EDUC 4 Lesson 1 Reviewer

Understanding Diversity
Diversity Wheel

Diversity in the Classroom

 Understanding Diversity
 Group Differences
 Individual Differences
 Exceptional Students

Differences among Students

 Group differences – Socio-economic Status (SES), culture, race, ethnicity, gender
 Individual difference – IQ, learning preferences, cognitive styles, temperament, and personality
 Exceptional students – disabilities, impairments, disturbances, categories, giftedness

What is Diversity?
 Diversity is the range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity,
sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability, or attributes, religious or ethical values system, national
origin, and political beliefs.

Understanding Diversity
 Whether it is one student, or a large group of students, or the whole class that differs from the teacher – as well as
from other students – teachers must bridge the gap:
i. Overcome biases
ii. Provide supportive environment for all – every student is respected, feels comfortable and confident,
and can learn

Loden’s Diversity Wheel

EDUC 4 Lesson 1 Reviewer
Understanding Diversity

The Primary Dimensions of Diversity

 Age
 Race
 Gender
 Ethnicity
 Sexuality
 Physical abilities and characteristics
 Income
 Spiritual beliefs and
 Class

The Secondary Dimensions of Diversity

 Family status
 Work experience
 Communications style
 Cognitive style
 Political belief
 Education
 Organization role and level
 Military experience
 Work style
 First language
 Geographic locations

Approaches to Teaching in the Culturally Diverse Classroom

 Cultural deficit model
o Focus on student’s weaknesses, e.g learning disabilities.
o Deficit model of diversity places the focus on what students and their families do not have and cannot do.
EDUC 4 Lesson 1 Reviewer
Understanding Diversity
 Achievement gap
o The “achievement gap” in education refers to the disparity in academic performance between groups of
students.
o The achievement gap shows up in grades, standardized-test scores, course selection, dropout rates, and
college-completion rates, among other success measures.
 Self-fulfilling prophecy
o A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when, as a result of knowing a certain expectation, a person
unintentionally makes those expectations come true.
 Multicultural education
o Multicultural education refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts,
values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds.
o At the classroom level, for example, teachers may modify or incorporate lessons to reflect the cultural
diversity of the students in a particular class.
 Content Integration: Content Integration deals with the extent to which teachers use examples
and content from a variety of cultures in their teaching.
 Knowledge Construction: Teachers need to help students understand, investigate, and determine
how the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and biases within a
discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is constructed.
 Prejudice Reduction: This dimension focuses on the characteristics of students’ racial attitudes
and how they can be modified by teaching methods and materials.
 An Empowering School Culture: Grouping and labeling practices, sports participation,
disproportionality in achievement, and the interaction of the staff and the students across ethnic
and racial lines must be examined to create a school culture that empowers students from diverse
racial, ethnic, and gender groups.
 An Equity Pedagogy: An equity pedagogy exists when teachers modify their teaching in ways
that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, gender, and
social class groups.
 Culturally relevant pedagogy
o Culturally relevant teaching is a pedagogy grounded in teachers' displaying cultural competence: skill at
teaching in a cross-cultural or multicultural setting.
 Culturally responsive teaching
o Culturally Responsive Teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students'
cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings,1994).

15 Culturally-Responsive Teaching Strategies and Examples

1. Learn About Your Students
2. Interview Students — You’ll build a stronger understanding of students’ values and habits — as well as strengths
and weaknesses — by individually asking them questions.
3. Integrate Relevant Word Problems
 Create culturally-relevant word problems by:
o Including student names to make subject matter relatable
o Linking to student interests, such as by measuring the shot distance of a famous soccer player
o Referencing diverse cultures, such as by determining the diameter of a specific ethnic food platter
4. Present New Concepts by Using Student Vocabulary — In any subject, you can grab and keep student attention
by using their vocabulary to build understanding before moving to academic diction.
5. Bring in Guest Speakers — diverse guest speakers may inherently engage and motivate students who share a
culture with them.
6. Deliver Different Forms of Content through Learning Stations — For example, students can rotate between
stations that involve:
 Playing a game
 Creating artwork
 Watching a video
 Reading an article
EDUC 4 Lesson 1 Reviewer
Understanding Diversity
 Completing puzzles
 Listening to you teach
7. Gamify Lessons — is a way of making connections with contemporary gaming culture — helping students
within this culture process and demonstrate understanding of content.
 Easy-to-implement practices include:
o Offering rewards, such as badges, for completing specific tasks or achieving certain scores
o Setting a clear learning goal for the lesson, charting progress throughout the class to motivate students
o Creating an “instruction manual” for a project, which contains the rubric and best practices for earning a
high grade
8. Call on Each Student-Call-and-response — the practice of asking students frequent questions while giving
lessons — usually keeps them engaged, but also enables them to share thoughts and opinions.
9. Use Media that Positively Depict a Range of Cultures
10. Offer Different Types of Free Study Time
11. Encourage Students to Propose Ideas for Projects
12. Experiment with Peer Teaching
13. Establish Cooperative Base Groups Cooperative base groups — which come from collaborative learning
pedagogy — allow students to regularly learn and process content together.
14. Run Problem-Based Learning Scenarios
 The flexibility of problem-based learning lends itself to culturally-responsive teaching.
 This is because, when presenting a relatable real-world problem for students to solve, two cultural connections
will typically occur.
 First, there will likely be a cultural link in the question, whether it’s explicit or students make it themselves.
Second, because they can apply different approaches to solve the question, they may use unique cultural
perspectives.
15. Involve Parents by Using Take-Home Letters — Involving parents in their child’s learning is a core part of
almost any culturally-responsive teaching approach — they act as the main educators in many societies and can
provide cultural context.

Characteristics of Effective Multicultural Teachers

 Show deep caring for all students
 Provide clear learning objectives
 Communicate high expectations for all students
 Monitor progress and provide immediate feedback
 Explain the rationale for instructional methods
 Embed instruction in culturally meaningful contexts
 Provide opportunities for active learning groups
 Are committed to their students during and after school hours
 Use materials and practices that are culturally relevant
o examples from different culture, race, and religion
 Have several years of experience teaching diverse students