Culture: seven letters, two syllables, and one controversial meaning. The United States has become a large melting pot for all cultures across the globe. One of the main places that these cultures come together is in the classroom. In order to effectively teach all students, an educator must embrace the chaos of changing cultures in the classroom. With different cultures having varying beliefs about simple aspects of everyday life (eye contact, speaking, etc.), an educator must become knowledgeable about all of his or her student’s cultures in order to best serve the students. This can be done through several different methods. In order to create a culturally inclusive classroom, an educator must become educated about culture through the cultural continuum and power distance. In their 2017 article, Response to Cultures Continuum and the Development of Intercultural Responsiveness (IR), authors Kathryn Jones, Jason Mixon, Lula Henry, and Jennifer Butcher define what it means to be culturally competent, and give examples of how teachers can become culturally competent. According to Jones, Mixon, Henry, and Butcher, cultural competence is the “ability to understand diverse perspectives and appropriately interact with members of other cultures in a variety of situations”. The level of immersion in a culture is said to be measured on a cultural continuum, with monocultural being at the far left end, and intercultural being on the far right end, with monocultural being defined
Inclusive practice is about adapting what is being delivered to make learning accessible to everyone regardless of ability, special education need (SEN) or any other barrier that might exist. When planning to meet the needs of everyone in the group it is essential that the teacher has as much information about everyone as possible. (The City and Guilds textbook level 3 Award in Education and Training). Features of inclusive teaching and learning starts with knowing which learning styles your learners prefer, to do this you can use VARK (visual, aural, read/write and kinetic) test which was designed by Neil Fleming to help learners and teachers know what learning methods they are best suited to e.g. in the first lesson my tutor asked for us
Inclusion is the act of placing students with disabilities into the general education classroom. Students are given the tools, time, and resources necessary to actively participate in all aspects of the general education classroom. Inclusion is not just adding a student with disabilities into the classroom, but genuinely including them as valued members of the classroom. Inclusion is not an easy system to put into practice because it requires a great deal of teamwork and cooperation between teachers, administrators, and parents. Positive Inclusion programs closely supervise the social and academic progress to ensure the students are thriving. When inclusion is done correctly, the teacher finds a way to meet the student’s needs in a way that is natural and unobtrusive. The resources and supports in an inclusion classroom benefit all students, not just the students with disabilities.
Culturally Responsive Teaching is an emerging field that focuses on student cultural backgrounds and experiences in the development of pedagogy. According to Kea (2013) cultural difference is the single largest difference in U.S. schools and also the most neglected. The goal of Culturally Responsive Teaching is to provide an equal opportunity for all students to learn in school, regardless of their gender, social class, ethnic, racial or cultural characteristics (Banks 2005). Ladson-Billings (1994) suggest that the historic failings of educators in educating non-white students is that educators attempt to insert culture into education rather than insert education into the culture. In other words, educators are not providing an equal multi-culturally relevant education by bringing tokens of culture such as food, national flags, or maps from around the world into the classroom alone. Although these actions promote a sense of multiculturalism, an education that is relative to a diversity of cultures is not necessarily being provided. Culturally Responsive Teaching attempts to bring the various experiences of the student’s cultural home life into the classroom. Schmidt (2005) identifies seven characteristics that must be incorporated into curriculum in order to provide culturally responsive instruction. These characteristics are high expectations,
Teachers must learn about their student’s cultures if they want to educate them to the best of their ability. Many of the students in culturally diverse classrooms will want to learn in different ways. Some will want to learn in pairs, groups, as a class, or just alone. If the teacher is educated in their culture then lessons can be adjusted to appeal to every student as much as possible instead of forcing some to forget about their culture and learn like others. Students from
In addition to creating a culture of care, ELLs’ learning styles, affective behaviors, and home-culture classroom norms should be considered when creating a culturally responsive classroom. As a teacher, I encourage all my students “…to learn from and interact respectfully with people from one’s own and other cultures” (Habib, Densmore-James, and Macfarlane 173) when I follow the six recommended tenets (173). This fosters an effective learning environment while also modeling and emphasizing respect for others, something of which our society is starting to lose
Inclusive classrooms are general education classroom in which students with and without disabilities learn together. It is essentially the opposite of an isolated special education classroom, where students with disabilities learn only with other students with disabilities. Inclusion represents the philosophy that students with disabilities should be integrated into regular education classrooms whether they can meet traditional curricular standards or not. This philosophy brings diverse students, families, educators, and community members together to create schools and other social institutions based on acceptance, belonging, and community.” The inclusive classroom model is a result of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act. Both pieces of legislation set out to provide a general education classroom in which all students are able to learn. This paper will examine the pros and cons of the inclusive classroom model.
