In an increasingly diverse society, it is not more than essential for teachers to incorporate a culturally responsive form of instruction in the classroom. Whether you are teaching in elementary, middle, or high school it is essential to note that cultural diversity goes beyond ethnicity and race. It often includes students of various economic statuses, religions, sexual orientations, learning styles, language backgrounds, and gender identities.
Thus, to cater to such a classroom, it is first crucial to aim for an online diploma course in special education to read the classroom better and adjust your methodologies accordingly.
Why Is It Important To Encourage Multicultural Awareness?
Fostering awareness and inclusion around multicultural education and taking a culturally responsive approach to teaching is highly beneficial for all students. It not only creates inclusion and greater multicultural awareness in students with different needs and backgrounds but also encourages acceptance and helps students to thrive in an exponentially diverse world.
Additionally, it acts as a vital component of teachers' professional development as they can curate a culturally sensitive pedagogy that includes interpersonal interactions, instructional strategies, curriculum content, and learning climate.
An inclusive school environment requires a specialized and personalized approach that focuses on:
How To Manage Diversity In Classroom?
Administrators and teachers can adopt numerous ways to ensure that both curriculum and classroom environment is responsive to the increasing cultural diversity of society. Here are certain strategies that will encourage multicultural awareness in students.
1. Get To Know Your Students
To ensure that cultural awareness is promoted in a classroom you as a teacher should first start by understanding every individual student. Take your time to learn about their learning styles, hobbies, cultural background, etc that make them unique. This will allow them to feel valued and comfortable and they will learn to respect their peers in class.
2. Maintain Consistent Communication
Apart from getting to know your students you should continue ongoing communication with them throughout the year. You can schedule one-on-one meetings with them to identify the issues thus allowing them to consistently improve in a classroom.
3. Respect And Acknowledge Every Student
Students should learn to respect and acknowledge their backgrounds as well as others. You as a teacher should encourage students to learn and research their own cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This will allow them to develop a better understanding of their own culture and solve their nuances and differences with their peers.
4. Practice Cultural Sensitivity
Instead of teaching students with a very traditional lecture style, you can create learning experiences that require collaboration and is more interactive. This will help ensure that every student feels included and is given the freedom and flexibility to learn in their own way and succeed.
5. Incorporate Diversity In Lesson Plan
The classroom environment is essential to foster cultural awareness among students and diversity should also be included in the lesson plan. Thus, try to connect and present lessons on real-world issues and use references and analogies from other cultures to make it relatable for the students.
Multicultural Awareness In UAE Classrooms
The Emirates is home to over 200 nationalities and the leaders are deeply committed to promoting cultural awareness and understanding. They hold a vision for universal peace and the educational institutions offer an enriched environment for cultural sensitization with powerful insights.
The schools in UAE are committed to supporting the visions of the leaders and host students from over 150 nationalities across the entire Middle EAST, Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. The organization epitomizes unity in diversity as they offer multiple curricular options like CBSE, IB, IGCSE, or American. The culturally sensitive pedagogy is embedded through differentiation strategies and caters to the need of diverse international community needs and the individual differences of the students.
Furthermore, the schools are aligned with the regulatory bodies across the education sector in the Middle East, MOE, KHDA, and ADEC. These bodies conduct school inspections with differentiation being a key focus area for all learning groups. Therefore, multicultural competency is an integral part of leadership training as it will lay the foundation that tolerates global harmony and promotes tolerance. Moreover, schools recognize multicultural awareness that boosts teacher competencies and upgrades learner standards.
Embrace Differences Rather Than Creating
School is a society where cultural competencies should be mandatory as it will reflect and create a culture of cherishing and diversity. Doing this will not only spread goodness but also expose students to various social and cultural groups while preparing them to be better citizens. But, if you are unaware of how to create an inclusive classroom, consider pursuing an online diploma course in special education to promote diversity in a classroom.
