The Final Project for this course is to construct a Diversity Toolkit, which will demonstrate the knowledge, skills, resources, and strategies you have obtained as an early childhood professional as well as defining and illustrating your relevant beliefs and philosophies. Your toolkit will be a statement of who you are and a demonstration of your learning throughout the course and your professional life. Imagine you have completed your studies and are serving as an early childhood educator or administrator. This week you are going to prepare a virtual toolkit that will be available online for your families, peers, and administrators. Prior to beginning this assignment, review the National Education Association’s (NEA’s) resource Diversity Toolkit: Cultural Competence for Educators.

Your project will include a section for each of the five basic cultural competence skills areas identified in the NEA resource: valuing diversity, being culturally self-aware, the dynamics of difference, knowledge of students’ culture, and institutionalizing cultural knowledge and adapting to diversity.

In the Valuing Diversity section,

• Explain how you create accepting and respectful environments for different cultural backgrounds and customs, different ways of communicating, and different traditions and values.
• Explain how you foster a home-school partnership.
• Describe one diversity activity that you would implement in an environment that families can be a part of. You can use your Week 4 Assignments and Discussions to help with this.

In the Being Culturally Self-Aware section,

• State your cultural competence philosophy.
• Describe two or three ways to incorporate your philosophy into an understanding and respectful early childhood environment.
• Discuss two to three obstacles you might encounter when creating a culturally relevant learning environment.
• Identify ways to address these challenges.

In the Dynamics of Difference section,

• Develop an activity that you can share with children and families to encourage and support respect for difference and other cultures. Be sure your activity description gives sufficient detail so that families will gain a clear understanding of what they are doing and why they are doing it.

In the Knowledge of Students’ Culture section,

• Describe the types of culturally relevant and anti-bias curriculum you will use in learning environments so families can understand how learning is organized in your early learning setting.
• Provide a graphic showing the main components of culturally relevant and anti-bias curriculum.

In the Institutionalizing Cultural Knowledge and Adapting to Diversity section,

• Explain how you will adapt to diversity and serve diverse populations in early childhood settings.
• Explain how you apply The NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment in your work with young diverse learners.
• Defend your embrace of the following themes:
  • Culturally relevant methods
  • Anti-bias curriculum
  • Diverse family structures
  • Multicultural education