TBers, 


TBers, 

The posting below gives a somewhat different take on preparing
non-traditional students for academic success.  It is by Julian Hermida,
LL.B., LL.M., DCL, Ph.D., assistant professor and chair, Teaching and
Learning Committee and Department of Law and Politics, Algoma University,
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada http://www.julianhermida.com  She can be
reached at: <[log in to unmask]>



        Inclusive Teaching Strategies to Promote Non-Traditional Student
Success


Introduction

It is a recurring complaint among university teachers that most of today's
students come underprepared to university (Gabriel, 2008; Côté & Allahar,
2007). The majority of these students are non-traditional, particularly
mature, aboriginal, international, recent immigrant, first-generation, and
visible minorities. North American universities and individual faculty
members have been taking measures to help non-traditional students improve
their skills and performance. Most of these initiatives are remedial in
nature, i.e., they aim at equipping non-traditional students with the
academic skills and knowledge of mainstream students and teachers (Tinto,
2008). Not surprisingly, these actions have proved inadequate to empower
most minority students to succeed, as these measures neglect to acknowledge
and incorporate the diverse values, beliefs, and skills that non-traditional
students bring to the classroom.

Diverse worldviews

Non-traditional students are not underprepared.  Their preparation responds
to a different way of seeing themselves and understanding the world that
derives from their own cultures and traditions. This different way of seeing
the world has repercussions in most academic areas. They influence the way
students think, express themselves, interact in the classroom, and think in
the disciplines. For example, many non-traditional students tend to see
things in a subjective, inward-looking fashion (Haigh, 2009). Other students
from non-Western societies are holistic in their thoughts. They tend to
emphasize and value how things are interconnected. They tend to give
contextual and emotional information. Some even show a tendency to digress
when writing (Fox, 1994).

Inclusive teaching

So, instead of pushing non-traditional students to adopt North American
mainstream academic skills, disciplinary perspectives, and thought
processes, we should open our classroom doors to teaching disciplinary
content and academic skills from a wide array of diverse traditions so that
every single -mainstream and minority- student will feel included. This will
prepare both mainstream and minority students to succeed as interculturally
knowledgeable citizens in a globalized world (Schuerholz-Lehr, 2007).

Strategies for inclusive teaching

* Place student learning of diverse knowledge modes, and ways of generating,
organizing, and expressing thought at the forefront of the curriculum.
Include this within the course intended learning outcomes. And make explicit
to your students that they will learn to approach the discipline and to
generate, organize, and express thought from multiple traditions.

* Align your course so that the assessment and teaching and learning
activities match your intended learning outcomes (Biggs, 2007).

* Change the preconception that non-Western ideas are exotic. Introduce
non-Western knowledge modes, academic skills, and disciplinary content as
something normal.

* Help your students see the intrinsic value of acquiring diverse,
non-traditional ways of seeing the world. Include a wide array of
non-Western and non-traditional worldviews and values, even if you do not
have students from a certain culture. For example, even if you do not have
aboriginal students, teach your students how to transmit knowledge through
stories as is done in aboriginal communities (Charter, 1996).

* Show your students how useful it is to be prepared to live and work in
different cultures.

* Teach multiple ways of writing instead of restricting writing to North
American academic styles. For example, teach your students how to organize
thoughts and express ideas as is done in Chinese culture. Ask a Chinese
graduate student who acquired his or her undergraduate education in China to
show you how Chinese scholars write academic papers, or invite that student
to your class to talk to your students. Then, ask your students to write a
short paper in English following an academic Chinese structure and
organization.

* Vary pedagogical methods, i.e., teach as is taught in other cultures and
traditions. For example, resort to story-telling, organize circles, potlucks
in -or ideally outside- the classroom to acknowledge aboriginal traditions.
Or base part of your pedagogy on notions of Dharma, which emphasize personal
introspection, self-awareness, self-realization, and self-improvement
(Haigh, 2009).

