EDUC 315 Educating Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Students
As your instructor, I am a guide and facilitator learning along side you.
We honor your funds of knowledge that you bring to our course.
This course is offered as a hybrid course, whereby I meet with students several times during the semester either F2F or via Zoom. Their geographic locations determine how best to coordinate these meetings. It is important to be able to be accessible to students for the nature of our content is one that needs to be unpacked sensitively and with care. Therefore, opportunities to meet together F2F or via ZOOM are critical in navigating and negotiating authentic and difficult conversations. This is why I enjoy teaching this diversity course, for it is challenging in discussing White Privilege, racism, ethnocentrism as it relates to our educational system as well as in our society. Our objective is to become culturally responsive teachers which we begin our journey in our LLSS 315 course and we acknowledge we continue refining this awareness throughout our professional careers.
Course Rationale
While increasing multilingual, multicultural, and multiethnic diversity is reflected in US classrooms, teachers have generally not had the education to effectively respond to their linguistically and culturally diverse students. The linguistic and cultural resources that students bring to the learning context should be valued and better understood in order for educators to draw on those resources. Understanding the larger sociopolitical contexts of education, the nature of diversity, the way in which language and culture shape students, and the ways in which they learn, will help teachers fashion education that not only helps linguistically and culturally diverse students but all students. To achieve such understanding, we will look at curriculum and pedagogy, and the processes of education that empower students to draw on their strengths and their lived experiences and to develop their confidence in their abilities to learn. We will explore ways to understand and appreciate students’ experiences, and to create learning experiences that value the rich cultural and linguistic resources that children bring to the classroom, so that we can facilitate their achievement across their educational experience.
Participation Framework: Honor there are many truths that coexist through our multiple realities.
The Pacific Educational Group has designed a framework and set of agreements to assist groups address issues of race, equity, and student achievement.
Stay Engaged—Listening for your classmates’ benefit, not just for your benefit. Modeling the listening behaviors that you seek.
Speak Your Truth—Having the courage to share your experience/perspective and asking questions of your classmates that will encourage them to share theirs.
Experience Discomfort—Searching out experiences/perspectives different from your own. Having the courage to ask your partners to ask questions of you. Having the courage to ask for clarification or more questions.
Expect/Accept Non-Closure—Not looking to solve/answer all of the questions. Not looking for the solution/answer. Looking for a different question that will help us to find a different solution. [Pacific Educational Group at Courageous Conversations https://courageousconversation.com/]
Participation and class community membership: Class participants are encouraged/expected to share ideas, questions, and reflections. As a culturally competent community, high professional expectations and standards are expected. Respect, sensitivity, and collegiality must be present in our interactions with one another even when we discuss controversial issues or express diverse opinions. Our class community is a space where respect, recognition, validation, openness and trust are protected. The key to creating a critical classroom is finding ways to make the interactive dialogue safe for learning, yet unsafe for structural “blindness” and oppressive ideologies. It is very important that all members of the class attempt to treat each other with respect when perspectives differ. We can agree to disagree respectfully. Direct challenges to expressed views are unacceptable. However, vigorous debate is encouraged. As honest dialogue is encouraged, neither students nor instructor should feel threatened by a class member. A serious challenge to one’s “blindness” or “privilege” does not constitute a threat, unless done with the implication that the challenged student lacks the ability to understand or change. I recommend that all challenges be conducted with the hope of building alliances.
Your learning is for you, guided by your interests, motivation, curiosity and passions.
I frame the course providing opportunities and resources guiding students to their own individual growth. For example:
RETHINKING Our CLASSROOMS:Teaching for equity & justice (vol. 1) is our course text.
Constructivists learn from stories, so stories are important to all learning and teaching.
Diane McCants, shared White Privilege from her perspective as an African American woman growing up in Farmington.
Individual websites are created by students to house their intellectual property during the course. In this way they own their web sites and their content beyond the scope of our course. In this way, they assume ownership of their work.
Instructor's Introduction & Website
Our ZOOM Session (Sept. 2018)
Ethnic Roots Presentations (Dec. 2018)
I AM Poems (Fall 2017)
Guest Artist Sarah Teafanov (Fall 2017)