Gifted Learners in Diverse Classroom Essay Example for Free

Gifted Learners in Diverse Classroom Essay As our nation becomes more culturally diverse we our schools need to begin modeling and preparing for this diversity. The importance of learning about diversity in culture and stereotypes is of particular concern with gifted learners. This article discusses the Ford and Harris model (2000) which combines higher order thinking skills with culturally relevant content to engage students in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation as they examine different perspectives and become involved in social action. There are several different methods to this model that can be used a social studies classroom to engage gifted learners. The first is the transformational approach where the curriculum is set up to show contributions and perspectives of many groups. This allows students to see various perspectives across the spectrum of cultures. Next, the social action approach has students identify issues that they think might need to be changed and make action plans. They are empowered in both of these approaches. Blooms Taxonomy is used at the highest level in both of these models and students are able to learn from themselves, inwardly, and from each other in order to hopefully develop positive relationships. Along with using these two approaches discussions, infusions of literature and poetry, role-playing, examining primary documents, ethnographic research, photojournalism, and service learning are easily applied to middle and high school classrooms. The importance of keeping gifted students engaged has been well documented. High qualities discussions have in the classroom are a great way for student to share, debate, develop original thinking and analyze various perspectives of other gifted students. In a multicultural classroom discussions could become significant learning experiences for young people by allowing participants to challenge the points of view held by others while reexamining their own beliefs Parker (2001). Multicultural literature infused into the classroom and curriculum can give many cultural perspectives for students to reflect upon. Teachers reported gains in self-esteem and academic achievement in diverse students when given literature in which they felt reflected their own culture. Another good technique that teachers can use in a multicultural classroom is role-play. When students place themselves into the role of another it is found that they internalize the culture while also learning about the content. This use of critical thinking skills, along with cooperative learning is a big part of a multicultural classroom. Role-play is one strategy that enriches instruction and supports the unusual sensitivity to the feelings of others evident in gifted learners (Clark, 2007; Piechowski, 2006). Teachers, who have used the process of ethnographic research, or the study and systematic recording of human cultures, have found that gifted students are enriched with the process. Ethnographic research includes interviews, artifacts and observations. Along with Ethnographic research the use of primary documents is an important part of a multicultural classroom. Examples include manuscripts, diaries, letters, photographs, postcards, posters, audio or video recordings, oral histories, speeches, or official documents (Bogdan Biklen, 2006). Primary documents are increasingly becoming a part of the questioning process on the end of course exams so it is vital that gifted students are given access to them and understand their importance. Photographs, or photojournalism can be impactful for the visual gifted learners. Photojournalism supports numerous characteristics of gifted learners, including their emotional depth and intensity, as well as their strong capacity for processing information, generating original ideas, and comprehensively synthesizing ideas and solutions (Clark, 2007; Davis et al. 2011). Finally, service learning is an area were gifted learners are provided the opportunity be creative with their ideas. In service learning students can find a need in the community and find a method to assist. Because many gifted learners have high levels of empathy this suits them well. Terry (2008) noted that service learning can help gifted learners reach their creative potential as they seek solutions to societys problems, while also assisting them in their journey toward self-actualization. There are many methods that creativity and diversity can be brought into a multicultural classroom. With gifted students choice and variety is important so that the student remains engaged. The gifted learners needs will drive much of the instruction. This is just a few of the ideas that would work in a social studies classroom in particular. As with all things creativity, curriculum and enrichment are the key to keeping students engaged with gifted learners.

The Virtual Neighborhood and Its Social Implications :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

The Virtual Neighborhood and Its Social Implications My own feelings about the "virtual neighborhood" fall somewhere in between those of Jim Dewer and David Noble. I will very briefly make an attempt to sketch out some boundary lines and find myself therein. I distinguish two sides of the issue. One is the concept itself and the other is the proposed list of uses. Admittedly, the two of these are related. The Concept First of all, the "virtual neighborhood" is no real neighborhood and we need to avoid being unduly convinced by a metaphor which is just that, a metaphor, of limited use. A "virtual promise" is no real promise. A "virtual promise" does not hold up in court where contracts have to be demonstrable, e.g., in writing. The word 'virtual' means something idealized by projection and not actualized. Calling the Internet a "virtual neighborhood" is making a claim that we can re-create a familiar experience by projection into an enormous "ideal" electronic experience. Second, let us not forget to check to see whether a metaphor is appropriate. Just because it is a metaphor is no reason to believe it is a useful metaphor --- that is, a "noble falsehood." Does the idea of a virtual neighborhood have some nobility? If we stretch the neighborhood all the way around the world, what features of it can we justifiably expect to carry over into the virtual reality of the metaphor? And what won't stretch? Clearly, actual visualization, moment-by-moment multiple perception, and direction recognition/identification -- essential features of truly human contact -- don't stretch across this medium. We don't get to watch a person's "body language." Is the person uneasy? Confident? Intimacy is something that also belongs to most neighborhoods but doesn't travel well. For one thing, the network is too narrow a channel and it's set up for too much speed. Neighborhoods develop because we watch each other's kids grow up and we borrow each other's lawn mowers. And finally, I do not believe that commitment is something we'll find in the virtual neighborhood. When my virtual neighbor's URL burns down, will I be there with my bucket of fiberoptic? A neighborhood is something complex, something rich. Saying that we can re-create a neighborhood virtually across incredible distances and through a very limited medium has to be, in some real sense, very audacious. This is especially the case, I think, when we claim that intimacy can move without alteration across this medium.

