Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher - Assignment Example

Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher College: Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher Introduction With the current globalization trends, school instructors have been compelled to acquire cultural diversity management skills to achieve the cultural responsiveness that is expected in a multi-culture learning environment. Consequently, a teacher has to learn the characteristics of their students well to identify the issues that are barriers to effective learning and hence adopt strategies to overcome these barriers.

In this case, a survey based approach will be used to identify challenges that exist within a multi-cultural environment and recommendations to overcome these challenges will be provided. Student Voices Video As a preliminary, I watched a video that was a presentation of the voices of students who raised various concerns on the challenges that they come across while learning in a culturally diversified environment. The students in the video expressed that they felt they learned the most when their teachers were encouraging, even if they had the wrong answer, provided rewards, and were enthusiastic.

They enjoy teachers who act like a friend and provide them with a variety of teaching strategies. Students enjoy learning one-on-one, in groups, playing purposeful games, watching videos, and completing worksheets. Overall, they like to be seen, heard, and paid attention to. Students expressed that being ignored and choosing favorites really hindered their learning. As the students from the video, my middle school students like to have a variety of activities presented in one lesson because this keeps them from being bored.

They like when I am enthusiastic in the classroom because this sets the tone for class. As most students, they do not like being ignored, they like to know they play an important role in the classroom. A Survey of My Class In this survey, a 3?5 card was provided to the students and they were requested to write 3 things that make them happy in class and 3 things that hinder their learning. After consolidating the information obtained from this survey, it was clear that different cultural factors affect different student differently.

Most African students identified that they were not pleased by certain jokes that were used in class. Asian students felt that they were not engaged to participate in interactive sessions in class. Non-natives students were affected by the use of English language especially in the literature lessons. On the other hand, most non-natives were pleased with inclusive class presentations that allowed each student to participate in the session. Also most students felt that their seating positions in class enhanced their interaction with a person from a different culture.

Lastly, they were pleased with teachers who did not have a cultural accent and those that did not use local jokes. Graphical Representation of the Survey Chart. 1 Cultural Hindrances Chart. 2 Positive cultural influences Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategy From the graphical representation of the students’ responses, it is clear that cultural issues have a great impact on the learning process, and hence there is a need to apply strategic teaching approaches to minimize cultural influence in learning.

In this case, the best strategy would be to adopt an integrative approach to teaching. Velliotis (2008) recognizes the need to integrate transformative and empowering approach to contain the challenges that emerge in multi-cultural learning environment. To achieve this, it would be recommendable to reduce stereotypical jokes and cultural biases in the classroom. To empower students from different cultures, it would be recommendable to enhance interactive sessions that allow all students to take part in.

This would be implemented by allowing 15 minutes for interactive discussion in every lesson in which every person would be allowed to participate. Data Collection to Evaluate Designed Strategy After implementing my designed strategy, I invited my co-language teacher to measure my cultural diversity management skills during a one hour class period. The parameters that were captured in this survey were the student teacher engagement trees, student participation and the stereotypical references that were used by either the student of the teacher.

From the data collected by this teacher, there was no use of stereotypic references and the student teacher engagement was adequate. However, it was clear that the Asian students remained silent during most of the session and their participation was minimal. At this stage, I decided to resort to a consultative meeting with the Asian students as a way of getting close to them and learning their challenges in the classroom. Conclusion From this survey, it is clear that cultural factors go a long way in standing the way of the learning process.

The use of stereotypes and culture-specific jokes are hindrances to class interaction and student participation. Nonnative language learners have language barrier problems that prevent them from participating actively in class. Responsive teaching skills require that an integrative approach be used to encompass all the dimensions of cultural issues that are common in a multi-cultural class. References Velliotis, E., (2008). Classroom Culture and Dynamics. New York: Nova Publishers.