Culture and Diversity: Strategies to Improve the Educational Experience
Contributed By: Tessa DeAngelo
The University of California, Davis, is a campus with great student diversity. This means that our classrooms are filled with students from various academic and cultural backgrounds. If such diversity is not considered when constructing and administering courses, some students may feel marginalized and not receive the support necessary for them to thrive in academia. Moreover, without considering how varied backgrounds has shaped the unique needs of your students, student engagement, student enjoyment, student appreciation, and student attendance may all fall by the wayside.
To account for culture’s central role in the learning process, it is important to adopt a pedagogy that promotes equitable student learning and one that is characterized by culturally-responsive and student-centered instruction. For example, to emphasize cultural responsiveness, assess your own behavior as an instructor and get to know your students. Remember that all information in the learning process is produced and received through a cultural lens that may impact how course content is understood. Build one-on-one sessions and group discussions into your course activities to foster inclusivity, perspective taking, and cultural awareness. Additionally, reflect on your teaching style and assess it to see if it meets the learning needs of each student. For example, you may want to modify your curriculum content to the academic level of your students or modify activities to include a range of learning methods to more broadly help each student better understand the course material—through interactive, visualized, or even gamified lessons. Most importantly, try to foster an open classroom environment where student-relevant examples are incorporated into lecture to motivate student interest and where students feel welcomed to engage in active discussion that challenges students to think broadly and critically.
The University of California, Davis, is a campus with great student diversity. This means that our classrooms are filled with students from various academic and cultural backgrounds. If such diversity is not considered when constructing and administering courses, some students may feel marginalized and not receive the support necessary for them to thrive in academia. Moreover, without considering how varied backgrounds has shaped the unique needs of your students, student engagement, student enjoyment, student appreciation, and student attendance may all fall by the wayside.
To account for culture’s central role in the learning process, it is important to adopt a pedagogy that promotes equitable student learning and one that is characterized by culturally-responsive and student-centered instruction. For example, to emphasize cultural responsiveness, assess your own behavior as an instructor and get to know your students. Remember that all information in the learning process is produced and received through a cultural lens that may impact how course content is understood. Build one-on-one sessions and group discussions into your course activities to foster inclusivity, perspective taking, and cultural awareness. Additionally, reflect on your teaching style and assess it to see if it meets the learning needs of each student. For example, you may want to modify your curriculum content to the academic level of your students or modify activities to include a range of learning methods to more broadly help each student better understand the course material—through interactive, visualized, or even gamified lessons. Most importantly, try to foster an open classroom environment where student-relevant examples are incorporated into lecture to motivate student interest and where students feel welcomed to engage in active discussion that challenges students to think broadly and critically.
Moreover, without considering how varied backgrounds has shaped the unique needs of your students, student engagement, student enjoyment, student appreciation, and student attendance may all fall by the wayside. NS0-591 exam dumps
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