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Teaching Diversity in the Classroom
In recent decades it has become increasingly important that educators understand the importance of multicultural education. Given that society has become more pluralistic and diverse, there is a need for a curriculum that focuses on diversity. This research proposal recognizes that diversity can and should be taught, and proposes a methodology for doing so.
This project reviews the literature on teaching diversity. Achieving diversity in higher education involves a wide range of approaches. Teaching diversity includes the need to recruit and maintain a diverse student body, as well as faculty, and to provide instruction to a diverse group of students, provide an inclusive curriculum that reflects the contributions of non-Western and minority groups, and to teach so as to critically examine the humanities and the professions from perspectives of groups that have been marginalized.
The Center for Instructional Diversity in Research divides strategies for diversity in teaching into two categories: examining how one teaches as well as what one teaches (2011). Instructors can diversify a teaching style by incorporating a wider range of...
Moreover, instructors can promote diversity by ensuring that course content thoroughly and accurately represents the discipline. They can employ a more diverse approach to teaching that acknowledges the learning challenges that students face, along with the wide range of possibilities for meeting those challenges.
Strategies for inclusive teaching include the need for an instructor to examine his or her own practices and assumptions on which he or she bases decisions about teaching. Research studies have found that teachers tend to interact differently with men and women students, and with students who are, or whom the instructor perceives to be, high or low achievers (Davis, 1993). Instructor self-assessment questions and surveys have been developed to promote better awareness of these perspectives. Teaching is not a one-way, linear delivery of knowledge. Rather it is an interactive process that calls for flexibility in adjusting to the input students provide, and to the contexts in which learning takes place and the evolution of content. Because all individuals do not learn in…
Bibliography
Banks, J.A., Cookson, P., Gay, G., Hawley, W.D., Irvine, J.J., Nieto, S…Stephan, W.G. (2001). Diversity within unity: Essential principles for teaching and learning in a multicultural society. The Phi Delta Kappan, 83(3), 196-198, 200-203. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20440100
Center for Instructional Diversity in Research. (2008). Inclusive teaching. University of Washington. Retrieved November 9, 2011 from: http://depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/inclusive/diversify.html
Center for Teaching. (2011). Diversity & inclusive teaching. Vanderbilt University. Retrieved November 9, 2011 from: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/interactions/diversity/
Davis, B.G. (1993). Tools for teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Winship, J. (2006). An approach for teaching diversity. University of Wisconsin Whitewater. Retrieved November 9, 2011 from: http://www.uww.edu/learn/diversity/dozensuggestions.php
According to Bales, 1999, the concept behind SYMLOG is that "every act of behavior takes place in a larger context, that it is a part of an interactive field of influences." Further, "the approach assumes that one needs to understand the larger context -- person, interpersonal, group, and external situation -- in order to understand the patterns of behavior and to influence them successfully." With SYMLOG, measurement procedures are
Classroom Management, and Organization Plan for a Pre-K Trainable Mentally Handicapped (TMH) class with students ages 3-5. The plan reflects one's leadership and management style in order to develop a comprehensive plan for effective classroom management and discipline. The assignment addresses areas like content, conduct, and covenant management, establishment, and teaching of classroom procedures, development and teaching of classroom rules and consequences, prevention of problems, establishment of positive relationships,
Multicultural education researchers and educators agree that preservice teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and understandings are important: foci in multicultural education coursework (Cochran-Smith, 1995; Grant & Secada, 1990; McDiarmid & Price, 1993; Pohan, 1996). Teacher attitudes and beliefs influence teaching behaviors, which affect student learning and behavior (Wiest, 1998)." 1996 study used 492 pre-service teachers to try and gauge the attitudes and beliefs among the group when it came to understanding diversity and
Opening up to students is very important for teachers. While it is obviously not appropriate for a teacher to confide intimate personal details to the class, or gossip about others to try to be more accepted, there are ways that a teacher can seem more 'real' to the students. For example, crying over something very sad or letting the students know when the teacher is getting angry with their
Diversity Training The school aims to recruit students that will balance the spectrum of diversity. Before this can be accomplished however, existing and future employees of the university will need to be prepared. "Diversity is about encouraging and enabling all employees to draw on their talents, skills, and experience for the benefit of the business." (Bruno, 2004) Schools that are diversity sensitive will more often be prepared for the competitive recruitment
According to these authorities, "Workplace stressors often have detrimental effects on faculty job satisfaction and may lead to decisions to leave the institution or to leave higher education entirely. Although some degree of turnover is inevitable and perhaps desirable, high rates of faculty turnover can be costly to the reputation of an institution and to the quality of instruction" (p. 776). In many cases, the very faculty members that