William Cope
Samuel E. Moskowitz
Navin PoudelNegotiating Learner Differences MOOC’s Updates
Learner Differences in Theory and Practice - Bill Cope
Here is the range of differences teachers may encounter in schools, and learners may encounter in each other:
- material conditions (social class, locale and family);
- corporeal attributes (age, race, sex and sexuality, and physical and mental abilities);
- symbolic differences (language, ethnos, communities of commitment and gendre).
We elaborate on these in the following places:
- Kalantzis, Mary and Bill Cope. 2012. New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 5.
- —. 2016. "Learner Differences in Theory and Practice." Open Review of Educational Research 3:85–132.
- New Learning Online Supporting Materials. Chapter 5.
Comment: How are these differences important to your work as a teacher, or your life as a learner?
Make an Update: Take one of these differences, define, describe the implications for learning, and give an example of how a pedagoical environment (a traditional institution, a learning technology, a new media resource) succeeds or fails to address this difference.
Differences in learning styles, cultural backgrounds, and language proficiency play a crucial role in my work as a teacher. Each student brings unique strengths and challenges to the classroom, requiring adaptive teaching strategies. For example, visual learners benefit from diagrams and videos, while kinesthetic learners engage better through hands-on activities.
Recognizing these differences helps me design lessons that cater to various needs, making learning more inclusive and effective. It also fosters a classroom environment where diverse perspectives are valued, encouraging collaboration and critical thinking.
How do you address learner differences in your own teaching or learning experiences?
As a Muslim and Pakistani I face so much criticism in different foreign universities platforms they judge me by my name and how do I look. Whenever I put my point of view in any discussion mostly foreigners got offended they thought that I am arguing because I am Muslim or from Pakistan. As a student we need equality. Teachers or student fellows can comment on your research but on the basis of study not on religion or nationality.
Agree, one should always aim to comment on research or idea and not on who the person is, however we all have biases (from family, from school, own experiences) so it is difficult to be objective.
Thought inciting views.
Let me start by stating I am not a teacher. I am an Instructional Designer with almost 30 years of experience developing online learning for an audience of 20,000+ automotive Sales and Service dealership personnel across the U.S. The goal I set for myself in taking this course was to learn tips and techniques for implementing diversity in online learning.
What I am learning, so far, is much more valuable, as I’m starting to question many things.
I live in the heart of the automotive industry: southeast Michigan, just north of Detroit. The area is quite culturally and religiously diverse. But you don’t hear about that in the news. What you hear about is how destitute our inner city is and how the school system is far below average, most likely stemming from “white flight” in the 1960s. (https://www.wxyz.com/news/detroit1967/white-flight-and-what-it-meant-to-detroit-in-the-wake-of-the-1967-riots.)
Dr. Trent, in his “Patterns of Desegregation” talk, brings up the example of school enrollment in Detroit. In it, he includes a map of the area that illustrates the clear divide (“fence”) between the city and the suburbs – 8 Mile Road. I live 3 miles from that “fence,” and it is visually clear that this is where the suburbs end and Detroit begins. In his talk, he concludes with “…looking at the amount of [public school] enrollment and the kind of enrollment, the growth of suburbanization and some outward movement from the cities [is] that we would get some suburban school districts that were more desegregated than the urban concentrations that we've been accustomed to.” Why is this? Is it that the suburban schools are better? Evidence and statistics presented thus far seem to confirm this. Why are they better? Is the answer rooted in the unions and their influence on instruction? The Detroit public schools are part of the American Federation of Teachers, while the vast majority of suburban schools are under the National Education Association. What is the difference between the 2 unions? “The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest and one of the oldest professional and employee association in the nation, while the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is smaller, more urban, and affiliated with the labor movement.” (https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2486/Teacher-Unions.html.) But does this matter? If so, does it become a task for the teachers union to support and implement diversity? Is the state? Is it each school district?
