How to increase cultural relevancy and student motivation within a required curriculum

1. This project is focused on how to work with a required district curriculum that is very rigid and still address the instructional problem. Problem/Need: Current curriculum does not include much cultural diversity. The novel selected to be taught next is not culturally relevant or relatable to my current group of students. This causes disengagement and because of disengagement with the learning material, greater literacy learning is lost. How to increase cultural relevancy and student motivation within a required curriculum

2. Key Instructional Needs that are the driving force behind the decisions about what to adapt and what supplements are necessary: • - • One of my instructional needs revolves around needing to have students to be able to explain and apply eleven key literacy terms and skills. In a pre-test given to the students, three of the eleven terms a majority of students showed mastery with, four of the terms a majority of students showed a general recognition of, and four of the terms a majority of the students had little to no knowledge about. My need is to get all of my students to the mastery level with understanding and application of all of the terms. • -Another instructional need is to have students engaged in the text and able to relate to the material in some way. Students were surveyed to get their initial reactions of the book. Eighty percent said they did not like it because they “didn’t understand it” or because the character was “dumb”. • -An instructional need will be to improve students’ assessment scores as well as their general attitudes about literature and the specific elements of literature that are a part of my unit learning goals.

3. Research and Ideas used when adapting/supplementing the curriculum: -Increase students choice -Give students a way to have their individual voice heard -Incorporate Technology -More student-to-student interactions and activities -Use their stories to show diversity. -Connect the students to the material right away -can be done through human interest stories, using emotional/personal information, creating a mental challenge, and by asking questions -ARCS MODEL

4. Lesson Design Model Used John Keller ARCS MODEL John Keller synthesized existing research on psychological motivation and created the ARCS model (Keller, 1987). ARCS stands for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. This model is not intended to stand apart as a separate system for instructional design, but can be incorporated within Gagne's events of instruction. Attention The first and single most important aspect of the ARCS model is gaining and keeping the learner's attention, which coincides with the first step in Gagne's model. Keller's strategies for attention include sensory stimuli (as discussed previously), inquiry arousal (thought provoking questions), and variability (variance in exercises and use of media). Relevance Attention and motivation will not be maintained, however, unless the learner believes the training is relevant. Put simply, the training program should answer the critical question, "What's in it for me?" Benefits should be clearly stated. For a sales training program, the benefit might be to help representatives increase their sales and personal commissions. For a safety training program, the benefit might be to reduce the number of workers getting hurt. For a software training program, the benefit to users could be to make them more productive or reduce their frustration with an application. A healthcare program might have the benefit that it can teach doctors how to treat certain patients. Confidence The confidence aspect of the ARCS model is required so that students feel that they should put a good faith effort into the program. If they think they are incapable of achieving the objectives or that it will take too much time or effort, their motivation will decrease. In technology-based training programs, students should be given estimates of the time required to complete lessons or a measure of their progress through the program. Satisfaction Finally, learners must obtain some type of satisfaction or reward from the learning experience. This can be in the form of entertainment or a sense of achievement. A self-assessment game, for example, might end with an animation sequence acknowledging the player's high score. A passing grade on a post-test might be rewarded with a completion certificate. Other forms of external rewards would include praise from a supervisor, a raise, or a promotion. Ultimately, though, the best way for learners to achieve satisfaction is for them to find their new skills immediately useful and beneficial on their job.

5. Learning Environment • Characteristics of teachers to use this model: • Any teacher who is working with a required curriculum and is recognizing a discrepancy between the material to be taught and the cultural/motivational needs of their students. Teachers using this model must be able to identify the key lessons in their units that need to be modified to increase cultural relevance and student motivation. • When working with a set curriculum and making adaptations it is key that the standards are still addressed and the learning objectives are still met. A need for adaption can be clear in lessons where the teacher observes that the steps of the lesson will not be the best method for a given class to achieve mastery on those objectives. • This model was designed with a classroom that has access to the following in mind: • Projector and document camera—or overhead • Ability to play a film clip • The idea of this model is based on adapting curriculum to meet the needs of various groups of students and classrooms so no specific mold of classroom is necessary to make this model work. • To find success with this model it is necessary for the teacher to have some school and district support in alterations of teaching strategies and curriculum adaptations. • Required curriculum often comes about as an answer to a current problem the school or district feels it has. The curriculum is often seen as a solution so it puts much pressure on the teacher in ensuring the integrity of the material is honored. Because of this, it is important to recognize this and move forward with any changes with great thought and articulated purpose.

