The Transatlantic Outreach Program

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

It is commonly known that there were, and still are, many challenges in multicultural education. Effectively implementing multicultural education takes time, energy, and an immense deal of work. However, I have been around long enough to have witnessed the potential in these children: students who "see" themselves and "hear" their voices in the curriculum, and are truly valued in the classroom. What I have learned during my classes at TAMUC is that students need to feel a part of the educational process. There needs to be a redefinition of success and achievement so that learning, and obtaining these high expectations set for students is provided in the best possible environment. Our educational system is at a crossroads. Never before have we been under such pressure to perform at such high standards but we must ensure that our efforts are reaching our neediest and fastest growing segment of students. Multicultural education holds the power to transform what is, to perhaps what could be. It provides an opportunity for us to imagine the world as an equitable and fair place in which to live and work. 

My plan for the next ten years is to work in a position that will allow me to assist teachers to better educate their students. I want to work in the Curriculum and Instruction department because I see a significant need for a bilingual perspective in what policy, or mandates, they are sometimes implementing. The better one instructs this high need group the better your district will ultimately achieve. Eventually, I would like to work with pre-service teachers at a university in collaboration with the local districts. I believe my timing is perfect, as Texas will soon become a minority majority state within the next few years. I think a district, state, and nation-wide paradigm shift is needed to elevate the educational needs of these students. I believe once we address this specific community and service them appropriately with what research has proven is best instructionally for this population – we will see massive gains with all students. For me to attempt to create change in our educational system, I must first obtain my credentials. To accomplish this, I must complete my master’s degree and continue with a doctorate. To this end, I have applied to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in their Educational Leadership Doctoral Program. Keeping my end goal in mind, I can effect a change in a district to provide rigorous educational environment and instruction that allows students to become bilingual, bi-literate, and more academically successful.

What I learned throughout my time at Texas A & M – Commerce was a way to support education reform by communicating lessons that have been learned from my course studies, research projects, classroom discussions, and activities with others in my chosen field who may use and adapt them to create effective educational improvement strategies in their own classrooms and communities (Foundations, 2000). Within the core content areas of Research, Diversity, and Classroom Management, I was able to examine my own teaching methods and implement new practices to my classroom. My coursework helped to focus my efforts in the areas of science, mathematics, and technology education. The education I received helped build a foundation to develop my expertise and, like the foundation of a schoolhouse, home, or other place of learning, the strength of what is above ground depends on the structural soundness of what lies beneath. I was able to unearth the strategies that enable effective educational improvement at the elementary level (Foundations, 2000). I believe my advanced degree will allow me to meet my dream of becoming one of the new education leaders, as it will allow me to have a laser-like focus on student learning. I plan on strengthening my foundation by applying to the Harvard Graduate School of Education because it integrates the fields of education, business, and public policy in innovative ways. I will discuss what I have considered significant expertise in my graduate studies and how this vital information influenced how I think and what I believe in the following order: Research, Diversity, Classroom Management, Science Instruction, and Mathematics Instruction.