Kant and Descartes Essay

â€Å"Idealism is the assertion there are none but thinking thing beings. All other things, which we believe are perceived in intuitions, are nothing but presentations in the thinking things, to which no object external to them in fact corresponds. Everything we see is just a construction of the mind. † (Prolegomena). Idealism maintains that there are no objects in the world, only minds. According to idealism, the existence of outer objects is uncertain and ambiguous. Idealism is the group of philosophies asserting that actuality is fundamentally mental, or otherwise intangible. Kant holds the belief that objects only exist as perceptions is fundamentally idealist. The argument begins by making the point: our senses never enable us to experience things in themselves, but only know their appearances. This idea depicts space and time as empty forums to determine how things appear. Kant discusses how math consists of synthetic a priori cognitions, or the ability to provide new information that is necessarily true, and its relation to geometry. Kant believes there is some form of pure intuition innate within us. This innate intuition is what allows us to identify different notions without reference to sense experience. In the opinion of Kant, the possibility of mathematics rests upon the possibility of â€Å"synthetic propositions a priori†. (Prolegomena). There is a priori certainty of geometry. A priori knowledge or justification is independent of all experience. A priori judgments are based upon reason alone, independently of all sensory experience, and therefore are applicable with universality. According to Kant, â€Å"Geometry is based upon the pure intuition of space. † (Prolegomena). We cannot have any perceptions of objects if not in space and time. Kant declares, â€Å"it must first exhibit its concepts in intuition, and do so a priori, in an intuition that is not empirical, but pure. † (Prolegomena). Geometry, as the innate intuition of space, derives from the sequential moments of our innate intuition of time. If space were not built into of our innate composition, two things with all of the same properties would be in every way identical. Space and time are not properties of the objects in things themselves, but rather, qualities of our knowledge of the things. Space and time are referred by Kant as the â€Å"modes of representation†, or â€Å"forms of sensibility†, of objects. (Prolegomena). Kant believes inner experience is all that we can be certain of and that the e? ects can only conclude the existence of the external world has on us. If space and time are subjective, then everything in space and time are subjective. If space and time were things in themselves that we could only understand by reference to experience, geometry and math would not have the a priori certainty that makes them reliable. If space and time do not belong to the things themselves, and we cannot know anything in space and time, then we don’t know the things in themselves. As a result of this, Kant says that appearances are â€Å"That is pure space is not at all a quality of things in themselves but a form of our sensuous faculty of representation, and that furthermore all objects in space are mere appearances†. (Prolegomena). This declaration regarding things being tangible reveals Kant’s view of transcendental idealism, faces the issue of things existing at all, directly. Immanuel Kant’s most influential contribution to philosophy is transcendental idealism. Transcendental idealism is fundamentally a doctrine about space and time. The idea is we cannot perceive things in and of themselves directly; what we perceive must first be interpreted by our senses, then by our sensibility and understanding. Though Kant has argued that we cannot perceive things in themselves, but only appearances of things, Kant believes intuition, and the senses control our perception. And anything, which we may perceive, is made up entirely of appearances. Kant argues, subsequently, things themselves in some way cause these appearances. Kant maintains that things in themselves, independent of our perception, exist, and that they are the source of what we do perceive. All other things, which we think are perceived in intuition, being nothing but representations in the thinking beings, to which no object external to them corresponds in fact. Representations of our sensibility can be said to be reflections of our mind. Kant makes this claim stating, â€Å"The understanding intuits nothing but only reflects. † (Prolegomena). This proposes the question regarding idealism, because something cannot be fully understood, does it still exist? Unlike Idealism, which generally manifests skepticism, the existence of things is crucial to Kant’s philosophy. However, Kant insists we cannot know anything about these things purely through their appearance. Kant asserts: â€Å"which is unknown to us but is not therefore less real. † (Prolegomena). Kant is claiming this ideal is contrary to idealism. Descartes decided that he could throw all things into doubt except that he was thinking and doubting. This supports the concept of idealism because it emphasizes the centrality or importance of the mind. Descartes, like Plato and Augustine divided his world into two areas. For Descartes the two areas were the cogito and the Deity. Rationalists, like Descartes, aim to escape the confines of the mind by constructing knowledge of the external world, the self, the soul, God, ethics, and science out of the simplest, indubitable ideas possessed innately by the mind. Descartes argued that knowledge came from the mind, or idealism. It was Descartes’s idealism that would force him to his separation of the mind and body. Descartes believes in the ability to deny the existence of the physical world. Kant’s major disagreement with Descartes would be in postulating an existential reality outside of the mind. An object does not depend on a mind perceiving it for it to exist though the mind does depend on the transcendental categories to perceive of those objects in a meaningful way. â€Å".. Desire this idealism of mine to be called critical. But if it be really an objectionable idealism to convert actual things into mere representations†. (Prolegomena) Kant expresses his impulse to change transcendental idealism to critical idealism at the end of this section.

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