Month: October 2017

Team Diversity

Globalization is the phenomenon that appeared on nation, economy, education, culture, and society. It to enrich a civilization through a cross-cultural education environment. Especially the increasing number in the high educational institution. There are different voices towards the changes in class. Many people hold the negative attitudes towards new coming nations and culture. However, no doubtfully it will experience the culture shock, at the same time, the immigrate culture push the development of multi-cultural diversity. According to Katherine W.Philllups, the Key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity.

It is an extraordinary experience for both educator and student to learning with individuals primary on a different language, educational background, and culture. There are various understand the issue in class through the cultural environment. For example, in class discussion, there is variety explanation based on the discipline, experience, inter-culture awareness, and knowledge. The new voice, sometimes, is the engine to explore the unfamiliar research area. The inter-cultural innovation thinking method offers various ways to explain and solve problems and improve the cultural communication.

The inter-cultural communication also happened in the class. Especially in the group work. For example, the course project named Renaissance of Dessau Bauhaus I experience when I study in London. It is a unique and initial change for me to cooperate and to learn with professor and classmates in worldwide. There are four team members and two advisors, the students from China, India, Austria, and London; the two professors are from Bauhaus University and Kingston University. There are the different background of team members, which including art history, exhibition design, fine art, and contemporary design. Hence, in the project proposal, we claim the essential ideas and concept of how to renaissance the excellent reputation of Bauhaus in the contemporary design world with different aspects relevant personal experience. Our group is the only one to display the concepts of the project in unexpected ways. It is an example for professors and students in the class that the diverse cultural communication is a positive to the development of learning, education and knowledge structure.

Inclusion and Isolation

Inclusion and Isolation

I attended the University of Scranton for undergraduate, a university that is, according to Forbes, 79.4% white. And I felt it. While I only dealt with one incident with an aggressive form of racism, I spent my entire four years dealing with racist comments and microaggressions. These incidents made me feel so lonely because I couldn’t even talk to anyone. Especially with microaggressions, people think you’re just being oversensitive. I had an incident where a professor I didn’t know told me I spoke English well for someone who grew up in a house of immigrants. This hurt. A lot. It wasn’t the first time I had heard this but it was the first time a university professor had said something of this nature to me. But when I tried sharing my story with other people, they thought it was funny and laughed. But I didn’t think it was funny. It made me insecure. It made me feel lonely. Was my English that different from an “American” or native speaker (I am essentially a native speaker) that people always had to comment on it? I’ve always had a fear of public speaking because of these comments. I’m afraid, will people think my English is bad? What if I mis-pronounce a word, will people judge me more harshly?

I am an IMSD (Initiative for Maximizing Student Development) fellow, which is a training grant from the NIH meant to “increase the number of students from underrepresented groups in biomedical research who complete Ph.D. degrees in these fields.” I’m grateful for this opportunity because it gave me a community, a community of other underrepresented individuals who could understand the difficulties we can face as minorities. Something I didn’t have at Scranton. However, not all programs are like this. Committees will have an iniative to increase diversity, hire a minority, and leave them to fend for themselves. They’re given no support and face the spurn of their colleagues that believe they only got the position due to their minority status. They internalize the idea that they’re only successful due to being a minority as well. There’s no help to integrate people together. And any failures they face? It becomes representative of whatever group they are a part of.

I want to be involved in making academia more inclusive and increasing diversity. But how do we do it? As mentioned in Phillips’ piece, there’s been multiple studies that show diversity has helped businesses be more successful. But we can’t simply increase diversity, we need to work on keeping them in the system and improving retention rates. We need to work on building a community that promotes the idea that they belong because they were good enough, not just because of the company wanted some more color in their staff.

I don’t know, I’m rambly and bitter. I want change but don’t know how to go about it and it is frustrating.

