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The selected activities that I have included aim to constitute towards to the awareness of both diversity and inequity within the educational environment. The excercises are a combination of individual and group discussion tasks that are designed for the members to critically reflect upon the notion of diversity in association to their identity and personal experiences in education. Thus through my own participation with the activities, I myself have become more aware of the importance of encouraging and facilitating this concept of 'difference' and 'diversity' within the classroom enviroment as a pre-service teacher.

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This exercise includes the investigation of privilege and difference within the learning environment in the form of a group activity involving approaching the issue of inequity in the form of a puzzle. Participants are tasked with formulating their different ideas and approaches into resolving the issue of difference represented by the pictorial metaphor of animals tasked with climbing the tree. This challenge acts as a symbol for common hurdles in the educational environment such as assessments, testing and opportunities. Following the collaboration of ideas, the members of the group are to identify and associate this visualisation with social issues or influencers in the learning of environment including standardised testing, ethnicity, race, class and public-private schooling

The goals for this activity are for participants to remove the issue of inequity in the classroom and the identification of how the task acts as a learning tool for educators in allowing for equal opportunities and attention to students while recognising the effects that privilege play a role in determining ones success both in their learning and later in life.

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This group activity involves the investigation of how privilege and difference play a role within the learning environment. Students are tasked with approaching and addressing inequity in form of a puzzle. Participants are tasked with formulating their different ideas and approaches into resolving the issue of difference represented by the pictorial metaphor of animals tasked with climbing the tree. This challenge acts as a symbol for common hurdles in the educational environment such as assessments, testing and opportunities. Following the collaboration of ideas, the members of the group are to identify and associate this visualisation with social issues or influencers in the learning of environment including intelligence testing such as standardised assessments, ethnicity, race, ability, class and public/private schooling.

The goals for this activity are for participants to remove the issue of inequity in the classroom and the identification of how the task acts as a learning tool for educators in allowing for equal opportunities and attention to students while recognising the effects that privilege play a role in determining ones success both in their learning and later in life.

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This individual and group activity focuses on what we define and visualise as normal. As an introduction the participants are to construct a simple and short definition to what they consider as ‘normal’. Following this description, students are to draw various objects associating to their home or personal life of what they consider as the regular such as a family, house, bed, dinner, baby etc. As part of the group exercise they are to share their interpretations of the objects within small groups with listing the reasons of how and why they perceive these drawings the way they do. Following this discussion, the participants are tasked with analysing their drawings in association with topics of social difference including race, ability, socio-economic status, language and gender. Lastly as a conclusion the students are to reflect and redefine their definition of ‘normal’ that was noted at the beginning of the activity.

The outcomes for this activity are for the participants to become more aware of the extant that both personal experiences and identities influence thier perspectives of the world and more importantly ones learning within the classroom with the recognition that individuals respond to things differently depending upon their social background.

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Labelising & Stereotypes (Stereotpying & difference)

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Labelising & Stereotypes (Stereotpying & difference)

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This group exercise focuses on the influence of stereotypes within the classroom, each of the groups within the class are given a different label based upon common student stereotypes including English as a second language, lives in a low socio-economic area, mental disability, a disengaged male and a ‘normal’ student. Participants are asked to visualise their interpretation of the stereotype including the identification of their characteristics, behaviour, attitudes and given opportunities in life. Following this task; students are asked to share their perceptions of the label with the rest of the group including why and how they think this way and the various social forces such as privilege and power that contribute towards this view. As a result, the acting participants within the group are able to understand how different experiences and backgrounds are able to formulate ideas upon others based upon one’s external appearance. As a conclusion to the task; the members of the group are asked to put themselves in the position of the teacher and to innovate methods in both navigating and disrupting the discourses of these stereotypes.

The outcomes for this exercise include the recognition of both difference and stereotypes within the classroom and the extent to which they play a role in influencing our perception of others. More importantly as pre-service teachers, it is inevitable that such labels will come into play into the classroom environment in influencing both the students and teacher, therefore in order to become ethical influencers upon young learners in creation of a safe space for both learning and personal development we must learn how to navigate the dangers of stereotypes and labelling.

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This group task involves for students to share their personal educational experiences regarding the teachers that they have had; including the experiences methods of teaching that were both successful and unsuccessful and for what reasons. This activity allows for students to view the classroom from the perspectives of the students that the pre-service teachers will soon be educating. Following the reflection and discussion of said experiences, students are aware of how these experiences are able to construct their own pedagogies of teaching as soon to be educators; including either adopting or avoiding the philosophies and methods held by their former teachers.

1.    What teachers stand out to you? Is this because they were good teachers? Or bad teachers?
2.    Why do they stand out?
3.    What makes them memorable?
a.     Was it their pedagogy?
b.      Or something else?
4.    How will or how will you not emulate them?

The major outcome for this task is learning about difference in the learning environment; with the communication of the different experiences held by the members within the group, additionally pre-service teachers are more aware of the notion that students respond and engage to different forms of teaching being the diverse individuals that they are. Therefore in order to construct a successful and ethical pedagogy we  must be diverse in our teaching practices.

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This self-reflective activity aims for the participant to conduct an identification and anaylsis upon their their identity including who they are as an individual. Through this exercise students are asked to perceive who they are as an indivudal and the person they wish to become in the recognition of their intrests, goals, experiences and personal life (family situation). Following the competition of the activity the student is asked to share their interpretation of their identity in a small group including how and why they see themselves this way and the experiences that have contributed to this.

The two major outcomes for this activity include the reocgnisation of the participant as a individual with unqiue traits and attibutes which is crucial in adolscents as they begin to transisiton into adulthood. Addtionally the students are exposed to social difference through the sharing of their identity and experiences in the groups as they begin to understand difference with the communication of different forms of the goals, experiences and personal lives of other students; giving them a visualtion into the diverse social world of society.

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Prior to the study of diversity and equity within schooling I possessed little knowledge on the importance or methods in promoting equity as a pre-service teacher. This is in partly due to my own schooling experience; being educated at a conservative catholic school on the Mornington Peninsula which can be understood as predominantly 'white' which ties with the high socio-economic living of the area. This traditional type of learning environment was heavily focused upon social assimilation with the student population where personal and academic success was measured form of a percentage of an assessment. Thus I wasn't exposed to such issues of social injustice that are commonly associated to sociological difference such as class, race, ethnicity or ability. During the study of education at university and more so undertaking the unit of teaching for diversity; I have become more conscious of the different forms of inequity present within schools, this is especially noticeable during my placement opportunities in sub-urban areas where there are obvious signs of difference including privilege, race or class where some of the minority students have difficulty in engaging with particular topics. From my perspective the notion of difference is often silently ignored or even worse, is treated as deviancy to what we consider 'normal' thus such individuals are alienated by both their peers and teachers. In order to construct a successful pedagogy

Therefore a successful pedagogy is often one that is diverse in its methods and philosphoies as the classroom is both a unique a diverse learning space that is crowded with many different students who approach and respond to the subject content differently depending on their identity and experiences in life. Therefore as educators we need to understand that the approach or methods of deliverance of teaching is as if not more important than the content being taught for the ultimate purpose of engaging the student and fostering their development as individuals.