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By taking on the role of facilitators teachers build connections between school and home. Facilitators avoid one's culture forms and preferences. This video provides a definition of facilitator and presents the concept.

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As educators it is key that we explore diversity in our classroom. This will help us to better understand and educate the students in our classrooms. This link provides strategies for educators exploring diversity.

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Diversity can be defined as the sum of the ways that people are both alike and different. The dimensions of diversity include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, religion, mental and physical ability, class, and immigration status. The field of education includes diverse professional job categories ranging from classroom teachers to education support professionals to higher education faculty to retired professionals. While diversity itself is not a value-laden term, the way that people react to diversity is driven by values, attitudes, beliefs, and so on. Full acceptance of diversity is a major principle of social justice.

The concept of diversity presents both extraordinary promise and daunting challenges for education employees. On the one hand, educators and students have more opportunities than ever to learn about different experiences, languages, and cultures, whether through classroom curriculum, the Internet, or a conversation with a peer or a neighbor. This learning enriches us and prepares us for life in our 21st century, global society.

On the other hand, the education community faces growing challenges related to diversity, such as the academic achievement gaps between students of diverse backgrounds; racial segregation and resegregation in our schools; gender inequalities and sex discrimination; bullying and harassment of students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender; educating students with disabilities; staggering disparities in educational resources based on class or income; access to education for immigrants; respecting students of all religious backgrounds; and so forth. Institutional hurdles such as high-stakes testing and the lack of resources for "nonessential" subjects make addressing the issue of diversity even more challenging

Main Issues

The NEA position on diversity was spelled out by the NEA Representative Assembly:

The National Education Association believes that a diverse society enriches all individuals. Similarities and differences among race, ethnicity, color, national origin, language, geographic location, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, age, physical ability, size, occupation, and marital, parental or economic status form the fabric of a society.

The Association also believes that education should foster the values of appreciation and acceptance of the various qualities that pertain to people as individuals and as members of diverse populations.

The Association further believes in the importance of observances, programs, and curricula that accurately portray and recognize the roles, contributions, cultures, and history of these diverse groups and individuals.

The Association encourages affiliates and members to become part of programs and observances that may include cultural and heritage celebrations and/or history months. (1995, 2002)

-Resolution B-9. Diversity. NEA Handbook (2008)

Strategies

Here are some basic strategies for your exploration of diversity:

Seize opportunities to learn about people of different backgrounds, cultures and experiences-whether through a book, a film, or a conversation

Examine your own attitudes and beliefs about people who are different from you

Foster discussion in your workplace about diversity

Assess the diversity in your school and how students of different backgrounds are faring

Pursue ways to create diversity awareness or to celebrate diversity in your school community.

We hope that you will gain useful information, inspiration, and energy from this resource. Please don't hesitate to give us feedback on any part of the Diversity Toolkit.

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Diversity can be defined as the sum of the ways that people are both alike and different. The dimensions of diversity include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, religion, mental and physical ability, class, and immigration status. The field of education includes diverse professional job categories ranging from classroom teachers to education support professionals to higher education faculty to retired professionals.

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Learning must be a social collaborative progress where knowledge is gained through the engagement of families, communities and students lives outside of the classroom. This link provides ideas for instruction that is student centered.

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by TeachThought Staff
For in-person professional development from TeachThought on effective instructional strategies or any other topic your school or district might need, contact us today.
Student-centered teaching is teaching designed for the student.

This means that planning often begins with the student in mind as opposed to a school policy or curriculum artifact, for example. Done well, it can disarm some of the more intimidating parts of academia, while also shortening the distance between the student and understanding.

Put another way, student-centered teaching is teaching that is 'aware' of students and their needs above and beyond anything else. It places students at the center of the learning process.

This isn't as simple as it sounds, especially without shifting one's mindset towards that approach. We recently shared 32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies. The following infographic via Mia MacMeekin provides additional tools (in the form of strategies) that can help create a learning environment that can, depending on the context, more approachable, friendly, or familiar to students in your classroom.
See Also 28 Critical Thinking Question Stems & Response Cards
Let us know in the comments which are your favorites, or any good ones you think it might have missed.
28 Student-Centered Instructional Methods

28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies

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Executed well, student-centered instructional methods can disarm some of the more intimidating parts of academia.

