Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions

Culturally Responsive Instruction

• Identify a global societal issue from the following list that you would consider researching further for your Week 5 Final Paper:
  • Climate change
  • Pollution
  • Religious conflict and violence
  • Rise of artificial intelligence
  • Lack of education
  • Unemployment and lack of economic opportunity
  • Government accountability and corruption
  • Food and water security
  • International drug trafficking
  • Poverty and income inequality
• Describe effective methods you used in identifying and narrowing down to just one of the topics to further research for your Final Paper.
• Explain three ways you can critically analyze sources to determine if they are scholarly.
• Summarize information from at least two scholarly journal articles from the Ashford University Library that will support your claims for your chosen topic.
• Explain why scholarly sources should be used to support your writing on the selected topic.
• ORDER  HERE A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Culturally Responsive Instruction

Introduction

There is a growing pattern of ethnic and racial diversity registered in learning institutions across North American region. Culture plays a crucial role in education, not only by influencing instructor-leaner communication process, but also by shaping the thinking processes of learners. Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions There is a growing need for a pedagogy that acknowledges, upholds, and responds to the fundamentals of each culture and in return offers equitable access to learning instruments for all learners. A diverse body of literature registers that a culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) model prioritizes instruction efforts to ensuring that the cultural references of all students are integrated into the teaching process (Roessingh, 2020). This review recommends a workable implementation framework to culturally responsive instruction and evaluates how it provides equal opportunity for culturally diverse students and promotes economic goals of K-12 education.

Integrating CRP into teaching practice

A cultural gap between students and their instructors can intrigue a poor self-concept and discipline barriers, which ultimately lead to unsatisfactory academic outcomes. Culturally responsive teaching acknowledges the important space that traditional teaching methods occupy in learning, but strives to borrow materials relevant to various cultures in a way that draws students to content through their past experiences (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020)Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions. Instructors can implement CRP by strategically integrating cultural knowledge, past experiences, and frames of references into the instruction process. Teachers should also delve into a deeper understanding of the student’s most favored learning styles to establish a learning process that both relevant and effective.

One of the approaches for implementing CRP is to remain cognizant, and to accommodate the cultural similarities and differences between students. Instructors should acknowledge and view the student’s individual and cultural differences positively. By positively identifying such cultural similarities and differences, instructors ultimately establish an enabling environment that favors productive communication processes (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020). Also, teachers can leverage the newly created communication skills to enhance ad reinforce social skills. Lawrence (2020) posits that teachers can encaurage social inetrraction by correlating classroom teaching to the indiviual and cultural norms of students and issuing assignments that require students to collaborate and interract in groups.This will ensure that students uphold high-level acknowledgment, sensitivity, and respect for other students’ cultures.

Another important practice that speeds up the process of integrating CRP to instruction practice is by learning to remain sensitive to the individual and cultural acclimation of students from various cultural backgrounds. Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions Hetty Roessingh (2020) argues that students from minority communities such as immigrants may possess family and community cultures that are subject to constant adaptations due to the day-to-day transition between school and home. Roessingh (2020) suggests that teachers should acknowledge the mental transition experienced by such students may expose them to learning difficulties, particularly when a new week begins. In such situations, teachers should assess and adjust to diverse learning rates of students, for instance, by readjusting their wait time following questions.

Hutchison & McAlister-Shields (2020) acknowledges the importance of parental participation towards the successful implementation of CRP. While integrating CRP to ongoing teaching practice, teachers should have a fair background knowledge of students’ parents and family, and understand how they interact with their children. Instructors should also assists parents, especially those from minority backgrounds, to develop and understanding of the educational system of the host country. Without so doing, minority parents may fail to acknowledge their roles in negotiating the systems in favor of their children. Establishing one-on-one conversations with such parents, or leveraging digital communication platforms. These practices can contribute significantly to integrating CRP to teaching practice and fulfilling the varied learning needs of the increasingly multicultural learning environments.

The importance of diversifying pedagogy to reach different cultures

The gradually changing demographic landscape in North American countries, particularly the United States and Canada has led to the rise of cultural diversity in the classroom. In the United States, for instance, the education system has registered a milestone in which the population of students from African American, Latino, and Asian heritages have surpassed those of white students (Lawrence, 2020). Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions However, cultural diversity has surpassed the mere concept of ethnicity, taking into account the aspects of religion, socio-economic statuses, gender identity, sexual orientation, and language. In the increasingly multicultural environments, instructors have growingly shifted the design and focus of instruction towards diversifying pedagogy so that students of all ethnicities can access equal qualities of education (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020). Despite the existing multicultural learning environments, there still exists a seemingly unequal access to quality instruction between students of different cultural backgrounds.