Dr. Cope’s example of the Roma people is quite fascinating. I envisioned Greece as a beautiful prosperous country with a, pardon the expression, very middle-class population. Is this my pre-conceived notion? Yes. My naivety? Certainly. But I learned through the lecture that I am sorely mistaken.
During his “Problems with the Categories of Difference” talk, Dr. Cope discusses the complexities of categorizing learners. In a previous discussion post, I posed the question “Is there enough time during the school year to teach diversity?” Based on the complexities presented, the consensus would be no. So what do school districts do? What do teachers do? Is it possible to broaden the categories to generalizations without omitting or offending groups?
I present a question for other Instructional Designers who develop online learning: How do we implement diversity without knowing who our audience is? Unlike instructor-led learning, we do not know our learners. We can make generalizations based on the region of the U.S. they’re from and design our learning based on such, but this would likely be construed as stereotyping. So what do we do?
To date, this course has taught me there is certainly more to our country; specifically, it has caused me to pause and reflect on the area in which I live and to appreciate our differences. We need to embrace the differences we see all around us and to accept others. The United States is the Melting Pot of the world.
Categorical Differences and their Implication for Learning Update #3
During my teaching years in the Philippines first as a student teacher in a public high school, and then as a classroom teacher at an exclusive school for elementary students, I have observed the material differences and its result in the student quality of performance in tests and learning. Students who belong to middle-and upper class have access to better resources and thus higher quality teachers resulting in high rating in science and math tests on a national achievement test results. In public schools, there was a lack of basic resources such as chairs, textbooks, and most times, proper ventilation. Some students come to classroom and would stand in the back because there were no extra chairs left to sit on. The students were a minimum of 60 with no proper ventilation. Teachers were using lapel to ensure they heard the lesson in the back. Still, students seem to be distracted with focus and attention because of the small space provided for many students. It has been known that learning in a non conducive environment has proven to affect learning and focus.
Reference https://www.theedadvocate.org/focus-four-areas-create-classroom-environment-conducive-learning/
It was really hard for both teachers and students to keep the lesson motivating and encouraging, that's why when I moved to a private school, I saw how easier it is to provide better lessons for students because the school can offer better resources for teachers to use for their classes.
I understand that lack of proper funding can affect a larger scale of project when attempting to provide a better learning environment and pedagogy for majority-minority classrooms and similar situations in other countries. Even when educators provide personal resources to facilitate learning, it can only do so much on a smaller community, and may not help long term if there isn't a general provision enacted to support and make it easier for educational institutions and educators to keep moving. I hope that we can do more opportunities for global awareness to help address this concern, make it known, and provide support to ease the burden and stop exclusion and segregation among races and differences.
@Marichu Lim, very impressive insight actually I see the same traits here in Thailand there am teaching, but in my submission I think its important for students to refrain from passing on judgment on others and instead respect others' rights as well as their own. It's crucial to acknowledge similarities and talk about differences in look or behavior.
Students can learn to appreciate diversity and their uniqueness with the help of a diverse classroom. The worth of other people's ideas and perspectives should be instilled in students.
In addition they must improve their consideration of other people and awareness of variety. By doing this, students grow in their capacity to respect diversity and adapt to change. However, teaching in multicultural classrooms can be very challenging, particularly for inexperienced teachers because new Kids are easy targets for control.