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A culturally responsive educator must set high expectations for each student. Teachers must celebrate small victories, make failure unacceptable and model excellence. This link provides challenges and education for educators on the concept of creating high expectations for students.

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Research shows that positive expectations will influence performance positively. Start modeling excellence, celebrating small victories, and refusing to accept failure -- and watch what happens.

In 1968, two researchers conducted a fascinating study that proved the extent to which teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. In educational circles, this has been termed the Pygmalion Effect, or more colloquially, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why can't teachers treat all of their students like this?

How do we communicate to students whether we believe in them or not?

What has always intrigued me about this study is specifically what the teachers did to communicate that they believed a certain set of students had "unusual potential for academic growth." The research isn't overly explicit about this, but it indicates that the teachers "may have paid closer attention to the students, and treated them differently in times of difficulty." This raises the following questions:

Excellence, Celebration, and Success

Based on my experience coaching AVID schools around the country, there are ways that I've seen teachers communicate to all of their students that they have high expectations. Here are a few practical tips that you can borrow from them:

Be Excellent in All Ways

Everything speaks. We can't expect students to be excellent if we don't model that for them in every element of our classroom. I may not be able to infuse excellence into every classroom and hallway of my school or in every interaction that students have outside of school, so I must leverage and maximize every element that I do control. Too often, I walk into a classroom and know immediately if it's an honors class, just by how attractive the walls are or how organized the books on the shelves are. Every student deserves a clean, organized classroom. Every student deserves a structured and engaging learning environment. Every student deserves lessons that are well thought-out and delivered every day. Excellence is a habit that is cultivated. When we model this every day, we communicate to students that excellence is the expectation.

Celebrate Small Victories

Say, "I'm proud of you" -- and say it often. The day that I opened my college acceptance letter was the only time that I ever remember my dad saying, "I'm proud of you." It was so impactful and memorable for me that I tried to say that phrase to students every chance I got. Passed a test? "I'm proud of you." Got to class on time? "I'm proud of you." It's a low-cost investment with the potential for life-altering rewards. I love hearing teachers say, "Great job" or "You did it!" It's positive reinforcement at its finest.

Make Failure Unacceptable

The single most impactful way that we can communicate our beliefs to students may be how we react when they fail an assignment, test, or grading period. Rather than ignoring the situation or moving students to a different class, we must communicate this:

My job as your teacher was for you to learn this material, so let's figure out how to make that happen. If you're not learning the way that I teach, maybe I need to teach the way that you learn. Is this a cognition issue? Then let's get you to tutoring. Is it a learning strategies issue? Then let's talk about other ways to study, learn, and organize your thinking. Is this a motivation issue? Then let's talk about the short- and long-term repercussions of failing.

Failure cannot be the path of least resistance in our classes. Rather, we must do everything that we can to make failure unacceptable and difficult. When we accept students' failure, we give them permission to accept it as well. However, when we show that nothing they can do will ever make us give up on them, we give them permission to start believing in themselves.

Raise the Bar Right Now

In AVID schools, we espouse a philosophy that encompasses the items above, called "Rigor with Support." It's the idea that we believe every student can and should be prepared for college and career readiness, and that we will keep the expectations high, but also offer the support to help students get there.

Look around your classroom or at your lesson plan for tomorrow. What is one component that you can make more excellent?

Find one thing to celebrate tomorrow, and look one student directly in the eye and tell him or her, "I'm proud of you."

Think of one student who has failed an assignment or grading period recently, make time to meet with him or her individually, and figure out a plan to not let it happen again.

So here are my challenges to you:

I'd be very interested to hear how your results looked and felt. Please share them in the comments below.

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The Pygmalion Effect: Communicating High Expectations | Edutopia

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Research shows that positive expectations will influence performance positively. Start modeling excellence, celebrating small victories, and refusing to accept failure -- and watch what happens. In 1968, two researchers conducted a fascinating study that proved the extent to which teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively.

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Positive perspectives and relationships with families 

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Positive perspectives and relationships with families 

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The student's parents are their first and most influential teachers. In a culturally responsive classroom educators and families need to become partners in the students education. This link discusses the importance of parent relationships in the classroom.