Activism + Verbalism = Praxis

I forget where in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed activism and verbalism come into play, but it’s an idea that has remained with me since reading it in History of Higher Education last year. According to Freire, praxis is putting into action certain behaviors after critically reflecting on the world as we know it. Freire eventually dives deeper into this idea, specifically referring to activism and verbalism. These two isms immediately stood out to me last year because I felt that a lot of educators could fall under these two categories, but rarely did it seem that they were practicing both (myself included). For authentic praxis to occur, there must be both verbalism and activism. This means that one is acting after thorough reflection and after discussion. Often times, people get wrapped up into one – just thinking about/talking about solving an issue, or taking action without much thought. How can we do both as educators, and help students do the same? (All while avoiding oppressive acts of dehumanizing learners, which we may do subconsciously.)

Maybe the answer is realizing that we have a “hidden brain”. As Shankar Vedantam explains in “How ‘The Hidden Brain Does The Thinking For Us’, we develop biases at a young age, and we don’t necessarily do so with animosity or hatred. Instead, these biases develop from what we observe around us, whether we are aware of them or not. Therefore, we need to take the time today to reflect on the biases we have and how we got them. This will take a lot of honesty, but hopefully it helps in knowing that we all have them deep down.

My Story

After the video we watched in class last week, I felt that I should share my story with you guys. From my experience as an international student from Saudi Arabia, I always think that I’m not only getting a degree here in the US, I’m also representing Saudi as a country and culture. Since I got here in 2011, I was fascinated by how whenever I say I’m from Saudi people always ask me to talk about Saudi and they admire that I left my country, family, and language to pursue my dreams. The funny thing they all have to ask is “Do women drive in Saudi”, and of course the answer is no women don’t drive in Saudi not yet (of course at that time, because 3 weeks ago women have be given the permission to drive). Their immediate question will be “Why”, So I have to explain by first making sure that it’s not about religion all women from other Muslim countries drive. It’s the culture, Saudi people really care about their mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. They believe that they have to make sure that they are well taken care of. And of course, I have to tell them that if we don’t drive that does not mean we just stay home and don’t go out. We still have fun and go out we have shopping malls, cafes, and restaurants.

So that now women are allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, there is a lot to think about.

First, Before driving in Saudi Arabia I need to know all the rules and laws I have to follow, to make sure I’m not violating any of them. So, what kind of rules are putting in place for this now movement? As a Saudi woman who drives and learned how to drives here in the US, I did so by learning the rules here and what to do and not do according to the US laws.

Second, how we as citizens will adapt to this transition, and what is the public opinions are. What I hear from my close friends and family is that for now, they are waiting to see how this transition affect the way people look at it and how the government is handling that. Other people are actually taking action and start driving an hour after the announcement. And of course, there are some who are totally against the idea who thinks that it will affect the norms and values of our culture.

For me, even though I’m driving here I’m not going to drive in Saudi Arabia until I see that everything is in place. I’m really excited for this movement and looking forward to seeing how my country and people will go about this transition.

Why Fit in If We Were Born to Stand Out?*

Diversity is everywhere, no matter where you go. That’s the amazing thing of this world! Don’t you think? I had not had the opportunity to be around a lot of people from different countries, cultures, ethnicities, languages, abilities, backgrounds, beliefs, religious, etc., “on a daily basis” until I came to Virginia Tech. This was a completely new experience for me!

As Katherine Phillips discusses in her article, it is really powerful when people with such diversity work together. It is not only the background what makes a big difference, there are the experiences and philosophies what bring to the table different perspectives and information.

I love being different and I do not want to appear something that I am not just to fit in a place or a culture. However, sometimes I feel that everyone is looking at me just because I do not look like a typical American student. Sometimes, even I do not feel comfortable speaking because I know that my English is not good enough. This, sometimes, may affect students’ performance. There are several questions that come to my mind. Do the professors really care about diversity in the classroom?

I am taking a course this semester in which the professor, at the beginning of the class, posts trivial questions to engage students. We use i-clicker to answer those questions. From my point of view, this does not engage students at all or at least it does not work for me. I do not know any of those answers because all of these are related to movies/series of the United States. There are more than 150 students in that class and I would dare to say that there is a lot of diversity in that classroom. Could not he be more inclusive?

