Happy New Year Friends and Colleagues! We hope 2007 will bring you joy, peace, and fulfillment. January brings many terrific learning opportunities for your students. Why not have a new year celebration right in class and teach students the history of the celebration or how it is celebrated around the world? You can also teach students about the different calendars used around the world or have them create one of their own. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is observed the third Monday of this month and provides an excellent lead-in to Black History Month coming in February. This is a wonderful teaching opportunity and you can find numerous ideas and information on atozteacherstuff.com. Have a wonderful year teaching!

Diversity Issues in Teacher Education?
by Dr. Karen Lea

Racial, ethnic, and cultural differences among peoples play a major role in the events of our times, in countries around the world, and have played a major role in the long history of the human race. … The history of cultural differences among peoples enables us to understand not only how particular peoples differ but also how cultural patterns in general affect the economic and social advancement of the human race. ~ Sowell

When I went to college intending to become a teacher, I was required to take a class teaching me how to work with students with exceptionalities and maybe one day on cultural differences. It was a good class, but as a future high school mathematics teacher, I doubted I needed that knowledge. As with many new teachers, I soon discovered I should have paid more attention.

In my next teaching assignments, I discovered that not only did I wish I had paid more attention in my special education course, but I wished I knew more about different cultures. I knew many of the stereotypes I had grown up with, but as Flemming (2006) stated, “stereotyping is a poor substitute for getting to know individuals at a more intimate, meaningful level” (p. 213).

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Teaching Diversity: Influences and Issues in the Classroom

Taught by Dr. Karen Lea, this course is designed to give the learner the knowledge, tools and dispositions to effectively facilitate a diverse classroom and how to understand and identify differences in approaches to learning and performance, including different learning styles and ways in which students demonstrate learning.

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VESi News

Online Courses - VESi courses will be available online by Fall 2007! We are excited about this development because online courses will allow students to participate in their course from any computer at any location. Additionally, student scores will be safe and secure even if the computer they are using crashes because they will be stored and backed up on our servers instead of the student computer.

New Course - Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times has been released. Listen to Native American and Alaskan Native leaders tell of their lives and work to preserve tribal self-determination and governance and gain an understanding of a part of American History that is until now, largely unknown.

Courses in the Works - We are are continually working on new courses to meet your continuing education needs. Courses we are currently working on include Educational Psychology, Infant & Toddler Mental Health, Reading First (a series of 3 courses), Cultural Competency, and Self Care for Clergy. As each course is released, we will announce it in the monthly newsletter.