I'm finding that even with the bulk of the language issue removed, a multicultural classroom offers some unique opportunities for the teacher. I came across a notion of Broad context and Narrow context learning that questions some basic assumptions that I've always made. Some other reading I've done presents the possibility that our cherished Socratic method my not be as useful in teaching a culture that may see that as "confronting" (respect for authority). Other cultures may value consensus as a more worthy goal than "winning". A woman's traditional place in another culture certainly affects her behavior in a class. Some schools are experimenting with learning communities, where subjects are clustered to one degree or another-for higher context learners this has been very successful. I think the culture/language/learning style discussion is worth a lot of attention-and it's probably fairly timely too! The following is from the University of Wisconsin at Madison web site, (http://www.news.wisc.edu/view.html?get=5188). "Despite 30 years of diversity programs and affirmative action, a disturbing gap persists between the academic achievements of minority and majority students on all educational levels. Robert A. Ibarra, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs, says differences in thinking strategies that members of various ethnic groups typically employ may be fueling achievement-score disparities. "The problem is with the educational system, not the people in it," he says. "There's a pronounced discrepancy between the way our educational system assumes people think, and the ways in which many African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and Latinos actually do think. Educational institutions are not set up to handle the differences." Ibarra makes this case in his forthcoming book, "Beyond Affirmative Action: Reframing the Context of Higher Education" (University of Wisconsin Press, February 2001). Drawing upon 15 years of research into the culture of higher education, he has formulated a completely new take on diversity issues. Ibarra promises his conclusions have the potential to revolutionize not only higher education but K-12 instruction and the corporate world. "Most looked to the German research model of higher education, which relies upon linear, analytical, step-by-step thinking; intellectual specialization in undergraduate majors; and knowledge easily measured through standardized exams and exercises," among other characteristics, he says. Anthropologists call this style of information processing "low-context" culture. In contrast, many minority members, women and some majority males prefer a "high-context" approach to studying, teaching and working. For example, high-context learning is people- rather than idea-oriented. It relies heavily on interaction between students, their families and teachers. Consequently, high-context learners may be unprepared for the social isolation that often accompanies structured learning, with its emphasis on individual rather than group comprehension, Ibarra says. "High-context students usually can come to terms with the low-context system, but their academic achievements often fall below their potential. Learning to function within a low-context system is like learning to write with your right hand if you're left-handed: It's never entirely comfortable or natural. Minorities often have to be academically ambidextrous in order to function successfully in an educational setting," he says. Ibarra uses the term "multicontextual" to describe the way minorities negotiate the mainstream classroom or workplace. "It's not 'multiculturalism,' which exposes people to bits and pieces of each others' cultures," he says. "We need to go beyond those tentative explorations. A truly multicontextual system would accommodate both high- and low-context styles into the fabric of our academic culture." And that will present quite a challenge, Ibarra concedes. In addition to preferring interactive learning situations, high-context people may be more comfortable working concepts out in their minds rather than on paper or at a computer screen. High-context thinkers also value accuracy and thorough understanding, even at the expense of the deadlines that low-context systems prize. The prevailing low-context pedagogical norm is a fine model of education in many respects, Ibarra notes. "We certainly shouldn't abandon it altogether. However, we do need to expand it to include the intellectual style of high-context students and faculty," he says. Toward that end, he suggests educators consider: Using real-life problems to give high-context students, faculty and staff the hands-on experience that often helps them learn and teach more effectively. Ibarra says service learning, in which students offer their time and talents in the community, is a particularly useful way to flesh out the abstract theory presented in lectures. Offering opportunities for the general-to-specific deductive reasoning that high-context people often favor, rather than relying exclusively on inductive reasoning, which moves from the specific to the general. Making greater use of nonverbal communication - facial expression, gestures, eye contact - to impart information. Providing opportunities for interactive study and collaborative research for those who want them. At UW-Madison, for example, Wisconsin Emerging Scholars each year helps about 150 students, especially minority, women or people from rural areas, navigate the demanding mathematical terrain of calculus. Participants work in small groups to solve problems. University data consistently show higher grade points on average for WES students than for those who learn calculus the traditional way. Similarly, UW-Madison's 2-year-old PEOPLE program, which offers pre-college enrichment for middle- and high-school students in Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Beloit and Madison, goes to great lengths to involve entire communities in acquainting families with the benefits of a college degree from UW-Madison. Faculty and staff on campus can take advantage of the Creating a Collaborative Academic Environment office to explore cross-disciplinary learning, teaching and research possibilities. John Wiley, UW-Madison provost, agrees with Ibarra that education needs to go beyond affirmative action. "When affirmative action was first implemented in the early 1960s, its goal was to remove barriers that had limited or barred access to higher education. The continuing focus on these goals, however, has hidden the fact that the culture of higher education can present its own barriers to participation. This book is a breakthrough because it shows for the first time why and how cultural context helps or impedes a person's success within the system." In the end, educational success is determined by both the individual's ability to function in a culture and that culture's willingness to provide opportunities for all, Ibarra says. "My first career was as a drummer, and at that time, drum kits usually were set up for right-handed people," Ibarra says. "It wasn't until the last decade or so drums have been set up for ambidextrous playing, and now drummers using that setup can coax more complex and interesting rhythms out of the instrument. "I think education needs to do develop its own ambidextrous system so we can look more fully at life in all its dimensions," he says. Ibarra has just finished outlining his findings at one of the prestigious Gordon Research Conferences on new frontiers in