Nadia Williams

ITEC 7500: Capstone & Portfolio

Fall 2015
Diversity Statement

Of my time as a classroom teacher, I was afforded the opportunity to work with a diverse
array of students. In the six years I worked at Lindley Middle School, I was able to teach
students with disabilities ranging from Autism to ADHD to Dyslexia. I was also able to
work with students with unstable lives at home or ones who had minimal parental or
familial support. Not all of my students fit into these subgroups as many students came
from supportive families, or were advanced learners, and were emotionally stable.
Many of my students over those years, though, had some level of unique circumstance
that I had to take into account in the construction of my lessons and delivery of
instruction. I had to work to teach the whole of each child in creating an emotionallysafe environment for my students. Thus, I provided my students with a variety of
learning opportunities that exposed them to the ways in which they were similar to
others around the world. We partook in web quests an Google Lit Trips where the
students would learn about the world and key historical events related to their texts while
exploring Google Earth. We would also focus heavily on texts that presented themes
and concepts that some of them were encountering themselves which included the work
of Sharon Draper through her Bluford High Series, and The Hunger Games Trilogy
written by Suzanne Collins.
Upon transitioning to East Cobb Middle School, much of my same diversity-oriented
projects continued with my students. While a majority of my students did not have
reliable access to technology at Lindley Middle School, many more of my students did at
East Cobb. Furthermore, while the students I taught were of a variety of learning
levels--in some cases I had students reading at second and third grade levels while in
the seventh or eighth grade--the students with which I worked at East Cobb were all
high-achieving students or ones who faired very well on our various standardized tests.
This aspect changed the amount of scaffolding and differentiation that I was required to
do, however I worked to maintain or increase the level of rigor in my transition from one
school to the next. One thing that also remained consistent was my use of technology
in the classroom. In fact, at East Cobb, my students worked on lessons that utilized
iPads or laptops to deepen their learning on an almost weekly basis.

My work at both schools exposed me to working with a number of students with

disabilities, as mentioned before, but also to a large population of English Language
Learners. In many instances, I had students with a functional knowledge of English who
had limited support at home because their parents were English Language Learners
themselves. These students ranged in origins from South and Central America, to a
number of students from various nations on the African Continent. This required me to
create common cultural connections with the content in order to support my students
learning. I had to take them on many virtual field trips and use many videos and
interactive lessons to bring the world outside to them. Furthermore, in working at two
Title I schools, I worked with a high percentage of students whose families were
economically disadvantaged. This required a lot of creativity in the lessons we explored,
but most importantly, it made me become more passionate about providing quality
educational experiences for my students in spite of the fact that there was not a lot of
additional funding while working to make sure that they did not feel as though somehow
they were missing out.
Some of the things I have done (featuring the use of digital tools) that promoted
diversity:
Through the use of KidBlog as a response medium during my students creation

of their Genius Hour Projects, students were able to differentiate the depth to which
they wished to share what they had learned. Furthermore, they were able to write
authentically in a safe and closed digital ecosystem that was open to only myself and
their peers.
My students and I regularly imitated the use of Twitter through Twitter

Summaries in which the students had to respond in 140 characters or less.

In regularly using iPads in class, my students were encouraged to conduct

meaningful internet research in which they created questions which led to other
questions as they searched for answers related to any of our texts of study.
By combining film and literature, my students were able to explore the ways in

which Sherlock Holmes was portrayed in a couple of media pertinent to the time frame
in which each version was set and were able to draw comparisons between the stories
as they were told and as they were told as a result of the mediums in which they were
presented.
My students were given many opportunities to choose whether they wished to

complete an assignment such as a quiz via the internet using an iPad or their own
personal device, via iRespond which was our simple student response system, or via
pencil and paper. These options allowed for students to work in the medium they

found was most comfortable for them so that the accuracy of their grades was not
dependent upon their technological prowess. As the year progressed, I narrowed
these options to move into using more digital tools but only moved in a manner that
mirrored my students skill levels.
My students and I explored a diverse array of opinions and point of view on a

topic concurrent with what we were discussing in class so that they could be
challenged in a safe environment to see the topic at hand from a different perspective.
Some students changed their opinions, others did not, but all students had a better
understanding of why they believed as they did and how that personal observation
would help them in their studies in English Language Arts.