Research Literature and Techniques EDCI 595

Typically, when people talk about research, images come to mind of experts outside the classroom, usually university professors, who have conducted such research through experiments. Their intent was to uncover the best teaching strategies and then offer prescriptions to classroom teachers - a research process that Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) refer to as "outside-in," because it features researchers outside of the classrooms designing training for teachers inside them. This was my point of view when I started the semester. With my background in Psychology, I was not anticipating the usefulness and benefits I gained while in Dr. Sinclair's course. I felt that, however, valuable traditional academic research generalizations may sometimes be; it cannot tell any individual teacher what exactly will work best in her individual classroom at any given moment, about a specific class or even student. Each classroom is unique with widely diverse students, cultures, values, languages, goals, personalities, limitations, and opportunities. Any and all of these factors - along with emotional states and interpersonal relationships - make any teaching moment a unique one that calls for a teacher's expertise in choosing among all possible strategies. I learned that this is the key area where action research is crucially different from traditional research efforts: the researchers are not outsiders, like university professors. Instead, they are insiders, staff and faculty, who consider improvements in areas they deem necessary. In addition, the goals of the research are determined by the people who conduct it (in this case, myself); action research is a process that pursues improvement in "a practical situation...without substantively prescribing objectives to be achieved" (Herbert et al., 2002, p.127). Goals, as well as researchers, come from the inside rather than the outside. Dr. Sinclair's course provided us with the capacity to assess significant research studies produced by investigators in my area with emphasis on the investigative and verification techniques employed. I was able to demonstrate my competence in using research techniques through the investigation and formal report of my action research proposal. Because of this course, I was able to utilize a systematic approach to brainstorm several challenging instructional, behavioral, and/or environmental problems facing classroom teachers, use a decision-making process for identifying the single most crucial of those problems, and communicate research questions and associated sub-questions to be used in formulating a research proposal. In addition, I conducted searches of the professional literature addressing the most current research regarding my research topic. I also wrote a cohesive review of that literature using appropriate citations and references based on the American Psychological Association's (APA) format. One of the most beneficial aspects of the course is to learn how to write a proposal to conduct action research in the classroom. I was able to accomplish writing my proposal by including the necessary components as outlined in the Stetson-Nix Model, who created a carefully sequenced 10 step model for writing proposals. The carefully sequences steps are: (1) brainstorm potential problems you encounter with the curriculum, teaching, learning, behavior and/or the environment; (2) convert those problems to research questions; (3) select, from several generated, the single most significant problem to be used in the research project; and (4) create a series of sub-questions that are associated with the main question around which data will be collected and analyzed. As a part of my research proposal, I included a section titled "Review of the Literature." In this section, I reported on a minimum of 10 different professional articles that I had read on my topic. I submitted a summary review of one of those 10 articles using a template that was provided. Each summary had four parts: (a) my main research question; (b) full bibliographic entry of the article using APA format; (c) brief summary of the important content of the article; and (d) how this information ties directly to my research topic. My proposal, Effects of Teacher Home Visits on Student Achievement and Homework Completion Among Bilingual Kindergarten Students, has been filed in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction for a period of three years, as required by the Graduate School. My study looked at four students in the class who were deemed to have serious academic gaps based on their scores on the state assessment (Tejas Lee) and my own informal observations. This low group of students came to school with extremely limited literacy foundations, and they were clearly behind compared to the rest of the class. I found myself, more than ever in any time during my teaching career, tempted to use "deficit descriptors" when discussing and thinking about these students. They presented a particularly difficult combination of social, emotional and academic needs that threatened to overwhelm me on a daily basis (Sugarman, 2010). I frequently felt ill prepared and woefully incapable of addressing all the "problems" and filling in all the "gaps" that these "Limited English Proficient," "under-prepared," and "below grade level" students possessed. This was my first year teaching in Kindergarten, and I had never taught a student to read before. One student in particular caused my deficit thinking to surface numerous times each day (Sugarman, 2010). This was a small class of 12 students, prior educational background ranging from no Pre-Kindergarten classes to a full year of Pre-Kindergarten before entering Bilingual Kindergarten class. The problems that needed to be addressed were the fact that some of my students were coming to school with exceedingly limited knowledge, homework that was not being turned in a timely manner, and inadequate parental support. This seemed to be a problem across the entire grade level in certain demographics. Some causes of this issue may be a lack of knowledge on the part of the students, an overload of work for parents or a cultural belief that students are to be taught exclusively by their teachers (Delgado-Gaitan, 2004). I came to the following conclusions, which I shared with my team, they felt that my ethnicity allowed me to be more successful than they might have been otherwise. The fragility of low achievers’ progress in literacy acquisition demands only the best in instructional practices all of the time (Gibson & Scharer, 2007). We discussed that having a common background helped, in that, I could have conversations with parents regardless of the language. I understood the cultural background. In general, I concur with the research that parents with high aspirations for their children’s educational attainment are more likely to involve themselves in their schooling than parents with low aspirations for their children’s educational attainment (Moreno & Lopez, 1999). With respect to parent involvement, parents who perceive themselves as competent tend to become more involved in their children’s education than their less competent counterparts (Moreno & Lopez, 1999). I feel that the policies and school district activities must support the teacher/parent relationship so that they may interact with each other in ways that positively influence children's education in the home and school, and joined forces that move beyond perceived limitations, making their process one of empowerment.

