Integrated Planning Matrix: Overview and Justification - Assignment Example

Running Head: Integrated Planning Matrix Integrated Planning Matrix: Overview and Justification [Client’s Name] [Affiliation] The Hypothetical Scenario Christ the King Montessori, a community school in a small town in Northwest England Region experienced an average increase of 50% in its enrolment for KS 1 and KS2 (Year 1 to Year 6) for the last 5 years. This growing enrollment rate is due to the increasing number of Asians settling in the region to work and to study. The school administrator noticed that teachers somehow experience challenges in the classroom instruction due to the cultural differences and observed abilities between English-speaking students and ESL students. The administrators observe that (a) English-speaking students excel in communication and reading comprehension but have shown poor performances in Math and Science; (b) ESL students excel in Science and Mathematics subject but have low performance in Reading and Comprehension; and (c) students have strong affinity to cultural similarities which affects group performance in school-related activities. Overview of the Planning Matrix The planning matrix will be focused on the learning syllabus for Year 5 and Year 6 KS2 students in the hypothetical scenario. There are a lot of possible scenarios why such defined learning is prevalent in the hypothetical case. First, it is possible that the methods of instruction used by teachers are no longer applicable in a culturally diverse classroom. This means that although the methods of instructions employed are effective in culturally homogenous classrooms, this yields ineffective results when Asian students whose learning curves and learning patterns differ from the English-speaking students are taken into account. The hypothetical scenario identifies two major issues. First, there is a disparity in the performance of the ESL and English-speaking students when it comes to specific subjects like Math, Science, Communication, and Reading Comprehension. Second is the observed in-group/out-group pattern between and among learners of similar cultural orientations. It is relatively easy to identify why there is a gap in the performance between subjects of ESL learners and English-speaking learners. ESL learners typically do not have major concerns in subjects such as math and sciences because of the lack of new structures to follow in math lessons (Yang, 1995). Unlike language lessons where new patterns and new concepts are acquired, math and science lessons are somewhat universal in their approach. That is to say that the mathematics in Korea is the same as the mathematics in England. In most cases, the mathematics lessons in other countries are somewhat advanced compared to the lessons in European countries or in America (which is somehow true in the case of Korea’s approach to Math). It has already been established in various research that culture has strong influence in the learning patterns of students (Buchanan, 1990). Highly polarized cultures tend to repel each other in almost every way imaginable which may cause stress and strain in social relationships. This is also true in education. Successful cultural assimilation and integration in the classroom setting is difficult even for mature learners, much more so for KS1 and KS2 learners. Hence, it is the primary goal of the educational system, particularly the school administration, to develop or modify existing curricula that would address the specific cultural requirements of the classroom. Relying on standard or generically formulated curricula do not always lead to what’s best for the learners and thus the vanity of such attempt. The lesson planning matrix identified two key result areas which are (a) ddistribution of important classroom knowledge and skills to ESL and English-speaking Learners and (b) cultural integration in the classroom. It is very important that the learning curve between and among students is normalized and distributed as much as possible. That is to say that the gap between the performances of one cultural group of students with the other in specific subjects should be closed (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2001), otherwise different learning issues could arise such as low retention, high peer pressure in students, and low performance in weak areas in the lessons (van Lier, 1990). In order to do this, the plan outlines a list of activities that allows students from various cultures to work together and copy learning methods. It is important for teachers to understand the biases held by students towards their classmates or schoolmates. Awareness and understanding of certain cultural biases would allow teachers to position their lessons in a strategic manner; most probably through the lens of the biases held by the students. The best way to gauge the biases held by students towards particular cultures is to let them express these through writing or by drawing. Lesson number 1 is designed to address this need. Allowing student learners to express their biases through drawing would let the teachers see how she should handle the cultural biases in her classroom. Moreover, the teacher can design lesson plans that would address these cultural biases so that he or she can facilitate a successful cultural integration. Lesson 5 is very similar to Lesson 1 where the aim is to explore the biases of the students towards a specific culture. Interpretation of an artwork is a cultural thing. How the students see an artwork not necessarily done by individuals from the