Alyssa Stuart - FNED 502 Blog

I was not familiar with what Translanguaging was before I began watching these videos and reading this article. I related most to the videos on Cuny. I am monolingual, and I have always been nervous about how I would teach a class with emergent bilingual students. I liked hearing about those teachers stories, and how they were able to communicate with students who were emergent bilinguals. I especially connected with the teacher who used graphic novels as a way to help their students communicate. I am a firm believer in visuals (being an art teacher myself), and I believe that art does not have to only take place in the art classroom, but can be a very great tool for any classroom. Especially for emergent bilinguals as we saw in this video. Visual language is universal, and should be utilized all the time in my opinion. Although, I am a visual learner so I could be a bit bias. Translanguaging vs. Code Switching As I was doing further research on Translanguaging I stumbled upo...

When reading and watching about Paulo Freire's philosophy of teaching I wondered is this what I have been trying to do with my students this whole time? I do not like to spell things out for them, but give them bits and pieces and let them form their own opinions and thoughts about the art and concepts I show them. In "Engaged Pedagogy" by Hook she talks about intellectual growth as well as spiritual growth. This concept of spiritual growth is blurry to me and am wondering how this would take place in the classroom? Freire's theory emphasizes all students as active participants, but I struggle to create this activism when so mush of education is still so memorization based. How do I break this mold of memorization and show my students how to learn information and form their own opinions without them feeling like I am going to tell they are wrong? They are in constant fear of being wrong even when I tell them there is no wrong answer in art. I found it interesting ...

Sometimes you’re and caterpillar and sometimes you’re a snail. I know that sounds odd, but just watch this video above and you will know what I am talking about ( Sometimes You're a Caterpillar ). Sometimes we have an advantage and sometimes we do not, and it all has to do with the factors of ourselves that are working with or against us at any given point. And it is not always just one factor, there could be multiple factors, and that is what intersectionality is getting at. Back to the snail. At first glance the caterpillar only sees the snail as a snail. He does not think about what comes with being snail, but only the fact that he identifies as a snail. This same thing can happen to black women for example. They are seen as a women or an African American. Many times, these two identities are not combined into one, when in fact African American women are living life as both identities, and these identities contribute together to the quality of the African Am...

Smart from the Start: The Promise of Universal Design for Learning by Bart Pisha & Peggy Coyne My article focused Universal Design for Learning, and how it came to be. It began with architecture. It was mandated by law that buildings must be accessible to all people. Ramps, elevators, curb cuts, and the use of brail on signs made our world more accessible to more types of people, but our intellectual world still was not. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) began to take shape. It is a way of creating curricula that has supports built into. There is no longer a need to come up with individual modifications because the curriculum already has those supports built into it. This means that with every lesson there are multiple forms and ways of learning. One example the article used is that with the use of technology, textbooks can be read to students as well as students reading them themselves. This is two different ways that a student can obtain the information of the textbook and ...

My Personal Questions  My lack of education in special education makes me constantly question my skill set for teaching students with disabilities. After reading the readings for this week some questions/observations that came up for me were: I found the article "Cripping School Curricula: 20 Ways the Reteach Disability" very enlightening. I did not realize how much media portrays people with disabilities in such a negative or humorous light. It will make me question any media I come across that involves disability and how it is portrayed. It made me think, have I really been this oblivious? In some instances no, but in many yes. When reading about Universal Design, it asks for a change in the role of the special educator and it made me wonder what role should they be taking on? Should they be a resource for all students? But if they are not familiar with my content area then how can they be a resource and vice versa? How do I make myself more useful to those with speci...

The Statistics  The one thing I regret most in high school is not taking my Spanish class seriously enough. I passed the class by memorizing and not really learning. Now, as a teacher who has come into contact with many students who speak Spanish as well as English, I wish I learned the language, and did not just memorize it. From some quick research it's amazing how little Americans know a second language. Only 25 percent of Americans are multilingual according to this article found on  today.yougov.com . It was also astonishing to see how little students actually take a foreign language which can be seen in the graphic below as well as in this website -  blogs.edweek.org . So, why do so little American's know a second language? It was interesting to read the blog post by the Educational Linguist. I do not think many Americans see the problem with being only monolingual. Most likely, where ever we go we will be able to find someone who speaks English. One of my...