The public-school system has “turned away from their traditional emphasis on assimilating newcomers into the national melting pot. Instead they have put a new emphasis on multicultural education, deemphasizing the common American culture and teaching children to take pride in their racial, ethnic, and national origins” (p. 2). Today, teachers must demonstrate they are culturally competent by demonstrating they have “certain knowledge, dispositions, and skills to work effectively with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds” (p. 52). Culture can be defined as “a pattern of human behavior that includes thought, communication, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious, or social group” (p. 53). The word competence “implies having the capacity to function effectively” (p. 53). Becoming culturally competent is a process that takes commitment, effort, and time, and when both words are put together, culturally competent denotes an individual or educator acknowledges and incorporates the importance cross-cultural relations (Ford & Whiting,
Cultural competence is the foundation in creating a successful academic environment for diverse students. Being culturally competent means being knowledgeable of other cultures, including the awareness of that culture’s world view. When someone is culturally competent they are able to effectively communicate and interact with people across cultures, and hold a positive attitude towards culture differences. (Nieto 2014) Teachers should be able to understand their student’s cultural views, traditions, language, and home life, and incorporate these cultural factors into their lesson plans and classroom settings. When early educators use culture competence, children are able to develop a sense of belonging, form strong
Within today’s school environment, educational authorities require all teachers to implement a holistic and inclusive curriculum into their daily classroom practices. Teachers must make regular adjustments, modifications and differentiate pedagogical content and practices, in order to ensure that the needs of each individual child are met. Through implementing inclusive practices within the daily classroom setting, teachers are ultimately creating a positive effect on learning outcomes for all students. There are various factors that can influence as well as hinder the educational performance of students with a disability and additional learning needs, including, policies, frameworks, guidelines and school staffing arrangements. This report will present findings from a situational analysis conducted to identify and evaluate issues impacting on student learning from a selected school context. The school’s historical, political, structural and contextual factors have been examined in order to highlight improvement areas to enhance and further develop outcomes for all students with identified learning difficulties.
“Many students who are gifted require differentiated programming and supports to meet their exceptional learning needs” (Alberta Education, p.172). Can the regular inclusive classroom, a heterogeneous program, be enough of a challenge to stimulate the thinking to reach the gifted learner? Or, is a homogenous classroom, comprised of only gifted individuals, be the best academic solution for these exceptional students?
Our culture includes tradtions, foods, valves, religion and so forth. Our identifies and structures influences how we consider ourselves. Assimilation occures in order to recieve all aorta of benfits. Being aware of the cultures that the students and even the teachera bribg to a classroom is essential for effective teaching. A teacher that not only values students culture but also incorporates cultural awareness projects or discussion can be considered a multicultural teacher. A multicultural teacher doesn't want a student to replace there culture but embrace
Culture is central to student learning. Culture is the lens through which we look at the world. Teachers are culture translators between what students know, and understand. Instead of examining their own culture beliefs, many teachers blame student’s inappropriate behaviors and academic failures on their home lives. Numerous decisions that educators make are resolved more from their cultural background than from individual beliefs. The desires that instructors hold for educating and learning are grounded in social convictions that might be new to students and families from non-dominant societies. It is important for schools to modify their curriculum around student’s experiences.
Meeting children’s needs is a vital aspect of teaching whereby the needs of all children must be taken into consideration. Teacher’s professional practice is developed over time in various ways, for example through experience and reflection (Tack et al, 2014). My professional practice was informed by Meeting Children’s Needs module as it educated me on how to assist children to become successful learners. This can be achieved through various strategies that meet the diverse needs of every child. The National Curriculum (National Curriculum, 2000) has at times been ambiguous on the matter of inclusion as it is a contentious term. A prominent philosophy within education was that children had to adapt themselves to classroom learning in order
Introduction An inclusive education upholds the ideals of an equitable society where access to and successful participation in education are considered to be the right of every person in that society. This paper will argue that whilst some steps have been taken to ensure equity in education for all, there is still a long way to go before Australia can provide a truly inclusive educational experience for all participants. It will be shown that there are deficit based and systemic approaches to exclusion and that rather than promote inclusiveness; these approaches place the blame upon either individuals or institutions for
“In 2014–15, the number of children and youth ages 3–21 receiving special education services was 6.6 million, or 13 percent of all public school students” (NCES). From my seven years of experience in the public school system, and having a niece that had been placed in a special needs class for two years, I’ve seen that the majority of students who are in a special needs class are usually kept away from other students. Their interactions limited to the teachers and other special needs students. To fix the social isolation of the special needs students many believe that an inclusive education is the best way to go about the problem (“Open society”).