Diversity and Equity in Education EDCI 559

The value added to my education by completing the Diversity and Equity in Education EDCI 559 course was extremely enlightening and helped me to address many more areas of diversity than I had considered before. We identified and implemented instructional and management strategies that are successful among diverse populations. Dr. Senette pointed out that there are six points of consensus regarding multicultural education that are essential to National Association for Multicultural Educators-(NAME’s) philosophy, and serve as NAME’s goals:

To respect and appreciate cultural diversity.

To promote the understanding of unique cultural and ethnic heritage.

To promote the development of culturally responsible and responsive curricula.

To facilitate the acquisition of the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to function in various cultures.

To eliminate racism and discrimination in society.

To achieve social, political, economic, and educational equity.

In Dr. Sennette's course, we had weekly discussions over a variety of topics, and I reflected on my personal and professional life developments as they relate to my beliefs and practices as a teacher. There were many areas that were of interest to me such as understanding the sociopolitical context of multicultural education, multicultural education & school reform, racism, structural and organizational issues in schools, discrimination, and expectations of students’ achievement. As we became familiar with current and classical literature on the effects of diversity on student learning, e.g., Socioeconomic status (SES), race, gender, achievement, handicapping conditions, etc, we also became acquainted with literature about children in different populations on the topic of diversity and learning (Nieto & Bode, 2008). I found that my understanding of my own personality (learning styles, intra- and interpersonal characteristics, temperament, child centeredness, etc.) grew and how these traits influenced instruction and learning of students in the classroom. We had discussions about culture, identity, learning, terminology, and how to apply linguistic diversity in classrooms toward the goal of an understanding of school achievement. We sought to realize that learning from students and adapting curriculum for the multicultural classroom would be affirming diversity. We discuss the implications for teachers, schools, and families (Nieto & Bode, 2008). This course ignited a passion in me to become a part of the solution to repair the broken educational system. As I stated in my opening paragraph, I applied to the Doctor of Educational Leadership program at Harvard because it integrates the fields of education, business, and public policy in innovative ways, offering students access to the professional resources of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the other schools at Harvard (Harvard, 2013). I think that my foundation here at TAMU-Commerce, will prepare me for the training that I will acquire at Harvard, expanding upon the knowledge and skills I will need, to have broad impact in the worlds of policy and practice. I believe this new degree program will allow me to meet my dream of becoming one of the new education leaders, as it will allow me to have a laser-like focus on student learning, and know how to translate that into a large-scale system change. I know I will be successful in altering education policy debates, forging powerful public-private partnerships, and restoring public confidence in schools (Harvard, 2013). I need to be a part of the solution for the future. This would be the best way I know of to provide a better future for the generation of tomorrow, become a role model for minority students, and satisfy my desire to give back to my community. One quote that really influenced my learning was "The lesson is that, although all schools cannot become culturally compatible, they can become multiculturally sensitive" (Nieto & Bode, 2008, p.187). I believe the quote encompasses what is true for all school striving to become culturally compatible, they might not be able to attain the highest level of compatibility as they want but as educators we can attain in our classrooms an atmosphere that is multiculturally sensitive. This means that we meet all of our student's needs and not just the majority of our students needs. Teachers should be learning about how to be sensitive to the needs of the student, who may or may not be getting support from parents on homework, or social issues and may need the understanding of the teacher who can adjust time, or whatever needed to make sure the student is learning appropriately. As a teacher, you need to provide a way for all students to learn. In doing so we need to first learn from our students and then allow them to learn from us. I think that teachers and administrators forget that having the same cultural background as your students does not automatically mean everyone is the same, learns the same, and has had the same experiences. Becoming multicultrally sensitive essentially would benefit each student in that school if each teacher steps out of their comfort zone and learns more about cultures they may be unfamiliar with and teach a basic understanding of diversity as well as human rights and character. I know for myself I try to go to as many seminars/workshops about areas that I am lacking and bring back what I learn into my classroom. I was fortunate enough to go on immigration, civil rights, and even study education systems of other countries to expand my own knowledge base. I also talk about and we learn about many different holidays in my classroom, it was great experience to be able to show my students various locations I had been and make it very personable for them and to be able to help them learn about new cultures in the best ways that you can for second language learners – visually (Nieto & Bode, 2008).

