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Goals for Future Growth - Apply UdL in my Instruction

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Goals for Future Growth - Apply UdL in my Instruction

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As Chardin & Novak (2021) argue, "as educators, we are expected to implement a personalized, educational framework built on the belief that 'all means all.'" We need to provide multiple means of engagement, representation, action, and expression to the class to scaffold different types of learners and make learning accessible, engaging, and meaningful for all students. Previously, I had no experience working with students with special needs. I need more time observing, listening, and interacting with all kinds of students to recognize them as full human beings and modify my teaching methods to build an inclusive space. It is imperative for me to learn from special education specialists and build positive relationships with my students to understand specific ways to support them.

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Goals for Future Growth - Student-centered Teaching

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Goals for Future Growth - Student-centered Teaching

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Because of my own learning experience, I am more familiar with teacher-centered approaches. While teaching, I unconsciously "dominate" the classroom by talking more and over-relying on my demonstration. My CTs have told me that "a great teacher can talk less but still teach a lot of knowledge." They suggest me to think critically and maximize students' participation by inviting them to share their ideas. "When you hear students' talking," my CTs explain, "you can assess their comprehension, and you will find some common misconceptions you might want to address. Also, kids always surprise you because they are brilliant." In the future, I need to pay more attention to how students are engaged in the class and whether there are places for potential development that I overlook. When there is a hand raise, I need to let them be heard.

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Broderick, A. & Leonardo, Z. (2016). What a good boy: The deployment and distribution of “goodness” as ideological property in schools. In S. A. Annamma, S. A., D. J. Connor, and B. A. Ferri (Eds.,) Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education (pp. 55-67). Teachers College Press.

Chardin, M. & Novak, K. (2021). Equity by design: Delivering on the power and promise of UDL. Corwin Press.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gltMOgOl5qNhE-JcnISHDBvbrr7_lYaS?usp=sharing

Ward Hunt Goodenough. (1981). Culture, language, and society (Vol. 10). Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company.

https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.tc.idm.oclc.org/lib/teacherscollege-ebooks/reader.action?docID=4513496&ppg=64

Leonardo, Z. & Broderick, A. (2011). Smartness as property: A critical exploration of intersections between whiteness and disability studies. Teachers College Record, 113(10), 2206-2232. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nO-zvU545A06pwA7GI4kLuTPYP9CKBcR/view?usp=sharing

Love. B. (2019)  We want to do more than survive. Boston: Beacon Press. (Chs. 4, 5 & 6) https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.tc.idm.oclc.org/lib/teacherscollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6062854

Nieto, S. (2017). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives. 3rd Edition. Routledge.

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Presenting Myself as the "Cultural Mediator"

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Presenting Myself as the "Cultural Mediator"

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When I was doing my student teaching in a monolingual classroom, where most of the students were white students, I always brought my own culture into the classroom. I shared my anecdotes with them and told them about my traditions. For instance, recently, we celebrated the Lunar Year, and I used the festival as an opportunity to enhance classroom diversity. I brought some pictures to the classroom and told them how we celebrated the festival in detail from an etic view. From there, I also showed them relevant videos about how Koreans, Vietnamese, and other Asians celebrate the festival in different ways. As a teacher, I used my storytelling to construct a positive relationship with all my students, converting the classroom into a safe space for sharing.

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Helping Immigrant Chinese Students Sustain their Culture

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Helping Immigrant Chinese Students Sustain their Culture

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When I was doing my student teaching in a bilingual classroom, I always showed my students the beauty of bilingualism and used Chinese cultural context in different disciplines to make them culturally relevant.

Also, since I was an English Language Learner, I used my own learning experience to tell my immigrant students that learning a new language took time and it was fine to make mistakes. I used our shared language and culture to provide them with academic and social-emotional support.

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With the determination to change the education status quo in China, I came to the United States to learn about educational theories and teaching methods. The racially and culturally diverse American society made me more aware of my Chinese heritage, and I started to see how I could use it to enhance my instructional moves.

