Module 6: Closing Module

This classroom environment is one that values inquiry-based and collaborative learning. The expectation is that students are able to participate in group activities and discussion while being able to ask meaningful questions to facilitate and represent the learning progress. Students mostly naturally adhere to this learning structure and are eager to participate in activities. There are a few students new to the community coming from a various different countries around the world. The school systems they come from typically have a more traditionally structured learning system that values memorization of information and systems of thought. Some also integrate religion in their school system as well.
This narrative involves the cultural variable of learning style in different students. Students coming from more traditionally structured schooling systems may be interpreted by the teaching as being unwilling to participate or struggling to keep up with the learning with the rest of the class. For students to be able to engage in inquiry and ask meaningful questions, they need support in seeing the value in this type of critical thinking, rather than absorbing information to be assessed on afterwards. This will ultimately become an issue with biased assessment where the teacher is unable to give these students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning. To avoid this cultural bias in the classroom, it’s important that students are given the opportunity to demonstrate own learning in their own way as they learn to value a different approach to learning. It’s important that teachers reflect and recognize their own cultural bias regularly to ensure that different perspectives are being considered, especially if a student is hesitant to participate or isn’t demonstrating progress in their learning. Student needs have to be met by having them able to demonstrate their learning in a way that they’re familiar with while they work towards adopting a new approach to learning that will ultimately empower them to steer the direction of their learning in a way that is meaningful to them. An approach to take to address this would involve working individually with these students to allow them to demonstrate their learning one-on-one with the teacher to support their confidence in the classroom. Doing this consistently while also encouraging them in engaging in class-wide inquiry would support them in adapting to the new approach to learning while also giving them the opportunity to showcase their learning in a way that they’re familiar with. This brings up the question of how educators can look past their own cultural bias regarding student learning conditioning while also introducing them to an alternative approach to learning?