Inquiry Question
The inquiry question that I am interested in exploring throughout my practicum is, “As a home economics educator, how can I create a learning environment that is responsive to culturally diverse students?” I have done lots of volunteering within the Surrey school district, in both elementary and secondary schools. I have concluded that the schools are extremely culturally diverse. Many school bodies consist of international students, refugee students, ELL students and Aboriginal students, thus I am curious about how I will meet the needs of all diverse learners, how will I acknowledge different cultures and what specific strategies I can implement in the home economics classroom.
Significance & Relevance
As teachers encounter an increasingly heterogeneous group of students, they will need to obtain new attitudes, knowledge and skills to be effective in multicultural classrooms (Banks, 1997). With many educators being apprehensive and uncertain about working with students from culturally different backgrounds (Adams, Sewell, & Hall, 2004), they must learn culturally appropriate pedagogy that is sensitive and responsive to the differing backgrounds of students (Hefflin, 2002). Due to cultural and social circumstances, diverse learners bring differing experiences and knowledge to the educational setting, and therefore have unique needs and varied preferences for learning. Conventional teaching approaches, such as textbook and lecture-dominated instruction, have not been found to be effective or congruent with the learning styles of students from culturally diverse backgrounds (Carbo, 1995). To successfully address the needs of these learners, teachers must alter teaching practices, vary instructional materials, and tailor assessment instruments to the specific needs of their students from varied cultural groups (Carbo, 1995).
This inquiry question holds great relevance because at my practicum school during the 2-15/16 school year, the student population will be approximately 1950 students. With a large school, there is a diverse student population. Specifically, the catchment includes distinct neighborhoods that include a complete range of the social economic diversity spectrum. Approximately 25% of the student body are French immersion students, 5% of the student body are international students, there are approximately 150 English Language Learner students and approximately 70 First Nations students.
This inquiry question is important to me because each student has their own story, comes from a different background, and may speak a different language. I believe if I can create a learning environment where each individual feels safe, included, respected and acknowledged, I can enable students to excel, to be themselves, to find their passions and build a sense of community. Each student learns differently, therefore, I am determined to implement a vast amount of teaching strategies to meet everyone’s individual needs. By recognizing different cultures in the classroom and enlightening students about global issues happening around the world, students have the opportunity to be more open minded, empathetic and educated citizens within their school and community.
Inquiry Design & Expectations
In my teaching approach, I want to show my students that I am compassionate and that I genuinely care for them, and I want to get to know who they are as a person. I believe forming strong bonds with my students is extremely valuable and ultimately I would like for them to feel open and comfortable communicating with me, whether it is subject related or not. Thus, during my practicum I will be spending quite a bit of time at the beginning implementing ice breaker activities and team-building exercises so that everyone can start to get to know each other. For my two senior foods classes, not everyone is in the same grade, so these team building exercises will encourage students to socialize and meet new people.
Specifically, during my practicum I will be teaching one Foods 10 class and two Foods 11/12 classes. Therefore, as an educator I want to provide opportunities for students to explore universal and cultural values and practices of families, to introduce different cultural dishes within my units, discuss different cultural practices within families and the global issues around food that are taking place around the world. My first unit that I will be teaching my Foods 11/12 class is appetizers. One way to implement my inquiry question is to plan an “All Around the World” appetizer buffet. Specifically, at the beginning of the week I will choose two appetizers to demonstrate perhaps wontons (Chinese cuisine) and Spanakopita (Greek cuisine) and get the students to cook the recipe the following day. Then the next week, I will get the students to research and explore different cultural recipes and choose one to make for the entire class. Once the appetizers (from all six units) have been prepared, the class can taste all the different international ethnic dishes together and socialize while eating.
In my Foods 10 class, the theme of this course is “A Trip Around Canada.” Therefore, I can highlight what foods are locally grown in each province and the history of agriculture. By recognizing the history of the land I can incorporate First Peoples Principles of Learning. With teaching this theme I am able to highlight cultural diversity at a provincial level as well as locally in British Columbia.
With there being many international, refugee and ELL students in the classroom I want to acknowledge the different languages they speak. For example, I could create an assignment for students to draw and colour different kinds of foods and label the items both in English and another language they speak. For students who are English language learners, I want to implement a variety of different teaching methods. Through my pedagogy, I am determined to highlight all of my students learning strengths and incorporate visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic ways of learning. Also in my teaching approach, I want to include media and technology as a way to educate my students. Specifically, I want to engage students by having them participate in online Kahoot games and watch Tasty or Food Network videos on Youtube to further expand their knowledge.
During my practicum and implementing my inquiry question, possible expectations that I have is that in order to have culturally appropriate pedagogy that is sensitive and responsive to the differing backgrounds of students, I will need to use many different teaching strategies. However, I am unaware as to which strategies are the most ideal in certain situations, with particular students or specific tasks.
Limitations & Future Questions
A limitation with exploring my inquiry question is time. I believe my inquiry question needs to be observed over a long period of time. A longer observation will lead to stronger results. Other challenges I will need to consider are my ethical responsibilities as a teacher researcher including protecting students’ confidentiality, not using data collected in the classroom or examples of students work and making broad statements without supporting research. As for future research, I would like to expand my inquiry by implementing a culturally diverse teaching approach in a textiles or family studies class.
Resources
I will be referring to scholarly articles to strengthen my research, specifically from the Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education and others. Also, I would like to collaborate with my School Advisor and other home economic department members. In addition, I will be using my School Advisor’s resource binder as a reference when creating my lesson plans around my inquiry question. I will also be referring to the First Peoples Principles of Learning throughout my teaching approach.
