Developmentally Appropriate Teaching Strategies

Introduction

Cultural diversity is one of the significant challenges that teachers experience in the classroom environment today, as it becomes challenging for them to work on ensuring that they maintain the appropriate teaching strategies. Sturz, Kleiner, & Fernandez (2005) indicate that the classroom environment today reflects on diverse cultures taking into account that people can move from one country to another, which creates some form of cultural challenge. From that perspective, it becomes essential for teachers to understand some of the difficulties that may arise concerning classroom environments that are not culturally diverse. In that view, this report will seek to analyze some of the challenges involved in ensuring that teaching strategies are appropriate for culturally diverse children. Additionally, the report will evaluate these challenges from one sociological perspective, as well as, seek to provide solutions to how the problems may be addressed to help increase the child’s cognitive advancement and academic success.

Challenges in Dealing with Culturally Diverse Children

The following are some of the difficulties that teachers may experience when dealing with culturally diverse children, which may have a significant impact on the overall success of the teaching process:

Language

The crucial first challenge to note when dealing with culturally diverse children in a classroom environment is language, which creates a barrier when dealing with children from multiple cultural backgrounds. The language barrier is a common occurrence when dealing with culturally diverse children taking into account that it becomes somewhat hard or challenging for teachers to find an appropriate language that may fit all students. In some cases, teachers are forced to focus much of their attention on finding translators to help in reducing the language barrier when dealing with children from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Classroom Curriculum

Another key challenge to note when dealing with culturally diverse children within a classroom environment is the classroom curriculum. Coelho, Oller, & Maria Serra (2011) argue that the classroom curriculum in most of the countries around the world tend to focus on unique cultures or children from single cultural backgrounds, thus, creating a challenge for teachers intending to apply the same when dealing with multiple cultures. The difficulty arises from the fact that teachers experience a vital issue when expecting to handle children from numerous cultures taking into account that it becomes somewhat hard for these children to adapt to the curriculum. The long-term effect of this is that most of the students from multiple cultures tend to face imminent failure within the classroom environment. Thus, this creates the need for having to understand how the issue of culture may be addressed as part of the classroom environment.

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is one of the critical challenges that majority of teachers experience in their efforts to ensure that the teaching strategies implemented are developmentally appropriate for children with diverse cultures. Considering that diversity is a critical factor that may contribute to the development of conflicts in any given environment, it is necessary for teachers to capitalize on ensuring that their teaching strategies are in a position to accommodate the diversities present among the children. According to Sturz, Kleiner, & Fernandez (2005), teachers should not be involved in making decisions regarding the children based on their abilities as defined by their culture, as this is a form of stereotyping, which results in a negative impact. Teachers should always focus on ensuring that the teaching strategies developed are focused towards addressing the diversities among the children without necessarily having to define an individual based on their cultural background.

Sociological Perspective

The sociological perspective that may help towards understanding these cultural challenges in the classroom is Piaget’s preoperational stage of development, which seeks to create some form of structured approach from which to evaluate or reflect on students' progress. In the preoperational stage, children tend to focus much of their attention on studying the environment through direct experience, which may have a crucial impact on their overall levels of development (Asokan, Surendran, Asokan, & Nuvvula, 2014). When dealing with cultural challenges, the children may experience delays in cognitive development considering that they are not accorded avenues from which to achieve academic success. Children in the preoperational stage of development never stop learning, as they view learning a continuous process (Asokan, Surendran, Asokan, & Nuvvula, 2014). However, the occurrence of the challenges tends to create a situation where it becomes challenging for these students to learn considering that they experience cultural limitations.

How the Cultural Challenges may be Addressed

Multifaceted Classroom Curriculum

Addressing the cultural challenges that hinder effective teaching strategies is an essential factor that helps in reducing teacher-children conflict based on the issues of culture in the society. The first significant factor that may help in dealing with the cultural challenges involves the creation of a multifaceted classroom curriculum. A multidimensional classroom curriculum plays a vital role in coping with diversities experienced in a classroom setting. Through the expansion of the classroom curriculum, teachers are provided with the ability to develop appropriate developmental strategies that accommodate children with diverse cultures. The multifaceted classroom curriculum ensures that the teachers are in a position to address issues relating to cultural diversities among the children without engaging in factors such as stereotyping children based on the cultural backgrounds. Additionally, the multifaceted classrooms allow the children to appreciate others regardless of their cultural diversities.

Engagement to Reduce Stereotyping

Another critical solution to the cultural challenges that may arise within the classroom environment is the adoption of effective strategies for students’ and teachers' engagement through training and development programs. The involvement of these teachers is expected to create that effective platform from which to ensure that both students and teachers understand the impacts of stereotyping. The training and development programs must work towards highlighting some of the critical stereotypes arising within the classroom environment and the consequences that they are having on the students. From that perspective, students may be in a better position from which to be exposed to an environment that supports their diverse cultural backgrounds without finding themselves exposed to stereotyping.

Conclusion

In summary, cultural diversity is one of the significant challenges or issues arising in the classroom environment considering that teachers tend to find themselves in situations where they deal with students from multiple cultural backgrounds. Some of the critical problems challenges that these teachers experience include language, stereotyping, and classroom curriculum. The critical issue arising from these challenges is that it creates some form of difficulty for teachers to create a classroom environment that would support or project cultural diversity. One critical sociological perspective that may help in evaluating the impacts of this issue is Piaget’s preoperational stage of development. Children in the preoperational stage of development tend to find themselves in a position where they learn through experience. When exposed to a culturally limited environment, it becomes hard of challenging for them to achieve their expected levels of success.

References

Asokan, S., Surendran, S., Asokan, S., & Nuvvula, S. (2014). The relevance of Piaget's cognitive principles among 4-7 years old children: A descriptive cross-sectional study.  Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry ,  32 (4), 292-296.

Coelho, E., Oller, J., & Maria Serra, J. (2011). Rethinking Initial Teacher Education for Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in the Classroom.  @ tic. revista d'innovació Educativa , 2(7), 52-61.

Sturz, D. L., Kleiner, B. H., & Fernandez, A. (2005). Effective management of cultural diversity in a classroom setting.  Equal opportunities international ,  24 (5/6), 57-64.