Final Project Preparations

Thus far, you have chosen a topic for your Final Project and considered where and how the information could be disseminated, how to promote social change, and how various diversity characteristics play a role child and adolescent development. This week, you will begin to formulate and organize your project by submitting an outline.

Submit an outline or abstract of your Final Project. Be sure to demonstrate the following within the outline:

· Understanding of depth of topic

· Good organization to the paper 

· Overall concept of flow, rationale and implications 

· The social change aspect

· An integration of the resources

· A balanced perspective

First part of project;

Diversity is a common attribute of the modern classrooms as international students, and those from the minority backgrounds have at last joined the mainstream institutions to exercise their rights for education. Such trends require educators to develop adequate and evidence-based teaching models that would help them to meet the specific needs of their learners. This project examines the various techniques that instructors could use to help their students value cultural diversity through research‐based teaching. The policymakers in the education sectors require the instructors to assist their students in attaining high levels of intellectual independence regardless of their background (Deakins, 2009). However, several parts of evidence suggest that the instructors could be missing valuable opportunities to implement universal and culturally sensitive programs in their practice. This issue raises numerous concerns because it shows the prominent of ethnocentrism in the curriculum system, which could take many versions such as beliefs and assumptions that would be hard to validate. 

The traditional educational models no longer hold as effective for instruction in modern learning institutions because of the recognition of cultural differences that significantly determine the development and learning achievements of the children and adolescents. A research-based teaching approach is sufficient for facilitating the progressive development of the students and engagement with advanced cognitive skills (Flores, 2015). It is essential to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of this instruction approach to determine whether it can be applied as a universal model and to identify other support mechanisms that could improve its suitability in different contexts. Additional inquiry into the research-based teaching approach would help to identify the various practical and effective teaching approaches that educators could use to improve the learning experience and achievements of their students, which would help them to develop into competent professionals and beneficial society members.

References

Deakins, E. (2009). Helping students’ value cultural diversity through research‐based teaching.

Higher Education Research & Development, 28(2), 209-226.

Flores, I. M. (2015). Developing Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy through Field-Based Science Teaching Practice with Elementary Students. Research in Higher Education Journal, 27.

Second part of project;

The issues of diversity in the classrooms are prominent especially in the modern learning setting as the composition of students continues to change and diversify radically (Gruenewald, 2014; Meyer, 2010). This aspect has promoted the inclusion of various demographic groups such as the female students that were previously barred from accessing such services in the traditional societies and systems. Such trends show that gender influences have been crucial in the development of specific perspectives of the educators and the students as well as the effectiveness of the education systems (Francis, 2016). This aspect calls for the educators to develop adequate and research-based techniques that would help the learners to overcome the challenges and value cultural diversity (Deakins, 2009). 

The topic of sexual identity or orientation in the classrooms is crucial for analysis when evaluating the matters of cultural diversity because it would help in analyzing the different experiences of the females and other sexual identities in the male-dominated learning settings (Pincus & Pincus, 2011). It would also reveal the experiences of the male students as they engage and interact with the females in the learning processes. Sexual orientations in modern societies have diversified with the recognition of different groups such as lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender (Gorski, Davis, & Reiter, 2013). Therefore, many scholars perceive the need for educators to recognize the existence of such groups and to acknowledge their implications to the learning processes (Banks, 2012; Kosciw, Palmer, & Kull, 2015; Jones, Smith, Ward, Dixon, Hillier, & Mitchell, 2016). Research-based teaching emphasizes the use of culturally sensitive approaches for instruction to avoid offending some cohorts of the learners or providing unequal learning opportunities because of upholding the traditional instruction models (Flores, 2015). Adequate understanding of the sexual orientation and identity of the students would help the instructors to recognize the most popular and most effective instruction models that would help the learners to grasp the education content and apply it in their daily life scenarios.

References

Banks, J. A. (Ed.). (2012). Encyclopedia of diversity in education. Sage Publications.

Deakins, E. (2009). Helping student’s value cultural diversity through research‐based teaching. Higher Education Research & Development, 28(2), 209-226.

Flores, I. M. (2015). Developing Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy through Field-Based Science Teaching Practice with Elementary Students. Research in Higher Education Journal, 27.

Francis, D. A. (2016). Troubling the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in South African education. Springer.

Gorski, P. C., Davis, S. N., & Reiter, A. (2013). An examination of the (in) visibility of sexual orientation, heterosexism, homophobia, and other LGBTQ concerns in US multicultural teacher education coursework. Journal of LGBT Youth, 10(3), 224-248.

Gruenewald, D. A. (2014). Place-based education: Grounding culturally responsive teaching in geographical diversity. In Place-based education in the global age (pp. 161-178). Routledge.

Jones, T., Smith, E., Ward, R., Dixon, J., Hillier, L., & Mitchell, A. (2016). School experiences of transgender and gender diverse students in Australia. Sex Education, 16(2), 156-171.

Kosciw, J. G., Palmer, N. A., & Kull, R. M. (2015). Reflecting resiliency: Openness about sexual orientation and gender identity and its relationship to well-being and educational outcomes for LGBT students. American Journal of Community Psychology, 55(1-2), 167-178.

Meyer, E. J. (2010). Gender and sexual diversity in schools (Vol. 10). Springer Science & Business Media.

Pincus, F. L., & Pincus, F. L. (2011). Understanding diversity: an introduction to class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Colorado, CO: Lynne Rienner.