science and technology policy. Later this fall he will discuss his ideas for diversity before conferences in the Washington, D.C., area, and in Albuquerque, N.M., and San Francisco. "This country faces a profound demographic change, with the potential for many more high-context people in the educational system," he says. "So far we have not yet been able to come to grips with that. We need to understand what the real barriers to education are and come up with creative new ways to address them." -----Original Message----- From: Koeddermann, Achim ([log in to unmask]) Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 12:34 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Tips for Discussions w/ Multicultural Classroom Dear Jim, have you been able to get some of our education faculty to join - since they do this for a living? Achim -----Original Message----- From: Greenberg, James ([log in to unmask]) Sent: Tue 4/29/2003 8:13 AM To: [log in to unmask] Cc: Subject: Tips for Discussions w/ Multicultural Classroom A reminder that our next Teaching Breakfast is this Thursday, May 1st at 8 am. The topic is Faculty Peer Review. Please join us if you can. See you in Morris Hall. As our classrooms grow more diverse, I have found some of the tips in this recent posting useful so I pass them along to you. The posting below looks at ways of encouraging and supporting class discussions with linguistically and culturally diverse students. It is from the section, Resource A, Facilitating Equitable Class Discussions Within the Multicultural Classroom, in Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching by Raymond J. Wlodkowski and Margery B. Ginsberg. A joint publication in The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series, The Jossey-Bass Education Series, and The Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Sciences. Published by Jossey-Bass. A Wiley Imprint. 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741. <www.josseybass.com>. Copyright 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and Raymond J. Wlodkowski and Margery B. Ginsberg. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. FACILITATING EQUITABLE CLASS DISCUSSIONS WITHIN THE MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM Topically focused class discussions potentially offer English learners rich exposure to new vocabulary and usage in their second language, along with opportunities to interact in a variety of academic situations - reporting information, summarizing, synthesizing, and debating. Frequently, however, linguistically and culturally diverse students remain passive participants in whole-class discussions for varied reasons, including insecurity about their listening comprehension, pronunciation, word choice, and culturally appropriate interactional strategies. Instructors may employ the following strategies to lead carefully orchestrated class discussions that provide language-promoting assistance and facilitate more active participation for English learners: 1. Create a supportive classroom environment for less confident English users by encouraging all students to talk in turn, to listen actively while others talk, and to offer assistance rather than impatience and intolerance for classmates who need help in understanding or responding. 2. Show your students that you expect them all to participate in oral activities by consistently inviting every member of the class to participate. 3. Allow students to first share and rehearse their responses to a key question or comments on a topic with a partner to increase learning and ESL student confidence and motivation to contribute to a unified class discussion. 4. Be sensitive to the linguistic and conceptual demands of discussion questions and activities. Don't inhibit participation by pushing students to communicate too far beyond their current level of English proficiency. 5. The easiest content for less proficient English users to handle is often related to their everyday lives and activities. Make a concerted effort to build in opportunities for language minority students to share information about their cultures, communities, families, and special interests. 6. Pair less proficient English users with a sensitive classmate who can ideally clarify concepts, vocabulary, and instructions in the primary language and also coach the classmate in responding. 7. Attempt to activate students' relevant background knowledge on topics, and provide through "schema"-building activities (e.g., brainstorming, mapping, advance organizers) requisite linguistic, conceptual, and cultural information that would otherwise prevent them from active learning and participation. 8. Move purposefully around the room to enable as many students as possible to enjoy having close proximity to the teacher, which should also encourage students to remain more alert and willing to ask and answer questions. 9. Do not constantly pose questions to the group at large, allowing a minority of more confident or impulsive students to dominate the discussion. 10. Ask a question before naming the respondent to encourage active learning by allowing all students to "attend" and decide how they would answer. 11. Draw in less confident students by asking them to respond to an open-ended question after they have heard a variety of responses from their classmates. 12. Call on English learners to answer not only safe yes/no questions but also more challenging, open-ended questions that provide opportunities for thoughtful and extended usage of their second language. 13. Increase wait time (3-9 seconds) after asking a question to allow adequate time for the student to successfully process the question and formulate a thoughtful response. 14. When calling on a specific ESL student, it often helps to first pose the question and make eye contact with the student while stating his/her name; then pause a few seconds and restate the question verbatim. 15. Discourage classmates from blurting out responses and intimidating less confident English users from taking risks with their second language. 16. Do not interrupt a students' thought processes after asking an initial question by immediately posing one or more follow-up questions; these tandem questions confuse rather than assist English learners who may not realize that the teacher is actually rephrasing the same question. 17. Encourage students to talk through nonverbal means, such as waiting patiently, smiling, and nodding in approval. 18. Make any corrections indirectly by mirroring in correct form what the student has said. For example, suppose a student says, "Majority immigrants San Francisco from Pacific Rim." You can repeat, "That is correct. A majority of the immigrants in San Francisco come from the Pacific Rim." 19. Use these conversational features regularly and in so doing model for your students how to use them in class discussions, lectures, and small-group work: confirmation checks Is this what you are saying? So you believe that . . . clarification requests Will you explain your point so that I can be sure I understand? Could you give me an example of that? comprehension checks Is my use of language understandable to you? interrupting Excuse me, but . . . Sorry for interrupting, but . . . Source: Kinsella, 1993, p. 16. Used by permission. Mr. James B. Greenberg Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center Milne Library SUNY College at Oneonta Oneonta, New York 13820 email: [log in to unmask] phone: 607-436-2701 "Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"