So, my questions for you are:

Are you promoting an inclusive environment in the classroom? If not, how can you do it? And, are you taking advantage of all the benefits that diversity groups may have on students’ creativity, work, and interpersonal interaction?

It is time for an inclusive teaching and learning!

*Quote taken from Dr. Seuss

Encouraging Discussion. Emphasizing Gracefulness.

Dr. Labuski writes, “My classrooms are spaces where students are encouraged to hold and express opinions that may not be popular and/or
conventional. I generate intellectual safety by framing discussions around phrases like ‘What do people say about ….’ rather than ‘What do you think about …’ “ (Diggs Scholar Award).

I’m passionate about this. Whether we’re talking about race, gender identity, politics, religion, or anything else, I never want a student to feel that he/she cannot bring up a discussion point or offer a perspective for fear of being ridiculed, isolated, or shunned. I thought about this plenty, especially during the election season. I saw a lot of open hostility between both sides of the political parties, even on this campus. I heard a lot of what I call “absolute rhetoric”–my way is the only way, and everyone who thinks differently is wrong and evil. I saw people who could have been great friends hating each other because of their opposing political beliefs. I still do. It’s terribly heartbreaking.

College can be a time of growth for undergraduates. I truly believe that it is a time to re-examine beliefs and to be open to hearing other viewpoints on many subjects–but really, any time is good for doing that, right?  But for undergraduates, I would never want them to think that I “hate” them because they might believe something not as popular or something that they think I don’t personally believe myself. I’ve always appreciated professors who didn’t openly criticize religions or political beliefs in class because it truly made me feel like they understood the definition of tolerance and did not want anyone to feel isolated, stupid, or irrelevant. This has become important to me as an educator. And I truly appreciate the inclusive strategy that  Dr. Labuski utilizes in in order to make students feel safe in suggesting a particular perspective that may or may not be their own.

This can also be tricky to navigate because I would never want the words of one student to wound the heart of another. I make clear in my syllabus that everyone must be respectful to each other. Delivery, I think, is key when expressing opinions. The English department requires some kind of argument paper as the final paper of the semester. My students will be picking a topic (I’m not sure how narrowly I’m limiting the topics yet) and writing a paper expressing their argument. I will be going over gracefulness in class because it’s something that I maintain is a necessary virtue when explaining one’s opinion. It’s important to remember that when we come across people who believe starkly different things, this is a time for open discussion. Listening and explaining. Sometimes, we forget to listen. We start forming responses before the other person in the conversation is even finished speaking. Often, we aim to win, not to learn. I’m guilty of this myself sometimes, but I truly want to work on being intentional about understanding why and how a person believes the things he/she does. I think the way we can even hope to encourage people to consider changing a perspective begins with making them believe that we genuinely care about understanding what they have to say. Then we follow this by explaining our viewpoints with grace.

Week 8: Inclusive Pedagogy

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Diversity photo

Next week we will examine contemporary diversity issues and think about how to use inclusive pedagogy in our classrooms. Just as our learning environments are complex, so are the individuals that comprise them. Everyone has visible as well as “invisible” cultural identities, and inclusive pedagogy attends to those differences. Inclusive pedagogy seeks to engage learners in ways that are inclusive and supports environments that are attentive to diversity. It also helps prepare students to contribute productively to an increasingly complex and globalized society by helping them develop a broader understanding of domestic and global diversity issues.

So, this is a big project. And an important one. Some of us have already thought about and worked extensively in this area, some of us are just dipping our toes in, and many of us are somewhere in between. This is ok. In fact, it’s even a plus.

To prepare for seminar next week, please read the required texts.(id’d with an asterisk*) Start with the two short selections (on the Hidden Brain and diversity in the workplace). You’ll note that some of the materials for this module have been updated or inspired by the recent upturn in incidents of racism and intolerance locally and nationally. Please have a look at President Sands’ recent statement about the tensions between Freedom of Expression and VT’s Principles of Community, and make sure to listen to the podcast on “Dismantling Racism in Education.” And make sure you read Dr. Labuski’s project description for “Universal Precautions. Dr. Labuski will be joining us for class next week so you will want to be prepared to discuss her work.

