Rameka, Coles-Ritchie & Charles

Important Concepts By Kate Gifford

Rameka Article The Mäori are the

native people of New Zealand.

Like many native people they lost much of their culture when they were forced into the western culture.

The Mäori live by a long set of moral standards.

Rameka Article The Mäori put a lot of

importance in their children learning and growing as moral people.

The Kaupapa Mäori Learning and Assessment Exemplar Project put emphases on teaching and assessing Mäori children on the important aspects of the Mäori culture.

Rameka Article The New Zealand Ministry

of Education created this program to be used in Mäori early childhood programs.

These early childhood programs allow very young children to be exposed to the Mäori culture both at home at school.

This program changes the way Mäori children are assessed so that it is more culturally relevant.

Coles-Ritchie & Charles Article This article focused on

how a group of teachers in Alaska could improve the learning of their Yup’ik students.

The Yup’ik people are one of the native people of Alaska.

They have a proud heritage but like the Mäori they have lost much of their native culture.

Coles-Ritchie & Charles Article The teachers were

challenged to develop ways of assessing their students that would be most effective for the Yup’ik students.

The teachers first had to face the difficult challenge of breaking away from teaching to the test. A challenge that all teachers are facing.

Coles-Ritchie & Charles Article The teachers had to

look at ways they could include students native language (Yugtun) in the classroom.

The teachers used reflection and working together to help them come up with assessments that would benefit their students.

What I learned No matter what culture

you are teaching it is important that the assessment you use in the classroom is authentic.

Teaching to the test might provide good test scores but it is more likely that teaching to students abilities and culture will provide even higher test scores.

What I Learned In my classroom

understanding the Mexican culture would have improved my teaching.

Before creating any kind of unit it is important to think about your students culture and what you might be able to include in the unit to improve learning.