Inclusion of Special Needs Children and It's Effects On The Non-Disabled Students.

       There is a great of research on the effects of inclusion of special needs students in typical classroom settings. Studies have shown that inclusion, even partial inclusion, can benefit students with special needs in a variety of ways. It has been shown to help improve these students social abilities and help them learn to adjust and cope to the rest of the world. It definitely seems to have its benefits for thee students. But how does inclusion of special needs classrooms effect the non-disabled students in the classroom?
        While not as much research has been done on this topic as compared to its effect on special needs students, inclusion does effect the other students as well. While academically students are not negatively impacted by the presence of disabled students in the classroom there is proof that scores at a few researched schools actually improved after inclusion occurred. According to an article written on classroom inclusion the effects on students without disabilities are very beneficial. One very important effect was that students were able to better understand differences in people and were less afraid of these differences. Bullying is so common in schools these days and kids being able to accept other peoples differences can help them better understand all others. It also encourages great friendships between disabled and non-disabled children. These friendships are extremely beneficial to both people because they learn from each other. Inclusion seems to be beneficial to everybody involved.

For more information on academic inclusion and it's effects check out these links.
http://thesocialexpress.com/how-inclusion-can-benefit-special-needs-children-socially/
http://bsnpta.org/user/Impact_of_Inclusion_in_Middle_School.pdf

Culture In The Classroom

      The world we live in is a super diverse place. There are so many different cultures represented. How can a multicultural classroom function successfully? I think teaching students about the different cultures is extremely important especially in todays time when so much communication occurs between different countries and areas of the world. As educators we need to make a point to teach out students about the different cultures in the world. There are many ways we can do this.

            I remember as a child I belonged to a girl scout troop. One really interesting event we participated in was called "The International Dinner." Each troop was given a country and they were required to put together a spread of food from that culture and also to dress up like members of the culture. It was really cool getting to try all the different foods. Each group also put together a little presentation on the culture and presented it in front of everyone. I think putting together something like this for the students would be really cool. Who needs science fairs when you could have a culture fair? busyteacher.org published a list of the top 10 ways to teach culture in a classroom. Some of these top 10 ideas include teaching by using food, clothing and music so I'd probably have my students do that for their projects. I think these aspects really bring a culture to life. 

          There are also great online programs for classroom use when it comes to multicultural education. One program that exists that's really neat is a program called epals. Epals is a program in which teachers can go online and find a class of the same age group on the other side of the world. Then the students in both classes can communicate with each other through letters and other online communication. I participated in a program similar to this in elementary school but we wrote letters and the school in Italy we were communicating with ended up not being able to participate but I remember as a student I thought the program was exciting and fun and really got me interested in Italy. I remember learning a bunch of stuff about Italy so I had something to talk with my pen pal about. There is also a skype program for classrooms to skype one another form across the world. This program allows classrooms from different parts of the world to skype and also allows you to communicate with guest speakers from other places. These two programs are really awesome ways to help bring culture to life in your classroom.

Sources

http://busyteacher.org/7080-top-10-ways-to-teach-culture.html

http://www.epals.com/find-classroom.php#age_range=0&collaboration=0&country=&language=0&num_students=0&p=1&region=&search_text=