Gender and Caste of learners affecting their educational experience WEEK 2
Learner differences become an essential category that needs to be addressed in a multicultural society consisting of a diverse student population. Gordon Alport (1954) argues that student diversity or learner differences within an educational setting provide them an opportunity to interact with people from different backgrounds and try and know them better and build social relations that are in variance from students' home environment. It helps in prejudice reduction. Student diversity has both positive and negative aspects as it not only provides an opportunity to experience richness and variety among students but also leads to the development of social and peer groups around common identities and further leads to exclusion, discrimination, stereotype, and prejudices about other identities. Learner experiences can be understood in two dimensions – interaction with students and the second is the attitude and behaviour of educators/faculty and administration with students. As an educator, it is important to not only know about the background of the students as well as try and develop ways to sensitize other students with the same, to make the classroom environment all-inclusive. There are times when even the educator has personal prejudices, biases, and stereotypes towards certain groups (Blacks, Muslims, indigenous group etc.) and that affects their interaction with such students and even at times reflected in their grading. Research has highlighted how such stereotypes and differential behaviour affect the academic performance of students. Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson (1995) conducted a study on the performance of Black and White students in academic tests and highlighted that there is a negative stereotype against black students as portrayed as less intelligent and less competent than their white counterparts. These stereotypes based on identity even by an educator put a lot of pressure on the student to prove themselves in classroom or standard test that in a way affects their performance and interaction in class. It is extremely necessary to recognize that each identity has certain stereotypes and in certain circumstances, one has extra pressure to perform better and prove oneself, else one false move could cause them to be reduced to that stereotype, to be seen and treated in terms of it
Gender is one of the bases of learner differences and plays a very important role in determining access and participation in the education system. Gender identity can have subcategories like Muslim woman, tribal woman, a black-Muslim woman followed by the class category (poor, working-class, rich) type of family (nuclear, joint, single parent) and their location (rural or urban), etc. all these factors further determine the education experience of the learner. In India, a high percentage of the population live in rural areas where boys education is given preference over girls. Security becomes a major concern regarding girls education as many times the school is very far from their home so parents are hesitant, due to lack of toilet facilities in school may girls drop out of school, caste-based discrimination becomes another major problem especially for Dalit girls as made to sit separately on the floor, clean the school campus, drink water from separate water vessel, mid-day meal served at last, etc. There are such diverse issues that girl students face followed by layers of identities they are part of. Recently in Karnataka, Muslim girls are not allowed to wear hijab as seen as not part of school uniform and it’s the authorize that are forcing hijab ban. The case of the Mid-Day-Meal scheme by the government that provides meals to students in government school mostly coming from poor backgrounds. This scheme was seen as a way to attract students as promised one meal a day and many poor kids joined school leading to increased enrolment levels. Interestingly caste-based discrimination played a new scenario as the students from the upper caste refused to eat food cooked by lower caste cook appointed by the government. Adding further, Dalit students were given only one serving and that to in the end and had separate utensils. This policy is currently functioning but not that successful as even few educators believe in this caste and gender differences and support the same. Overall, both the students and the educators need to be sensitized and trained how to accept the differences and live in harmony with each other.
Negotiating Learner Differences
Week 2 Update 3
Theresa Schantz
Social Class Effects on Education
So here in America, most people feel we have 5 social classes, upper, upper-middle, middle, working and lower (poverty). If you were to look high school graduation levels according to class there really would not be too many surprises. There are high school drop-outs across every class. But the majority 60%+ come from the working and lower class.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/204497/determines-americans-perceive-social-class.aspx
Why does this happen? What makes the bottom of the social classes less likely to complete high school? One of the reasons appears to be that children from the lower class levels start from behind right from the beginning of school years. A report put out by the Economic Policy Institute gives answers to some of these questions.
The report entitled Inequalities At The Starting Gate, published in June 2015, indicates factors that contribute to differences in learning abilities starting at kindergarten in different social classes. For example, students in lower and poverty leveled classes struggle significantly more than upper leveled classes in areas such as self-control and approaches to learning. These are two key factors in success at school. Another factor that lower classes battle with, isn’t cognitive ability but rather the ability to be cognitively flexible. To add to it, working memory is another area these students struggle in. But yet the achievement levels in the lower classes are significantly lower. What are some of the reason for these disparities?
To no surprise, a child’s environment significantly affects their ability to prosper in school. Lower classes of families are not necessarily prevvy to opportunities that other classes are. Programs realistically available to lower income families lack in quality to that of the upper classes. An additional factor is the influence of the parental units. “For instance, less affluent parents have less access to information about the importance of children’s interactions with adults, less economic capacity to buy stimulating toys, and less time to go museus.”
https://files.epi.org/pdf/85032c.pdf
I was always taught to believe that an equal opportunity in areas such as education exists. Academia needs to find ways to level the playing field in regards to all students no matter their social class.
