Week Three: Creating Effective Learning Environments for Diverse Learners

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For this weeks blog I would like to look at the articles in Part C of Unit 3 dealing with diversity.  I believe that all students learn in different ways and it is up to the teachers to allow the opportunity for students to learn to their best abilities.  After this weeks assignments dealing with different theorists I have come to know and understand Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences and finds it relates to diverse learners a great deal.

Howard Gardner believes that everyone learns, thinks and understands information in a different way and that no one way is the correct way to learn or think.  He believes there are eight different kinds of intelligence; visual-spatial, linguistic, mathematical, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic.  The articles, Improving Schooling for Cultural Minorities: The Right Teaching Styles Can Make a Big Difference, The Myth of PINK & BLUE Brains, and Gender Matters in Elementary Education are prime examples of how students with different background, cultures, up bringing and gender learn in different ways.

“One reason minority students are likely to encounter more problems in schools than mainstream students involve incomplete knowledge of minority students’ learning and communication styles” (Morgan, 2010, p. 93).   In article 21, Improving Schooling for Cultural Minorities: The Right Teaching Style Can Make a Big Difference by Hani Morgan, I read about how students from different cultures are taught to act in different ways to authority and peers.  Without the knowledge of these different cultural norms teachers could end up causing distress and poor relationships among their students and student’s parents.

It is impossible for teachers to learn all the norms of each of their students but it is almost impractical to ignore them as well. “Teachers may believe that treating all students the same way avoids discriminating against any group, but that practice in itself is discriminatory (Banks 2006; Gollnick and Chinn 2009)” (Morgan, 2010, p. 94).  Teachers need to make the effort to learn about their students, ask questions about their home lives and understand them more.  In the video “Valuing Diversity in learners” One teacher spoke about how at the start of the school year she sent home a questionnaire for her student’s parents and students.  She was able to gather information about the student’s home life, parents, likes and dislikes. 

This type of early interaction with your students and the parents of your students allows for you, as a teacher to better understand what kind of learning your student can benefit from the most.  “African American and Latino students, for example, tend to improve academically with cooperative learning methods of teaching (Aronson and Gonzales 1988)” however on the other hand, “Anglo-American students, who tend to be field-independent, prefer to work alone (Banks 2006)” (Morgan, 2010, p. 94).  This type of information should be taken into account when planning lessons for your students.  Your lessons should be planned with your students interest in mind not just to get the information out.   

 

As well as cultural diversity playing a part on planning lessons for a classroom, gender is also an issue that must be addressed when it comes to effective learning environments.  The articles The Myth of PINK & BLUE Brains by Lise Eliot and Gender Matters in Elementary Education by Virginia Bonomo shows how much of a role our gender plays in our education and how we develop as learners. 

Why are girls better at reading? Why are boys better at math?  Does it have to do with the size of our brains, the time it takes us to develop, or the toy our mom handed us when we are two years old?  “When it comes to gender gaps, boys and girls start out a little bit different, but these differences become rapidly magnified by a culture that sees them- and encourages them to see themselves-as fundamentally different creatures” (Eliot, 2010, p. 97). 

Starting when we are two years old we being to remember the toys we are given to play with.  Girls are instructed to play with dolls and to create make believe houses.  Boys are given baseballs to throw, trucks to dig with and told to play outside.  Is it any wonder that girls love to talk and boys love to watch baseball?  These are the roles our society has laid out for us from the time we are wrapped in a pink or blue blanket the second we are born.  Teachers need to understand these aspects about gender and embrace them in their teachings.

Boys will tend to be kinesthetic learners.  “Keep a close eye on boys, but let them play.  Without physical outlet, their aggressiveness will show up elsewhere inappropriately.  Thus, provide large spaces for boys when possible.  Girls, on the other hand will tend to be Interpersonal learners.  “Girls work well in groups when they are facing one another or the teacher.  Find activities that allow them to help the teacher” (Bonomo, 2010, p.103).  Although these are the general ideas of how boys and girls are different it is not always the case.  Some girls may have grown up in a house of all brothers and may make her a kinesthetic learner, while a boy might have a grown up with only his mother in the house and he is a linguistic learner.  This is why all teachers must take the time to learn about their students and understand that one type of learning will never meet all the needs of each student.  

 

Reference

Bonomo, V. (2010) Gender Matters in Elementary Education, Page 247-264.

Cauley, K.M., & Pannozzo, G.M. (Eds.). (2013). Annual Editions: Educational Psychology 12/13 (27^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 

Eliot, L. (2010) The Myth of PINK & BLUE Brains, pages 32-36.

Morgan, H. (2010) Improving Schooling for Cultural Minorities: The Right Teaching Style Can Make a Big Difference, page 114-120.

  

Links:

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index_sub4.html (Multiple Intelligences)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=girl-brain-boy-brain (Blue Vs. Pink Brain)

http://www.tolerance.org/supplement/culture-classroom

(Culture)

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/weeklytips.phtml/230 (Culture)