6. Lessons with Adaptions

7. Analyzing the cover of the novel lesson plan.jpg • handout.jpg • In step one the curriculum tells the teacher to have the students “read” the cover. • The instructions for this lesson were adapted so that students understand that they are supposed to actually pick up the book, feel the cover, look at the colors and lettering style. It was found that by saying read they only looked at the words and were not as interested in the book. The words on the book are not what attract them to the novel the most. • In step 3-5 the lesson asks the students to fill out the chart. It was found that when students were released to do this on their own without some guiding questions they became disengaged in the first minute and most just answered with “I don’t know.” In response to this, it is important to do some modeling of what you would observe when you “read” the cover of the novel. By leading the observations of things on the chart as a class discussion students engaged more thinking and had a higher level of responses. It is still important that the students show their thinking so after the class conversation the students were released to fill out their charts.

8. Step 1 was altered in that students made a chart of their own. Instead of copying the one the curriculum provided as a handout. By giving the students choice around how they wanted to represent the information, students were able to engage around the activity more. They were given examples but it was up to them to choose how they were going to represent their thinking. • Step 2 was altered. It was found that the idea of socioeconomic standing had to be explained and given meaning before students could identify it in the book. It was also important to find a way to help students stay engaged in the characters even though they represented a population that comes from a wealth socioeconomic standing where as most of them come from the lower end of the spectrum. • Half the students were given fake hundred dollar bills, the other half were given fake one dollar bills. The students were asked to make a list of things they could by with the money they were given. The students then selected someone from the other side of the room to compare charts with. The class was brought back together to share as in a class discussion. The class was asked guiding questions to get them to understand the concept of different socioeconomic groups. “How does more money make a difference?” “Can you survive with less?” “Are there always people from different groups in our society—ones with less and ones with more?” “Can you choose to change which group you are in?” “What group do you think Paul and his family come from (the characters in the book)?” “How are they different/same as you?” “Does the differences or the similarities matter more?” • The following questions on the chart were saved for the next day. • Close Reading of Prologue Activity.jpgClose Reading Student Handout1.docx

9. Film activity directions.jpg • Film directions2.jpg • Student handout1.jpg • Student handout2.jpg For this activity it was found that the segments were broken up into such short components that it was better to play a solid six minutes and they ask students to respond. A brief background of the time era this movie was placed in was added so students had more information in order to fill out handout 1. Some information about the game of baseball was added as well to help students understand the game. This activity is included because it does have a high student interest attached to it because it involves a movie. Teaching the students to “read film” takes movie activities to a deeper educational level.

10. Step 3 was changed to a partner and class discussion activity because to expect students to summarize that much information on their own will effect their engagement and interactions with the text. Because the pre-assessment showed students interest to be low at this point in the book, activities that go back to the beginning sections must be chunked more and made more interactive. • Making Connections activity.jpg • student%20handout1.jpg • Student Handout2

11. This was an activity added because when reviewing the curriculum, it was found that the goal to have students understand components of plot was not supported by material that could guide students to understanding of the different important components of plot.

12. For this lesson further explanation around what effective means needs to be addressed. Students will be asked to do a think-pair-share around this idea and then come back together as a class to discuss before they are released to respond that part of the worksheet Students will also be asked to give a five sentence response to whether they like this book or not using details from text to support their response. Without the length guidance students will not stretch their thinking and without the need to connect to the text they will have too much room to be non-specific. • Reflecting on the novel.jpg • Student handout

13. Embedded Assessment.docx • This assessment was not altered because it is the major component of the unit and used in collaboration and comparison of other seventh grade students in the district. Because of this, the integrity of this assessment must be upheld to its fullest. If the data produces from the assessment does not seem to be an accurate gage of students’ mastery of the necessary skills and knowledge pieces, then an additional assessment may be created and implemented.

14. References • Best Practices • Birdsell, B. S., Ream, S. M., Seyller, A. M., & Zobott, P. L. (2009). Motivating students by increasing student choice. Online Submission). Online Submission, Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.libsys.ewu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED504816&site=ehost-live&scope=site • The College Board. Spring Board English Textual Power (2005) • Dick, W., Carey, L., Carey, J. The Systematic Design of Instruction. Pearson; Columbia. 2009. • Reiff, J. C. (1997). Multiple intelligences, culture and equitable learning. Childhood Education, 73(5), 301-04. Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.libsys.ewu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ547944&site=ehost-live&scope=site • Ryan, M. (2008). Engaging middle years students: Literacy projects that matter. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(3), 190-201. Retrieved from http://0-dx.doi.org.libsys.ewu.edu/10.1598/JAAL.52.3.2;http://0-search.ebscohost.com.libsys.ewu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ819140&site=ehost-live&scope=site