Educational policymakers continue to foster inclusion and awareness around culturally diverse education by analyzing proposed approaches for implementing educational inclusion to help students from different cultural backgrounds to succeed academically. According to Hutchison & McAlister-Shields (2020), teachers should incorporate instruction designs that are culturally responsive in elementary schools, high schools, middle schools, and high schools. Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions While cultural diversity in learning institutions prepares students to become global citizens who acknowledge and respect the cultural capital of others, diversifying instruction is important in ensuring that students themselves acknowledge and make profitable use of their cultural capital (Roessingh, 2020). Teachers should therefore remain culturally responsive in their instruction approaches by tapping into the students’ cultural knowledge, past experiences, and frames of reference to make instruction effective and more relevant to students of diverse cultures.

Diversifying pedagogy also raises the expectations of students from all cultural walks. The basis of CRP is that it delignates teachers from approaching pedagogy with a deficit mindset that only focusses on the incapability of students, as opposed to their potentials (Roessingh, 2020). Instead, teachers should use CRP, a model that first acknowledges the potential of students, and uses it to establish a rigorous and inclusive student-centered teaching practice (Lawrence, 2020). Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions Diversifying instruction also attracts cultural competence as it gives students from all cultural backgrounds to a chance to draw academic benefits from an inclusive curriculum. Teachers who implement diversified pedagogy helps their students and themselves to understand multiple perspectives and to accommodate the cultural strengths of other people. Hutchison & McAlister-Shields (2020) argue that students who benefit from diversified instruction also possess the ability to reflect on their identities and experiences, and to use them in fostering their academic power.

• ORDER  HERE A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

How CRP provides equal opportunity for diverse students and promotes economic goals of K-12 public education systems

Different communities perceive education in different ways, and therefore, possess diverse aspirations for students from their midst. The current k-12 education system upholds high-quality competency-based education that is inclined towards achieving specific economic goals both for individual students and to the entire country (Lawrence, 2020). The system considers the mere milestone of completing the twelve-years of school as an insufficient result for students. Instead, students who have completed such levels should possess the ability to articulate a vision for their future economic future, and follow a pathway for pursuing their economic visions. Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions The k-12 competency-based education system focusses on availing the economic vision to students from diverse sets of cultural backgrounds (Lawrence, 2020). However, while in pursuit of the economic goals of k-12 economic goals, educational policymakers should prioritize educational equity by increasingly implementing culturally responsive pedagogy. This way, instruction remains diversified enough to be accessed by students from diverse cultures, but also to gear them towards achieving their economic potential.

Within traditional instruction contexts, students from minority cultures potentially experience implicit racial, language, or cultural bias, which leads to their overrepresentation in special education institutions where their needs can rarely be addressed. CRP, on the other hand, promotes the use of asset mindset in instruction, which limits the chances of students from minority cultures to get misidentified for special education (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020). This helps promote the overarching economic goal of competency-based k-12 education which directs instructors to prioritize lifelong skills such as collaboration, creativity, problem, solving, and advocacy. Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions According to Lawrence (2020), a successful education system should produce students with the life-long skills that enable them to become agents of their own success and leaders that can influence growth and change within their communities. CRP offers an instruction framework that acknowledges and upholds the expectations, values and goals of different communities around the extant curriculum and pedagogy (Roessingh, 2020). CRP also ensures that learners attach their learning processes to their cultures, past experiences, priorities, and issues that affect the course of their lives (Hutchison & McAlister-Shields, 2020). This sense of belonging to a culture not only enables the learning process, but also establishes on students the self-confidence they need to pursue the vision availed by k-12 education system Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions.

 Conclusion

Countries are increasingly becoming multicultural, hence the need to consider culturally responsive teaching strategies as a foundational instruction model in diverse educational settings to optimize student’s academic milestones. Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions A broad body of literature recognizes that CRP practices encourage understanding, communication, and critical thinking between learners and their instructors, but also avails education to students from all cultural backgrounds. Ongoing conversations surrounding the current k-12 (competency-based) education system recognize the relevance of the economic vision it seeks to avail to students. However, realizing such goals requires that instructors pay attention to issues of educational equity in such multicultural settings. CRP promises equal opportunity for all students regardless of their cultural backgrounds and offers an opportunity for them to clearly articulate and understand their economic purpose, setting them up to pursuing such purposes. Instructors need to remain vigilant in monitoring the changing needs of students from diverse cultures and offer learning engagements that suit their cultural needs Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions.

References

Hutchison, L., & McAlister-Shields, L. (2020). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Its Application in Higher Education Environments. Education Science, 10(5), 124-135. doi:10.3390/educsci10050124

Lawrence, A. (2020). Teaching as Dialogue: An Emerging Model of Culturally Responsive Online Pedagogy. Journal of Online Learning Research, 6(1), 5-33.

Roessingh, H. (2020). Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Academic Vocabulary Teaching and Learning: An Integrated Approach in the Elementary Classroom. TESL Canada Journal, 37(1), 1-12. doi:10.18806/tesl.v37i1.1334 Ethnic and Racial Diversity In Learning Institutions