same culture and how they interpret it tells something about the biases of these individuals (Buchanan, 1990). Exposing Year 5 and Year 6 learners to various culturally-themed artworks would allow them to use their creativity and their personal biases in providing meaning to the work of art. Whatever the interpretations are reflects the potential cultural strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. This is a good tool for teachers to understand the cultural perspectives of the students in a similar fashion to Lesson 1. Lessons 2 to 4 are designed to allow students to work together in various classroom-related activities. The grouping of the students should not only focus on their cultural diversity but also on their classroom skills and abilities. In lesson 2, a complex mathematical problem is given to the group which forces the group to rely on each other’s understanding of the problem. As was established earlier, ESL-learners are more apt with their mathematical skills (in the general sense) compared to English-speaking learners and so they would have a relatively easy time to solve the problem. However, such problem would require deeper comprehension which the English-speaking learners have. So in order for the group to solve the problem, they will be forced to work together as a team. The ESL-learners will be able to understand difficult terms and will build a relationship with their non-ESL classmates. On the other hand, non-ESL learners will be able to copy the mathematical methods of the ESL-learners (whichever is applicable) in solving mathematics problems. Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 are somewhat a modification of Lesson 2 where the completion of an activity requires the students to work together and come up with the best, most effective, communication process so that they could solve the task. The activity chosen for both lessons is a complex one where the English speaking members of the group are to translate to the ESL learners a certain story so that the ESL learners can tell the whole class in a coherent manner what happened in the story. This is an interesting activity as it requires the group to work together and work through the difficult phase of translating words and ideas to their ESL classmates, forcing them to reject all cultural differences and focus on the task ahead of them. It is recommended that this activity should take a couple of days before the whole concept is actually grasped by the learners. Lesson 6 is basically the synthesis of all the activities from Lesson 1 to 5 where students will be tasked to solve a science mystery case where every skills they have learned in the previous lessons –reading comprehension, problem solving, and communication – will be utilized. The second part of the integrated lesson planning matrix is focused on cultural integration in the classroom. The activities mentioned in the first key outcome would not be successful without the parallel results of the second key outcome and its learning activities. There are four major learning activities identified in the second key outcome which are social and cultural development, understanding of cultural history, cultural exposure, and working with team. Lesson 7, Socio-cultural development, is mainly focused on providing theoretical or lesson-based understanding of the different practices, belief-systems, ideologies, and characteristics of certain cultures. This involves reading text or relating to news about certain cultures and how these explain specific attributes. For example, the perceived arrogance of the English will be explained by it being the seat of the Western since the beginning of time. Lesson 8 closely resembles Lesson 7 but instead of the teacher discussing cultural differences, the insights would come from the students. This is just an informal approach to cultural exposure as student learners from various cultures will be exposed to differences in historical development of their classmates from different cultures. This ensures that understanding between the individuals in the group occurs. It is highly recommended that the teacher would reinforce such discussions to ensure that the values he or she wanted the class to adopt or understand is obtained. Cultural Exposure is one of the most necessary steps in cultural understanding. By letting the students experience first-hand how each culture differs from each other and by seeing the goodness, similarities, and promises of one culture, understanding can easily occur. The last Learning Activity, Lesson 10, will be focused on synthesizing everything that has been learned in the previous lessons. By allowing students to perform role play on a story where they have to play each other’s roles, the teachers can understand whether the rest of the activities were successful. References Buchanan, L. (1990). Some Effects of Culture in the ESL Classroom and Their Implications for Teaching. Minnesota TESOL Journal. 8; 73-87 Hansen, J. M. and Childs, J. (1998). Creating a school where people like to be. Educational Leadership 56 (1), 14-17. Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. (2001). Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories and their implications. In A. Duranti (Ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader (pp. 263–301). Oxford, England: Blackwell. van Lier, L. (1990). The Classroom and the Language Learners. Essex, England. Longman. Yang, Z. (1995). Predictive validity of TOEFL scores on first term’s GPA as the criterion for international exchange students. University of British Colombia. Read More