Journey to Excellence

Integrating Diversity

Adventist schools will employ instructional methods which are sensitive to diversity.

Introduction:

The purpose for teachers to focus on diversity within the classroom is to give students from all backgrounds an optimal learning environment. The teacher does this in one of two ways: (1) by using use a variety of student friendly teaching strategies and/or (2) by integrating particular content that highlights unique differences in culture, gender, generational perspectives, etc., into lessons that are already part of the curriculum. Most teachers will want to use both approaches, choosing an inclusive pedagogical strategy and adapting a particular activity that highlights diversity.

It is generally accepted that some teaching methods more actively engage and support students from diverse backgrounds. For instance, cooperative learning strategies, peer tutoring, graphic organizers, and mastery learning techniques are often recommended as inclusive methods that help all students be successful regardless of background. Details about these teaching strategies can be found here.

It is also important for teachers to focus on diversity wherever possible in their regular instructional program. So in this section our goal is to help teachers integrate this focus on diversity into various subject areas. A teacher will do this intentionally, but naturally, within the subject area lesson plans and within the pedagogical style already employed. For example, a math teacher whose primary objective is to present the mathematical terms of mode, mean, and median might put students into cooperative learning groups and ask them to analyze and graph socioeconomic data from a recent government report. You can see that in this way the teacher is using data that has the potential to illuminate cultural issues connected to socioeconomic status of the population with students in a social learning setting. This combination of teaching strategy, math content, and diversity application gives students an opportunity to master mathematical terminology and at the same time learn important details about society.

Resources

Ideas and Goals for Integrating Diversity

References

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