* Include texts in foreign languages that some of your students speak as
alternative or supplementary to texts in English. Even if you do not read in
a foreign language, as disciplinary expert, you are probably familiar with
the text and the author, or you probably read an English translation. Most
foreign language journals bring an abstract in English. So, it is not very
difficult to know the content of an article in your discipline even if you
do not speak that language. Invite the students that read those articles to
comment them in class. Unilingual speakers will see the value of reading the
discipline in other languages.

* Invite guests from non mainstream traditions, such as an aboriginal elder,
a visible minority professional, or a foreign religious leader. They can
discuss topics related to your course, and your students can gain insight
into their worldviews.

* Organize student presentations where students discuss a problem from their
own tradition. A variation of this activity is to ask students to present a
topic from a tradition that is different from their own.

* Discuss disciplinary content that interests diverse groups of students.
For example, recent immigrant students want to see issues related to
immigration, assimilation, and heritage discussed in class. If you teach US
literature you can include Chicano authors' short stories dealing with
problems faced by Latino immigrant families, such as stories by Francisco
Jimenez. If you teach Contracts, you can include the notion and formation of
contracts found in legal traditions outside North America.

* Mature students have very rich life experiences. Make room for them to
share their experiences with the rest of the class.

* Assess whether students can generate, organize, and express thought in a
multitude of diverse ways. Assessment is the component in the aligned
teaching system that most greatly influences the approach students take to
learning (Gibbs, 1999). So, if your assessment actually evaluates whether
and how well students have mastered a wide array of knowledge modes, diverse
academic skills, and non-traditional disciplinary perspectives, students
will be likely to achieve your intended learning outcomes (Biggs, 2003).

* Design assessment tasks that are representative of different cultures and
traditions. Do not restrict your assessment tasks to exams, multiple choice
tests, research papers, and group presentations. Adopt assessment tools used
in other cultures, such as informal dialogues, holistic evaluation of
student performance throughout the course, or self-evaluation. Another
alternative is to ask your students to gather evidence that is customary in
their traditions to show how well they have achieved the intended learning
outcomes.

Conclusions

When students and teachers came to university from the same privileged
social backgrounds, they shared similar values and principles. So, there was
no difference of perspective between teachers and students. The lack of
success of individual students was interpreted as individual failures,
generally explained in terms of lack of application and effort on the part
of those students. Since today, non-traditional students make up a large
percentage of North American classrooms, what was once an explanation in
terms of individual students, today is a generalization about
underpreparedness.

Inclusive teaching acknowledges and incorporates diverse knowledge modes,
thought processes, and expressive styles into the classroom. It prepares
both mainstream and minority students to succeed as interculturally
knowledgeable citizens in today's globalized world.

References

* Biggs, J. (2003). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham:
Open University Press, Second edition.
* Charter, A. (1996). Integrating Traditional Aboriginal Teaching and
Learning Approaches in Post-Secondary Settings, ERIC document ED403091.
* Gabriel, K. (2008). Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting
Success and Retention in Higher Education. Stylus Publishing.
* Côté & Allahar, (2007). Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
* Gibbs, G. (1999),  "Using Assessment Strategically to Change the Way
Students Learn", chapter 4 in S. Brown and A. Glasner (eds) (1999),
Assessment Matters in Higher Education, Society for Research into Higher
Education and Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.
* Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the world: Cultural issues in academic
writing, Urbana, IL: NCTE.
* Haigh, M. (2009). Fostering Cross-Cultural Empathy with Non-Western
Curricular Structures, Journal of Studies in International Education, Vol.
13 No.2. p. 271.
* Schuerholz-Lehr, S. (2007). Teaching for Global Literacy in Higher
Education: How Prepared Are the Educators? Journal of Studies in
International Education, Vol. 11 No. 2, 2007, p.180.
* Tinto, V. (2008). Moving Beyond Access: College Success for Low-Income,
First Generation Students. The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity
in Higher Education, Washington DC.