Medical School Grants and Scholarships

Submitted By: Lester Voit

If you are thinking of entering medical school, you had better get ready for the long haul. Medical students spend at least eight years in school, four for their undergraduate degree, and then at least four for their doctorate degree in medicine. It is not uncommon for a medical school student to graduate with more than $100,000 in debt. It is no wonder that most students thinking of entering this profession are looking for help in the form of scholarships or grants.
One option for medical school students is to pursue research grants. For example, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute will provide money to students who are towards the end of their training and are willing to work in research projects the institute is interested in. Companies and institutions are willing to invest in research because the results they hope to find from the research would bring prestige and national recognition to the company that funded it. The National Institutes of Health are another source of research grants.
Of course, research grants do not help the student who is entering medical school. If you are a minority or a woman, you will likely be able to find grant programs targeted to your demographic, because both minorities and women are largely underrepresented in the medical field. The American Medical Association's Minority Affairs Commission has a list of grants available to minorities for all branches of medicine, so this is a great resource to start your search.
Anyone looking for a medical school scholarship, even if they are not a minority, can pursue the options available through the Daughters of the American Revolution. This organization has several memorial scholarships aimed at medical school students. The National Medical Fellowships offer a need-based scholarship program to qualifying medical school students who are in their freshman and sophomore years of school and absolutely cannot pay their educational expenses.
Finally, if you are looking for help paying for medical school, talk to the school you have chosen. Your school may have school-based scholarships and grants available for medical students. These are often need and merit-based programs. Even if there are not any school-sponsored scholarships available, the financial aid office at your institution will be able to point you towards potential sources of grant and scholarship money. Depending upon what school you do end up choosing to attend for your degree in medicine, you can find grants and financial aid that are categorized by state rather than by school in order to reveal state funding available.
Remember, you are unlikely to find a full-ride scholarship to put yourself through medical school, but if you can find help here and money there, you will be able to take a good portion of the burden off of yourself as you pay for your education. Although the figure presented earlier for probable debt out of college, the benefits of holding a career in medicine makes the long haul completely worth while. Now you can look forward to job security and a very nice looking salary to pay off that debt.

Published At: Isnare.com

Teacher Professional Development For Multicultural Education

Submitted By: Vince Welsh
Communication skills are critical for success in any classroom. In multicultural education, communication skills are even more important because students and teachers often face language and cultural barriers at the same time. Teacher professional development can help to train teachers to adjust to a multicultural classroom and foster a collaborative environment that is beneficial to their students and other educators.
When learning to teach in multicultural education, there are several important ideas that teachers must become familiar with. First, the teacher should educate him- or her-self on a variety of cultural influences in our society, and in particular the cultural influences specific to the location where he or she is teaching. Having things in common is one of the best ways to create strong relationships, and teachers can make their students feel more at ease by laying the groundwork for a successful team (team = classroom). Multicultural teacher professional development should include resources and suggestions for cultural influences that teachers should familiarize themselves with.
An ambitious end goal for a multicultural education program would be to restructure our schools to promote equality and acceptance for all students and educators. We may be on the way towards that objective, but there is still much work to be done. Multicultural education can be improved via changes in all areas of a school's framework - the curriculum, the way teachers teach, how students are grouped together, how students are tested, and community participation. The diversity of backgrounds of students (low or high income, native or non-native English speakers, feminist or male-dominated cultures, Western or Eastern background, and even mono- versus multi-cultural exposure, and more) should be accounted for; all students' situations must be taken into consideration. Incorporating these changes is a large undertaking and an ongoing endeavor.
Once teachers have a good idea of the existing cultural differences, they must learn to apply the findings that are relevant to their situation and they must learn to employ strategies to facilitate communication within their classroom across the different cultural backgrounds present. Even in a classroom that is not so diverse, it is still important for students to learn multicultural education skills because they will undoubtedly be in situations later on in life that will require those skills.
So here are some action steps for teachers when beginning to learn teacher professional development for multicultural education:
--Look at your current teaching strategy: what methods are you using? What textbooks and workbooks are in the classroom? What is the curriculum? Do all of these things incorporate components of multicultural education?
--Involve your students in your learning process as well. Ask them for their input about what they know already and what they want to know.
--Ask questions of both your students and yourself - find out how they know what they know already and where the knowledge gaps are.
--Look at the topics you are teaching/learning from different cultural perspectives. Then relate these topics to your students' life experiences and our current society.
--Explore the cultures present in your classroom and learn about what differences may exist.
Teacher professional development is a great way to embrace and learn about multicultural education. These topics are important for all teachers to learn!

Published At: Isnare.com