One of the many profound lessons that happened to me was during my Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone assignment, and the Implications it had on my behavior as an educator. The questions were we asked to respond to in this course were, "what insights, new information, or attitude changes you gained about the particular social issue or group involved"; and "what implications you think your new insights, information, or attitudes have for your behavior as an educator." The topics we could choose from were as follows:

Immigration, Assimilation and Acculturation

Issues of Race and Ethnicity

Institutionalized Prejudice

Issues of Sexual Orientation

Issues of Social Class

Issues of Gender

Issues of Social Justice

I think as an educator the lessons of peer pressure, bigotry, and injustice are particularly relevant to address. I believe that themes that involve race relations and the biases levied against minorities are ones that children need help in understanding. In my assignment, I chose to address the issue of Institutionalized Prejudice and viewed the movies - "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Help." Both Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird) and Skeeter Phelan (The Help) fight the evils of society, but in different ways: Atticus with his strong moral fiber and his mind; Skeeter by shining a light on southern society and their treatment of their maids. These incredibly valuable lessons on the bleak history of racism, discrimination, and hate crimes are things that students need help with. Many times students come with these preconceived notions because of their upbringing; it is up to us to help break the cycle of this misinformation (Nieto & Bode, 2008). These students are our future; we need for them to look past these judgmental biases and for students to probe for ways their lives can connect to the broader society as they are often limited by that society. As I have learned through this course, in my classroom I need to strive to be multicultural, anti-racist, and pro-justice. Implicit in many traditional accounts of history is the belief that children should ignore the lives of women, working people, and especially people of color, led to view history and current events from the standpoint of the dominant groups. By contrast, a social justice curriculum must strive to incorporate the lives of all those in our society, especially the marginalized and dominated (Bigelow, 1994). We need our classrooms to be participatory and experiential. Whether through projects, role-plays, simulations, mock trials, or experiments students need to be mentally, and often physically, active (Nieto & Brody, 2008). Classrooms must provoke students to develop their democratic capacities: to question, to challenge, to make real decisions, to collectively solve problems (Bigelow, 1994). The ways we organize classroom life should strive to make children feel significant and cared about by the teacher and by each other. Together students and teachers can create a community of conscience (Bigelow, 1994). I want my students to come to see themselves as truth-tellers and change-makers. An essential curriculum should be a rainbow of resistance, reflecting the diversity of people from all cultures who acted to make a difference, many of whom did so at considerable sacrifice. Each class presents new challenges to learn from our students and demands that we be good researchers, and good listeners. Quoting Lisa Delpit, (Rethinking Our Classrooms, pg. xi), "when teachers are teaching children who are different from themselves, they must call upon parents in a collaborative fashion if they are to learn who their students really are." Finally, teachers who want to create more equitable, more meaningful, and more dynamic educational experiences for children must concern themselves with issues beyond the classroom walls. I found Tharp’s four cultural variables and how are they related to communication and why are they were important in the discussion of communication style in multicultural education to be something new that I learned. The four variables are social organization, sociolinguistics, cognition, and motivation (Nieto & Bode, 2008, Page 179). They are related to communication by establishing how a teacher and her students communicate to each other. In addition, they are important because it helps us to understand what works with one student might not work with another. Social Organization refers to the way the classroom is organized. The arrangement of the classroom can affect the communication in both positive and negative ways. Sociolinguistic, refers to the "wait time" the teachers utilizes for the students to answer. There are students that are second language learners that will need more time to answer and they will benefit if the teacher allows more wait time. Cognition includes attention, remembering, producing and understanding the language, problem solving and making decisions. Motivation refers to the way the students’ needs are met. Motivation is also, how much the students are interested and enjoy the task or how the environment promotes participation that makes the students feel comfortable and motivates them to participate. For example from Asian culture, asking question (student hand up when know answer) may not work with Asian students because they are shy to show their ideas. Another example, in the Hispanic culture might take it to be disrespectful to look into the eye when being talk too. Another example is the working with a partner or in groups. When students come the U.S. from other countries, many find it "hard to work with" a partner or in a group, because the educational system in their country was not supported that way. Also, the value of education varies among cultures. Some children do not need to be motivated because rather they are expected to follow the teachers’ directions and value education and opportunities.

Classroom Management EDCI 538

How Has Your Learning Changed Your Current Classroom Practices?

