My Recognition Route.
Globalization has had its impacts in all sectors from economics, to politics, culture, and education. Diversity in the education system has intensified given that learning institutions all over the world have opened their doors to foreign learns. Educators, therefore, have the task of ensuring that every learner is well integrated into the system no matter their cultural, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. The future of the world is in the hands of educators in that they have to produce people who are well nurtured not only in their curriculum skills but also in their abilities to relate with the diverse world.
As an educator, equality, diversity, and inclusion are part of my guiding principles which help me in producing successful learners, confident individuals, and responsible citizens. One of the things I do in my planning and delivering of comprehensive learning programs is guidance and support where I identify the learning needs of my students and providing extra support to the alarming areas I recognize. Secondly, I take into account the social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds of my students to help me understand their needs better. Thirdly, I ensure that there is a safe learning environment by taking into consideration the expectations of each learner, what motivates them, and their various intellectual abilities and skills. Fourthly, I integrate the learners through a collaborative learning process where I place the students into groups with each group consisting learners from different backgrounds. The collaborative learning is my creative way of ensuring that the learners get to share their learning experiences and understand their roles and their responsibilities which cultivates a team spirit that not only helps them with group work but in life. Within the groups, the learners get to compare their diverse ideas, interpret each other’s way of reasoning, express their ideas, listen to the opinions of others, and develop their methods of understanding diversity. The fifth activity I perform is assessing the learners to ensure that they are on the path to achieving their expectation, to ensure that they are well motivated, and to ensure that they are well integrated. Sixth, I do carry out a self-Assessment to ensure that my values match what I instill in my learners. I check for signs of boredom, defensiveness, poor understanding, and indecisiveness.
In an attempt to promote positive behavior, when disciplining cases of discrimination occur, I focus on challenging the idea of racial, ethnic, intellectual, social, and religious discrimination rather than challenging the individuals. In the case where my opinion varies with that of a learner based on our different backgrounds, I respect their views rather than disagreeing with them to avoid the unnecessary feeling of being different. When appropriate measures are implemented, teachers will enjoy more when working with a diverse group of learners (Banks, 2015).
Technological advancement is bringing in a new dimension in the education system with the development of tools and applications such as EdTech (Mata, 2015). There has been an ongoing debate on the benefits of technology to the future of the education system. Given the fact that technology is investable, I use it as a collaborative tool by assigning online group projects where the students do the work from their places of convenience but through the internet, the group is connected, and they get to do the work together. I allow online interaction with the students where they can reach out to me when they have issues with their studies at home, and I ensure prompt response and guidance which has improved my students’ performance. The online community is large enough and much diversified, but through the education platforms, learners from different background get to interact and learn from each other.
In solving the math and English needs of my students, I encouraged the idea of storytelling both verbally and written to understand their areas of need in their English to be it in grammar, punctuation, pronunciation or spelling. For the case of math, I make math trails where I take my learners outside the classroom for short tours and invoke them to understand that math is everywhere. I ask them to calculate or estimate the volume and areas of land feature and spaces that we come across including malls. According to King (2018), math trails triggers enthusiasm and involvement for mathematics in the case where learners are not so open to the idea of math. Through storytelling and math tails I get to understand individual needs and tailor my support for each learner.
Through continuous assessment and Assessment of the learners, I get to determine whether my Math and English support strategies are valid or not. I interact with my colleagues from other institution and share my experiences as I learn from theirs which help me gauge my skills. I also attend seminars where educators get trained on how to enhance our teaching skills. Through assessments, workshops, and interactions I get to expand my knowledge, skills, and abilities which further boosts my confidence when it comes to providing the needed support and motivation to my learners.
References.
Banks, J.A., 2015. Cultural diversity and education. Routledge.
King, A., 2018. Finding the Beauty of Math Outside Of Class. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/finding-beauty-math-outside-class
Mata, W., 2015. The Importance of Technology in the Classroom. Centre Technologies. Retrieved from https://centretechnologies.com/importance-of-technology-in-the- classroom/
