Lesson 1. Culturally-Responsive Teaching.

Activity 1. The cultural make-up of communities is changing to reflect people of different cultures, ethnic groups, genders and the like. As instructors, we need to take notice of the diversity reflected in the student body. The richness of cultures, ethnicities, and languages that are present in one location is reason enough to prepare to teach diverse populations effectively. This is a great opportunity for the instructors, especially when they are teaching in an online setting. Have you heard about culturally responsive teaching and its importance? In a learning environment where there is a dominant culture, steps should be taken to assimilate other culture even if they are marginally represented. Not doing so could pose a detriment to the learner. Do you see where this is going now? Have you encountered a similar scenario? Providing ways for people of different cultures and backgrounds to make their "entrance" into a learning community can provide them with a motivational boost. They will not feel like they do not matter if they are given opportunities feel welcome. This is the meaning of culturally responsive teaching. It is about the awareness of people from different places with different cultures.

A good activity for teachers and instructors is to share stories that really bring their culture to life. With this online course, storytelling is great for sharing those stories as they provide a social means of connecting people through ideas. What is better is telling or thinking of ways to tell stories in a more engaging manner. Even if you are geographically separate, technology can do a lot to close the gap. With the use of information and communications technologies and collaborative software like ThingLink, it is easy to achieve these goals. ThingLink is a web application that allows one to create engaging and interactive presentations with the addition of multimedia links. Now, course participants can bring their culture to life and see it pop right off the page. This is culturally-responsive teaching in the 21st century.

Instructions:

1. Participants will need to create a ThingLink account by going to the following link for ThingLink

2. Participants are encouraged to learn how to use ThingLink by watching a tutorial video below.

3. Assign the "Introduce Your Culture Assignment" which is described below:

Participants will prepare a ThingLink presentation that uses at least five of the interactive features. The interactive presentation can describe their country, the people or language or some cultural icon of significance. It can also represent what it means to be from a different place or simply how one identifies.

4.Give participants a week to create their presentations so that they can get ready to share them through the course Padlet.

Assessments aligned to Lesson Objectives

Objective: For participants to build a community of practice.

Related activity: Given a social perspective on acquiring knowledge, participants will use trust and common goals to build a community of practice.

Assessment: Participants will be assessed using a community of inquiry strategy to build social presence and awareness of culturally responsive teaching and social and emotional awareness. They will also use civil discourse to facilitate a discussion board conversation of these key concepts of digital citizenship-CRT and lastly they will be assessed by the feedback of their peers on the presentations they create using ThingLink application.