When I started the course in Classroom Management with Dr. Hammick, I took an inventory to determine my management style. Upon reflecting on my discipline style, I discovered that I tend to be more Confronting-Contracting followed by Rules-Consequences in my philosophy and methodology. The models that we discussed in EDCI 538 that applied to my philosophy were Drekiurs, Albert, Glasser, Jones, & Canter. Given that there is no single "right" approach, effective discipline and classroom management depend on a wide range of techniques that are applied to a wide range of students (Wolfgang, 2010). In the Confronting-Contracting discipline models, teachers and students share the ability to influence behavior through thinking processes to become more productive. These models use less teacher control than Rules-Consequences, but they do challenge the student to stop misbehavior and provide a cooperative way of coming together, or contracting, for more positive change in the student’s behavior. While Rules-Consequences is the model that is most supportive of the national focus- No Child Left Behind, these discipline models allow the teacher considerably more control to shape the student's behavior based on established rules (Wolfgang, 2010).

My goal as a teacher is to have a pleasant classroom environment where students behave responsibly. I feel that this component is essential to produce high-quality teaching and learning. As stated in the textbook; "giving balanced attention to preventing misbehavior, supporting appropriate behavior, communicating effectively with our students, and correcting misbehavior in a positive manner is what the models of discipline discussed were intended to help us formalize our own personal systems of discipline to meet the needs of our classrooms" (Charles, Senter, Cook, VanWie, and Brown, 2010).

I would say that my classroom management framework is based primarily on Jones’ model of discipline, with elements borrowed from Canter, Dreikurs, Glasser, and Gordon’s discipline models to round out my personal management system. I started with Canter’s Assertive Discipline model by posting five classroom rules. I utilized Glasser’s technique of a tight circle during classroom meetings to promote student responsibility. I incorporated elements of camping-out, physical proximity, moving in/out, prompting, relaxing breaths, working the crowd, as well as, the three step lesson from Jones’ discipline model as the means of communicating effectively with my students. Following this model allowed me to encourage appropriate behavior, giving balanced attention to preventing misbehavior while correcting misbehavior in a positive manner.

I feel that I have become more reflective of, and in, my discipline choices. I was particularly influenced by Dreikurs’ model. While students choose their behavior, we as teachers can influence it. I found it most beneficial to understand and identify the hidden motivation of student behaviors (attention-getting, helplessness, power and control, revenge). I did benefit from the intervention strategies that the book presented in dealing with those behaviors. I strive to make my classroom a democratic one, where students have a sense of belonging and feel valued. Logical and natural consequences are my tools for helping students learn to make better choices.

While I would agree with Thomas Gordon, "you acquire more influence with young people when you give up using your power to control them…and the more you use your power to try to control people the less influence you will have on their lives." I still fall back more to the control part/side when established routines and expectations are not met. As discussed in Glasser’s model, I added classroom meetings that are held at the same time at least 3 to 4 times a week (there are days that something usually occurs outside my control and we do not get to our meeting). I have also tried to incorporate, this year, more active listening to mirror the feelings of my students and encourage them to talk out their problems, as well as, I-messages to communicate to my students that their behavior affects my feelings as Gordon’s model discussed. In the future, I hope to be better at using door openers to invite students to talk about their problems and eliminate roadblocks to communication. I also need to watch out for the "pitfall of praise"; as praise does not correct social behavior, it only teaches them how to receive compliments. I must strive to use encouragement, to foster improvement, and create a climate of respect and optimism for my students.

Upon reflection of my classroom management style, my framework's strengths and weaknesses are outlined below:

Strength – promotes authentic teacher-student relationship, encourages a safe environment for student success. Use of natural and logical consequences, self worth, class meetings are strong and effective tools. They help students to see that teachers need support as much as students do.

Weakness – time consuming, focus on conflict resolution, hard at times to determine logical consequences, or if natural consequences are good or bad, scheduling classroom meetings not always possible within a certain time frame, does not work with students that have no interest in school.

Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gse.harvard.edu/academics/doctorate/edld/index.html

FOUNDATIONS: A monograph for professionals in science, mathematics, and technology education. Inquiry Thoughts, Views, and Strategies for the K–5 Classroom. (2000). Retrieved from website: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf99148/pdf/nsf99148.pdf