Presentation1

Diversity in the Classroom

By Amanda Menzel and Gaby Senz

Linguistic Diversity and Instructional

PracticesAnn M. Johns

Linguistically Diverse Students

“Vague, broad-rush census categories are not useful for distinguishing individual students.” (133)

Example: There are 3 types of “Hispanic” students:

1. International students from Spanish-speaking countries.

2. Generation 1.5

3. Second Generation

Pedagogical Possibilities

It is beneficial to find out student needs, their course-related interests, and linguistic backgrounds.

It is important for students to make a connection between life experience and disciplinary learning.

Students should understand how what their learning serves a function in the community and society

Students should understand how experts talk and write.

Interactions between our linguistically diverse students and

ourselves

All teachers face difficulties

Our own biases

Social construct of learners

Question:

“How do our biases and expectations intersect or clash with those of our diverse students?”

Faulty Critical Thinking

If critical thinking is cultural thinking

It is only discoverable by those who are brought up in that culture

3 notions directly indicated in critical thought

Individualism

Self-expression

Using language as a tool for learning

Critical thinking = social construct

Not a cluster of universal abilities that asses students and model teacher beliefs

Especially for non native or mainstream English speakers

Student Errors

Teachers find some errors more offensive than others

Examine our negative responses to student errors

Update your own knowledge of language

Find a balanced way of grading

Decide on which assignments should be corrected and which should just be assessed for content

Faculty Assignments and Assessments

Assessment process should be connect to learners world

Demonstration should show multiple ways to represent knowledge and skill

Self-assessment should be essential to the overall assessment process

Plagiarism

Undermines teachers authority

Determine and discuss with class

What is plagiarism

Why it is unacceptable

What are its consequences Within the classroom

Outside the classroom

Enhancing All Students’ Learning Opportunities

Ways in which students can apply classroom concepts and approaches in the world

Integration of linguistic and culturally diverse students into the classroom

Assist Students in Setting Goals for Achievement in Your

Classroom Look at classroom readings and text

What goals do you have for yourself and your learners?

What do you consider your strength as a learner for this class?

What do you still need to work on?

Make Your Goals and Expectations Clear

What is required of them in an assignment

What is a good example of that assignment

How assignments and other assessments will be scored

What other expectations you have

Encourage Positive Group Interaction in the Classroom

Select groups yourself

Rotate students roles within groups

Assign group projects that can draw equally from linguistically diverse and native speakers

Create situations were diverse students teach others and vice versa

Make group session with problem solving exercises

Establish positive interdependence

Provide accountability for individuals within group

Assess Your Attempts at Inclusion

Have student write an unsigned “minute paper” about what the most important thing they have learned.

Have students list in writing, key concepts or ideas.

Ask students to define or apply their own learning to key concepts.

Randomly collect student lecture notes.

Come early and talk to students who are not participating frequently.

Conclusion

It can be challenging to teach diverse students.

The challenges are great but the rewards can be even greater.

Teaching to Transgress

By Bell Hooks

Question

Hooks mentions on page 29 that there are people who believe that racism does not exist anymore.

Do you agree?

If not, how can you, as a teacher, join the struggle to end racism?

The Promise of Multicultural Change

• Desegregation in schools did not mean the end of racial apartheid/racism.

• “thing”-oriented society “person”- oriented society (Martin Luther King Jr.)

• Traditional role of the university: pursuit of truth and sharing of knowledge and information.

• “recognition of difference might also require of us a willingness to see the classroom change, to allow for shifts in relations between students.” (page 30)

“Many folks found that as they tried to respect ‘cultural diversity’ they had to

confront the limitations of their training and knowledge, as well as possible loss of

‘authority.’”(page 30)

As pre-service teachers, can you foresee yourself having to confront your

limitations? How would you approach such a situation?

Question

To create a culturally diverse academy, we must:

• commit ourselves fully

• learn from other movements like civil rights and feminist liberation efforts

• be vigilant and patient

• accept that it is a struggle

Intellectual OpennessIntellectual openness:

• celebrates diversity

• welcomes dissent

• rejoices in the collective dedication to truth

Approaches

Freire’s View

The Educator and The Oppressed

Less interest in actual ideas or subjects

Viewed self as outsiders, observers

Hook’s view

Southern black community to University

Viewed self as

Decolonization & Conscientization

Initial stage of transformation

think critically about the self and identity in relation to one's political circumstance

Conscientization not an end itself

always joined by meaningful praxis

Praxis

Not blind action

Action and reflection

Makes human being capable of giving meaning to the world

Progressive Political Movement

Fails to have lasting impression on the US

Not enough understanding of praxis

Act as though it is naive to think

Lives must be a living example of our politics

Freire’s Flaws

Sexism of language

Phallocentric paradigm of liberation

Freedom and the experience of patriarchal manhood are always linked

Question

How do you view Freire’s usage of sexist language?

Do you find truth in Bell Hook’s statement?

“to have work that promotes one's liberation is such a powerful gift that it does not matter so much if the gift is flawed.”

Hook’s theories

Feminism and Freire

Two experiences converge

Parts of Freire woven into feminist pedagogy

Personal experiences

Freire’s work

lived pedagogy of the many black teachers of Hook’s girlhood