The inquiry question that I am interested in exploring throughout my practicum is, “As a home economics educator, how can I create a learning environment that is responsive to culturally diverse students?” I have done lots of volunteering within the Surrey school district, in both elementary and secondary schools. I have concluded that the schools are extremely culturally diverse. Many school bodies consist of international students, refugee students, ELL students and Aboriginal students, thus I am curious about how I will meet the needs of all diverse learners, how will I acknowledge different cultures and what specific strategies I can implement in the home economics classroom.
Significance & Relevance
As teachers encounter an increasingly heterogeneous group of students, they will need to obtain new attitudes, knowledge and skills to be effective in multicultural classrooms (Banks, 1997). With many educators being apprehensive and uncertain about working with students from culturally different backgrounds (Adams, Sewell, & Hall, 2004), they must learn culturally appropriate pedagogy that is sensitive and responsive to the differing backgrounds of students (Hefflin, 2002). Due to cultural and social circumstances, diverse learners bring differing experiences and knowledge to the educational setting, and therefore have unique needs and varied preferences for learning. Conventional teaching approaches, such as textbook and lecture-dominated instruction, have not been found to be effective or congruent with the learning styles of students from culturally diverse backgrounds (Carbo, 1995). To successfully address the needs of these learners, teachers must alter teaching practices, vary instructional materials, and tailor assessment instruments to the specific needs of their students from varied cultural groups (Carbo, 1995).
This inquiry question holds great relevance because at my practicum school during the 2-15/16 school year, the student population will be approximately 1950 students. With a large school, there is a diverse student population. Specifically, the catchment includes distinct neighborhoods that include a complete range of the social economic diversity spectrum. Approximately 25% of the student body are French immersion students, 5% of the student body are international students, there are approximately 150 English Language Learner students and approximately 70 First Nations students.
This inquiry question is important to me because each student has their own story, comes from a different background, and may speak a different language. I believe if I can create a learning environment where each individual feels safe, included, respected and acknowledged, I can enable students to excel, to be themselves, to find their passions and build a sense of community. Each student learns differently, therefore, I am determined to implement a vast amount of teaching strategies to meet everyone’s individual needs. By recognizing different cultures in the classroom and enlightening students about global issues happening around the world, students have the opportunity to be more open minded, empathetic and educated citizens within their school and community.
Inquiry Design & Expectations
In my teaching approach, I want to show my students that I am compassionate and that I genuinely care for them, and I want to get to know who they are as a person. I believe forming strong bonds with my students is extremely valuable and ultimately I would like for them to feel open and comfortable communicating with me, whether it is subject related or not. Thus, during my practicum I will be spending quite a bit of time at the beginning implementing ice breaker activities and team-building exercises so that everyone can start to get to know each other. For my two senior foods classes, not everyone is in the same grade, so these team building exercises will encourage students to socialize and meet new people.
Specifically, during my practicum I will be teaching one Foods 10 class and two Foods 11/12 classes. Therefore, as an educator I want to provide opportunities for students to explore universal and cultural values and practices of families, to introduce different cultural dishes within my units, discuss different cultural practices within families and the global issues around food that are taking place around the world. My first unit that I will be teaching my Foods 11/12 class is appetizers. One way to implement my inquiry question is to plan an “All Around the World” appetizer buffet. Specifically, at the beginning of the week I will choose two appetizers to demonstrate perhaps wontons (Chinese cuisine) and Spanakopita (Greek cuisine) and get the students to cook the recipe the following day. Then the next week, I will get the students to research and explore different cultural recipes and choose one to make for the entire class. Once the appetizers (from all six units) have been prepared, the class can taste all the different international ethnic dishes together and socialize while eating.
In my Foods 10 class, the theme of this course is “A Trip Around Canada.” Therefore, I can highlight what foods are locally grown in each province and the history of agriculture. By recognizing the history of the land I can incorporate First Peoples Principles of Learning. With teaching this theme I am able to highlight cultural diversity at a provincial level as well as locally in British Columbia.
With there being many international, refugee and ELL students in the classroom I want to acknowledge the different languages they speak. For example, I could create an assignment for students to draw and colour different kinds of foods and label the items both in English and another language they speak. For students who are English language learners, I want to implement a variety of different teaching methods. Through my pedagogy, I am determined to highlight all of my students learning strengths and incorporate visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic ways of learning. Also in my teaching approach, I want to include media and technology as a way to educate my students. Specifically, I want to engage students by having them participate in online Kahoot games and watch Tasty or Food Network videos on Youtube to further expand their knowledge.
During my practicum and implementing my inquiry question, possible expectations that I have is that in order to have culturally appropriate pedagogy that is sensitive and responsive to the differing backgrounds of students, I will need to use many different teaching strategies. However, I am unaware as to which strategies are the most ideal in certain situations, with particular students or specific tasks.
Limitations & Future Questions
A limitation with exploring my inquiry question is time. I believe my inquiry question needs to be observed over a long period of time. A longer observation will lead to stronger results. Other challenges I will need to consider are my ethical responsibilities as a teacher researcher including protecting students’ confidentiality, not using data collected in the classroom or examples of students work and making broad statements without supporting research. As for future research, I would like to expand my inquiry by implementing a culturally diverse teaching approach in a textiles or family studies class.
Resources
I will be referring to scholarly articles to strengthen my research, specifically from the Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education and others. Also, I would like to collaborate with my School Advisor and other home economic department members. In addition, I will be using my School Advisor’s resource binder as a reference when creating my lesson plans around my inquiry question. I will also be referring to the First Peoples Principles of Learning throughout my teaching approach.