The selections by Claude Steele and the article on Brave Spaces / Safe Spaces are longer, but you should read them as well and  come to class ready to talk about them. As usual, you may blog about whatever resonates most with you.

If you want more of a deep dive or are already familiar with these texts, please explore the supplemental materials on Canvas and on the supplemental page on the schedule. If there are items you think we should know about, please tweet them out to #gedivt

Image licensed under Creative Commons 2.0

The kind of teacher I do not want to be

Earlier today as I was going through the readings for this week, I kept asking myself, “What kind of teacher do I want to be?” I had a quick flashback of all my student life until now and reminded me of some of the great teachers I have had so far. “What did they do that made them so great?” Although there were some common attributes these teachers shared with each other, each of these “great” teachers had their unique styles that motivated you to be actively involved in the learning process. So…..what style of teaching is the best style? Which one of these teachers do I want to be in future? A very difficult question to answer because, as Dr. Fowler writes,” There is not one way to teach or communicate in the classroom, so one size does not fit all.” 

I only have a vague picture of what I want to do as a future teacher but a very clear idea of what I do not want to do as a future teacher or in other words, the kind of teacher I do not want to be.

I do not want to be a teacher who,

  • Walks in the classroom and starts writing on the board right-after without even turning around once to look at the students until the end of class hour.
  • Sits on a chair throughout the class time and reads you line by line from text books.
  • Assigns you a lot of homework assignments but never gives you any feedback.
  • Only talks about what is going to be on the tests and puts a limit on learning.
  • Uses the same “teaching formula” for all their students not realizing that each student has different capacities.
  • Speaks in a low monotonic voice.
  • Directly or indirectly force you to memorize equations and charts.
  • Only uses the chalkboard to teach.
  • Never ask for any feedback from the students or doesn’t listen to the student voices.
  • Does not know how to deliver information concisely and effectively.
  • Evaluates you based on the mere grades you receive in the course.
  • Does not create a welcoming environment for discussion and sharing of ideas in and outside of classrooms.
  • Uses the same syllabus, course materials, homework, and tests for decades.
  • Discourages the use of technology in classrooms.
  • Does not give second chances to students.
  • Only talks to the first row of students in class.
  • Does not know the subject matter well and is unprepared.
  • ………………………………
  • ………………
  • ……….
  • …
  • .

(I think I should stop now because the list just keeps getting longer and longer.)

Moral of the story: The best one could do is to at least try to avoid the things that you thought your teachers did that didn’t work for you and think of what you would do if you were in their place. I think the key is “engagement” and the goal is to create the kind of environment that helps foster an effective teaching-learning process.

 

 

Dream Learning

I dream about learning constantly. I dream at night about my own learning: finding my way, getting out of situations or trouble, helping others, finding something that is lost. I dream during the day of how to create a learning environment that is free from constraints of time and grades, but not standards or measures of competency – I think of them more like literacy standards (Seymour and others): the basic building blocks of understanding that will help to scaffold additional learning and create opportunity for greater awareness.

I am a teacher, and Educator. If I were asked if I always wanted to be a teacher I would say ‘yes’ even though I did not turn to it as a profession until I was in my mid-thirties. I have always been an educator. I read to my friends and showed them the things I knew about words, playing Chutes and Ladders, what flowers grew under the trees, how fast I could ride my bicycle to the end of the road and back.  When I was in college, I became a peer tutor and quickly realized that in facilitating others’ understanding of accounting methods I learned the content more explicitly than had I studied on my own. When I was a young adult, I worked with middle school students to show them the power behind organizational theory, basic economic principles and business planning. When I became a mother, I reveled in demonstrating what I knew, exposing my children to the wonders of the natural world, and how to pay attention to their surroundings.

In my mind I can see the learning Dewey (and Montessori, and Reggio) envisioned for children: through experiences and under the guidance of adults who can encourage, challenge and re-direct (if necessary) toward successful practice and understanding.

 

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