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My Cultural Artifact - The "Hero" Fountain Pen and Ink

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My Cultural Artifact - The "Hero" Fountain Pen and Ink

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Whenever I think about my Chinese cultural heritage, I always think about what I can make and what my culture's " products " are. When I think about outputs, I immediately think about Chinese characters. One significant difference between Chinese and English is that Chinese characters are pictorial – designed based on the images of the actual objects. I feel this feature constructs the linguistic uniqueness of Chinese.

The artifact I am showing, the “hero” fountain pen, is what I used to use for writing my homework for over nine years. I used ink and pen to write thousands of characters, stroke by stroke. Also, the fountain pen allows me to express myself in my native language, so I view it as a tool that brings agency and empowerment.

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Due to the large student population, we mostly use standardized testing for measuring learning outcomes. We have to "test into" middle schools, high schools, and universities. In such a circumstance, a "smart" student is good at memorizing terms and doing tests. Academic performance is the most important indicator of our learning.

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Confucianism is the oldest system of philosophical and ethical teachings in China. When talking about education, Confucius argued that a teacher-centered way of teaching. The teachers were responsible for passing on the Tao, teaching expert knowledge, and answering students' questions. They were addressed as authoritative figures that teach students content subject matter through top-down instruction. This teaching philosophy has been passed down nowadays. For me, a "good" student is someone hardworking and humble. A "good" student should ask a few questions but always be receptive to all kinds of teaching.

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I was born and raised in China, and I started learning English in the third grade. Learning a new language was mind-blowing for me -- for the first time, I realized that people who spoke other languages were living in this world. Since the ethnic minority populations were so small in China and I lived in a major city, I had a vague understanding of race and ethnicity.

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All these critical theories will be my teaching "North Stars." They lead me to be a life-long learner and keep improving my instructions.

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Solutions: A Critical View of Race, Culture, and Education

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Solutions: A Critical View of Race, Culture, and Education

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To break down the "white hegemony," Love (2016) believes that educators need to apply a critical lens to address Whiteness and re-examine themselves, the schools, and the education system. Similarly, Chardin & Novak (2020), when writing about Universal Design Learning (UDL) model, emphasize the importance of utilizing students' "funds of knowledge" to construct an inclusive space for multilingual/multicultural development and applying differentiations to help all students succeed. I use this cultural memoir as an opportunity for me to re-examine my identity and explore how my past experiences could influence my future teaching.

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Darkness, black, invisible things, negativity.

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Brightness, light, visible things, positivity.

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However, as Love (2019) argues, the powerful "Whiteness" has led to the reproduction of structural inequality, which resulted in self-perpetuating Racism in American society. Similarly, Broderick & Leonardo (2016) discussed how Racism and ableism had been integrated into education for a long time, and people have normalized "goodness" and "smartness" as ideological systems. While most white students are assumed as "naturally good" so they can easily achieve intellectual supremacy or the "smartness," students from other racial or cultural backgrounds are stratified and oppressed. Teachers do not validate their "Yin" hidden culture and blame them for their race.

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"Yin" and "Yang" Symbol - A Metaphor for Culture

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"Yin" and "Yang" Symbol - A Metaphor for Culture

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Unlike the United States, the Chinese Communist Party listed Mandarin (普通话) as the only official language in the constitution. Although many provinces and cities have local accents (such as Shanghainese and Cantonese), these dialects were not part of the curriculum.

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Culture can be divided into tangible and covert components, but the two parts should always be interdependent. The "Yang" culture, or tangible culture, represents all the visible cultural elements we can observe. This kind of culture tends to be superficial, and this is what Nieto (2017) would define as the "food, festival, hero" culture. People build their "Yang" cultural perceptions based on their observations, stereotypes, and social media information. Conversely, the "Yin" culture represents hidden elements, such as the acquiescent public values, social routines (Goodenough, 1981), and points of view acquired through communicative activities. This part of culture explains how we were unconsciously shaped by the hidden sociopolitical factors of our societies.