to help raise the GSoE profile; and also relating to my own professional development goals. However, I do respect your privacy -and if there is anybody that does not wish to appear on a film that will be given some internet exposure on educational sites, please talk with me before our next class: we will make sure you are not included in the film or will edit out any clips where you may have appeared. We will only be filming in about twenty to thirty minute segments, and not necessirly in every class. Thanks, and see you in class. Dr. Andy

A Suggestion/Request for Foundations Project

Dear Students: I am working on increasing presence for some of the things we are doing in the GSoE ABAC, as well as wanting to increase my own presence, and competency, utilizing web tools. As part of this, I want to put some films up, of some of the things we are working on in class. My idea is to put about twenty minutes or so of instruction for perhaps six or eight of our remaining sessions on to youtube in a personal page, which will cover some of the key concepts in the foundations class, as well as a copy of our 40th anniversary film, already made. I also want to put a personal website and/or blog up, that would link to this youtube page. I would place some of my own, and also some student research on this page, along with samples of student work, reflections etc. If one, or possibly a small group of you, would like to assist me in this process, please either comment on this, or get in touch with me by emailing me at drandylearning@gmail.com or texting or phoning my cell as listed in the email address. At a later time, we may also discuss with Dr. Supit about possibly linking this with the GSoE page on the AU main site. This work would count as your foundations project. Thanks, Dr. Andy

Week six reflections and thoughts

Please post reflections for week six here, Thanks, Dr. Andy

Week Six Notes

Hi there, it's great to be back with all of you after my visit to Canada to spend some time with friends and relatives. I want to again comment on the strength and insights, that I have observed in reviewing all of your blog posts. I have now read all of them, and though it is not possible for me at this time to go back and comment on all of them, please know that I have certainly been impressed with the quality and value of your contributions as well as the mutual support evident.

Tonight's topic was multicultural education, and, after reviewing weeks three through five, we spent some time first looking at the case for, or need for, multicultural education, which is strongly impacted by the need for us to get away from ethnocentrism: That is the tendency to see our own culture as being superior to others in the world community. We talked about four parts of multicultural education, involving curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice. We then looked at some stories which helped us to understand the challenges students face when studying from a cultural mindset other than their own.

The class went on to review a sample definition of multicultural education, involving the relationship of three key themes: cultural pluralism, cultural diversity, and our interconnected world. We looked at some of the challenges with how we define and implement multicultural education in our classrooms here in Thailand.

Following this, we looked at multicultural competence in some detail, including how the concept was important to working with both students and parents effectively. Part of this discussion involved the key understanding of the twin concepts of equality (treat everybody the same) and equity (treatment based on student need) and how these played out in a multicultural classroom, when and where each may apply in turn depending of the situation at hand.

The landmark 1983 US study "A Nation at Risk" was presented as an example of the way that failure to account for cultural differences can lead to improper decisions in terms of instructional delivery, in this case the over focus on testing in US classrooms as a way of remediating the academic needs apparent in the study. The testing however, resulted in little improvement and in some cases adversely affected quality of education, by restricting what was taught to the material on a state mandated test.

Two valuable film resources were suggested for students who wanted to take a further look at multicultural education issues:

Go to www.youtube.com

Review one or both of these movies-

Stand and Deliver (warning: contains profanity)

Freedom Writer