Developing and Teaching a Multicultural Curriculum: Incorporating Multicultural Children's Literature Across Multiple Content Areas Throughout The Curriculum, Terry, Summer 2023

Course Description

I intentionally created this course after receiving incredibly effective feedback on how we, as educators, would benefit from directly implementing a multicultural curriculum. This course is designed to guide educators towards the successful incorporation of a multicultural curriculum. This course is intended to prepare educators to incorporate a multicultural curriculum with confidence and success.

This course focuses on the importance of incorporating a multicultural curriculum through the integration of multicultural children’s literature. By purposefully choosing multicultural children’s literature which connects to specific content areas and explicitly addresses the Vermont Common Core State Standards, our learners will be given opportunities to build their content knowledge, and appreciate this newly acquired knowledge through the beliefs, values, and perspectives of other countries and cultures. This course will empower all learners to freely and with intention, communicate and connect their own thoughts, ideas, and feelings with those from other diverse countries and cultures. In addition, learners will engage in new and profound knowledge from countries and cultures world-wide, and across multiple content areas. Let’s give every learner the opportunity to learn from each other’s diversity and cultures!

Course Goals & Objectives

Student Expectations and Goals:

• Post weekly reflections addressing your thoughts surrounding the given story and the Vermont Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Vermont’s Next Generation Science Standards ( NGSS), The Vermont Social Standards in the area of Geography, The Vermont State Social Studies Common Core Standards, the SHAPE America Physical Education Standards, and the National Health Education Standards presented for that week
• Post weekly assignments that explicitly relate to the Vermont Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Vermont’s Next Generation Science Standards ( NGSS), The Vermont Social Standards in the area of Geography, The Vermont State Social Studies Common Core Standards, the SHAPE America Physical Education Standards, and the National Health Education Standards, presented that week
• Reflect and respond to weekly readings which will enrich your capabilities of implementing a multicultural curriculum
• As a learner, actively engage in the lessons, yourself, before developing and incorporating these lessons into your multicultural curriculum
• Collaborate with your peers in this course around your own experiences with the development of your own multicultural curriculum through online discussions
• Observe your learners freely and with intention, communicate and connect their own thoughts, ideas, and feelings with those from other diverse countries and cultures

Learning Outcomes:

• Build a learning environment and community which can successfully incorporate multicultural children's literature across multiple content areas
• Understand the significant benefits of multicultural children's literature to promote new learning of countries and cultures world-wide
• Engage in tremendously powerful teaching across multiple content areas, first-hand, that utilizes multicultural children's literature from around the world
• Develop and be prepared to implement amazingly thoughtful teaching opportunities with your learners in your classroom
• Reflect and respond to weekly readings that will enrich your capabilities of implementing a multicultural curriculum
• Observe your learners freely and with intention, communicate and connect their own thoughts, ideas, and feelings with those from other diverse countries and cultures

Required Texts:

Costs for required texts are not included in the course tuition.

You will need to purchase the following multicultural children's literature books:

Nothando’s Journey by Jill Apperson Manly

Ojiichan’s Gift by Chieri Uegaki

The Little Hummingbird by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

A Tiny Seed: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Nicola Rijsdijk

The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter

Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai

Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown

Articles will be provided by the instructor.

For additional course information

Laura Terry
(802) 849-2225

For additional registration information

Center for Schools Team
(802) 468-1325

Register now!