Excellent points. Here's one to ponder: I have an identical twin who lives in a different state. We both have 2 children (both boys). The areas where our boys went to school (rural vs. suburban) and the environments in which we raised them (she is married, I am divorced) have played a huge role. It is clear that environmental factors have influenced their education. It's seemingly the age old discussion of nature vs. nurture.
I also fully agree with the statement Academia needs to find ways to level the playing field... . But is it up to school districts or individual teachers to do this?
These lifeworld differences are important to learners in understanding other students as we do have a set of attributes similar to them. As we take our differences in learning into consideration, we are truly never different from another learner; there is always at least one factor similar to us. What makes a good learning and teaching environment is providing support to the needs of the students.
Speaking from my experience, in all classrooms and at any specific grade or year level, I felt the need to empathize and understand individual differences among learners because they come from diverse backgrounds and they have unique personalities. Subsequently, each and every student may learn additional knowledge differently and this naturally has an impact with how they perform in the classroom. It is significant to look at these in order to perform professional teaching decisions.
In the community where I teach, we have a lot of students who identify with a hick culture in this area and enjoy shooting trap or racing ATVs. This was an adjustment for me to see that the word hick is not derogatory but that many people wear it with pride. People outside of that group still use it to describe other people but it is not necessarily always bad. As with the two groups of Roma people who lived in very different circumstances despite belonging to the same ethnic group, there are differentiations between people in the hick culture. Some people only dress the part which in turn brings in more distinctions because you can spend a lot of money on different cowboy boots and outfits or you can have one solid pair of boots that are for work but will last you a long time and help you on the farm. Richer families can afford to live in large houses on huge acreages where they have their own land to go hunting during deer and turkey season. Other families may have to use that land for farming and travel or hunt on public lands. Right now the dairy and cattle industries are hurting in our area, so even if you have a field full of cows (like the truck full of watermelons) you may have to sell them at a loss or sell them to another farmer to raise. For some students this impacts their academic achievement because their families are well off and have the time and energy to devote to schooling. For other students it hurts them because their families are struggling to make ends meet in an uncertain market. Not only do they not have time for their kids, they struggle with their own mental health concerns as they work to support their family. Our school is often labeled as a hick school, but this is not always the case. In competitions we are disregarded because of this designation which starts to bleed into the spirit of our students. Even though we compete with larger schools in our ACT scores and report card, our own students as well as their friends discount us because of our small size and rural/hick status.
I have been a public school teacher for almost six years and 2 years teaching children with special needs and it is indeed that the diversity is truly visible in all aspects. I could not say that the support for these children with special needs from our government is very evident because some of schools do not have enough learning materials and even an access to technologies that could be used for easy access to learning is difficult to have. We always ask support from the Local Government and some stakeholders and it has to be the teachers and school heads effort and initiative to be more productive and help these children in all means. Some children do not have proper assessment because of economic status and the money that they will be spending on the assessment of their child they will just use it for their additional meal within a day. Lucky are those parents that they could sent their children with special needs to private schools and has the chance to meet their private doctors and therapist. We have a lot of means on how to motivate our learners but these children with special needs are the ones who are needing much support from our government regardless of their economic status because they deserve to have the opportunity to be a productive citizens.
This is a really important problem that we deal with in Wisconsin, too. Our problem at the public school also becomes helping special needs students who open enroll in our district. Students have the option to go to a nearby school outside of their district if they apply. If an open-enrolled student has special needs that cannot be met, we have to transfer them back to their home district. Of course this is a struggle for us and the student as they work to switch schools even though we cannot help them. The icing on the poop cake is that just because we do not offer the service does not mean that the other school does. It is legally up to them to provide it, but it may take time for them to start a program, fine tune it, and actually get to the point where we are helping the student. Parents and schools are fighting a losing battle because there is not better national funding. If every school had more of what they needed for special ed students, it would not be such a burden on students and their families.