Preparing Future Teachers for Diverse Classrooms Through Intercultural Inquiry

1. Preparing Future Teachersfor Diverse Classrooms Through Intercultural Inquiry William Dunn, University of Alberta with Anna Kirova, Miriam Cooley, and Greg Ogilvie Prairie Metropolis Centre Edmonton Research Symposium 23 January 2009 We gratefully acknowledge the Prairie Metropolis Centre for funding this project.

2. Project Overview

3. Origins of the Research • Initiated by community agencies • To understand how teacher preparation programs can better address the societal need for developing intercultural competence in teachers so they can respond effectively to the unique needs of the individuals that comprise the increasingly diverse student population

4. Research Objectives • To explore pedagogical approaches that teacher educators can use to assist pre-service teachers in working effectively with diverse student populations • To understand how these processes can be infused into existing subject-area curriculum courses

5. Why Infusion? • Stand-alone course on diversity is insufficient • As a means of creating closer ties between intercultural inquiry and everyday teaching practices within specific disciplines • Need for rapid response

6. Research Methods • Action research • Understand our own practices • Alter our practices through the research • Data sources: student questionnaire, student guided reflections, instructor notes, instructor team meetings, student interviews

7. Curriculum/Methods Courses • Early childhood education • Art education (elementary) • Second language education (secondary) • 73 students in total

8. Early Childhood Education:Making Initial Contacts • Observe a program for children 18 months to 4 years of age (contexts with linguistic diversity) • Select materials and develop a plan for three activities that complement and expand the learning opportunities for the children in that particular program • Implement an activity to engage the children in the program • Reflect on the experience

9. Early Childhood Education:Making Initial Contacts • “This experience was eye opening for me. It was my first experience in a classroom with ESL students.” • “As a beginning teacher, I did not realize the immense diversity that could exist within one classroom.”

10. Early Childhood Education:Making Initial Contacts • “My initial reaction to the classroom where we were to conduct our activity was worry and confusion. After noticing that there was going to be a major language barrier [only one child spoke English, and the others either spoke a different language or were too young to speak any language at all], I was confused and worried if my partner and I could develop an activity that the children could be successful in.”

11. Early Childhood Education:Making Initial Contacts • “This experience led me to examine my ideas and reconstruct my conception of the role of teachers. Previously I had been more focused on the academic aspect of teaching, but this experience made me more aware of the importance of considering the emotional, social and basic needs of all children in the classroom.”

12. Early Childhood Education:Making Initial Contacts • “This experience helped me get ready to work with diverse groups of children in that I now feel comfortable dealing with children with very limited [English] language. I know that I will have some children who need help with language in my classes and I am no longer afraid to teach them.”

13. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • Critical multiculturalism in second language pedagogy (Kubota, 2004) • Critical language awareness • Links between languages, communities, power, privilege, social inclusion/exclusion

14. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • Series of reflective entries in “Intercultural Teaching Journal” • Role of cross-cultural experiences in shaping desire to teach second language • Nature of language-based discrimination • Critical view of what is “foreign” • Etc.

15. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • “I had all of the discrete ideology in my head. . . How do I actually make it work in the classroom?”

16. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • “I think some students who don’t really care about it [issues pertaining to power and privilege], they get sick of hearing about it. Even the little bit that we’re exposed to.” • “…in my generation we’ve become more open minded.”

17. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • Referring to a teacher’s role in responding to diversity in the classroom: “I think just like to overlook it and not make attention to it, to overemphasize it. But just, you know, a hundred percent equal for all.”

18. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • “This girl broke down and cried in our class and shared with us what it was like as an Asian growing up in a predominantly Caucasian school system. And I really had no idea. So that was something that I became more aware of – the expectation that Asian students are, you know, more shy, more academically inclined. I don’t know, somehow less human almost. And so that was something that made me more aware of those students in my own classroom.”

19. Second Language Education:Grappling with Power and Privilege • “We had two ESL students in our French class, which was really, really frustrating. And my mentor teacher said don’t even bother trying to teach them anything ̕cause they shouldn’t even be in the class … So that was really, really difficult. And so I think that was really hard from that perspective because I couldn’t motivate them to get them to learn anything because I couldn’t connect with them in any way.”

20. Art Education:Expressing Empathy • Intercultural inquiry as the content of artistic works • Collages: Who am I? Where do I come from? • Painting: What does community mean? • Mask Making: Dual perspectives, ideals and reality.

21. Art Education:Expressing Empathy

22. Art Education:Expressing Empathy

23. Art Education:Expressing Empathy

24. Summary of Key Points • Limited prior experiences with diversity • Feeling unprepared (can lead to frustration and anxiety) • Uncertainty during teaching practicum • Value of first-hand experiences • Evidence of understanding, empathy, etc. • Evidence of resistance

25. Recommendations • Continue to explore innovative ways to incorporate intercultural inquiry into teacher preparation as a means of broadening future teachers’ experiences with diversity • Provide supports for individual teacher educators who wish to promote intercultural inquiry within the specific components of the teacher education program in which they are involved

26. Recommendations • Create field experiences that involve working with diverse populations • Recognize student teachers’ feelings of anxiety and uncertainty related to working in diverse classrooms • Understand that intercultural inquiry can be met with resistance, and seek ways to address the resistance while being responsive to student teachers’ perspectives

27. On-Going Efforts • Incorporating insights into future courses • Working with colleagues and other instructors • Revisions to program framework in the Faculty of Education • Other initiatives • Diversity Institute • Education Students’ Association workshops

28. For handout or additional information, contact: wdunn@ualberta.ca