Strategies for teaching in heterogeneous environments while building a classroom community

In our global society, classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of students' cultures, languages, and socio-economic status. This article discusses some of the challenges teachers face while teaching in diverse settings. Some methodologies are suggested that promote effective classroom communities within multicultural environments. By building a classroom community, teachers increase the effectiveness of their teaching and efficient workings of a classroom. As diversity is on the rise, subject specific strategies are needed across the curriculum. Strategies for language arts include developing oral communication skills and students' background experience in reading and writing. Mathematics strategies involve metacognitive questioning of new concepts. These proposed strategies provide options for teachers with an increasing number of challenges in the classroom.

Challenges of Diverse Settings

Imagine walking into a classroom in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. In this diverse area, the population is made of individuals of multiple linguistic, ethnic and economic backgrounds. The classroom consists of six low socio-Economic Status (S.E.S.), Hispanic students, four low S.E.S. Anglo students, five middle class Hispanic students, four middle class Anglo, two high S.E.S. Hispanic students and two high S.E.S. Anglo. With all of these elements, the question arises as to how a teacher can reach each of these students individually while teaching the entire classroom on a daily basis? While this scenario may sound extreme, in actuality, these circumstances are found in classrooms across America more often than not. The problem then lies in the teacher's hands to focus attention on each student with their plethora of learning levels and styles.

Cultural pluralism is defined by Ovando and Collier (1998) as a society in which members of diverse cultural, social, racial, or religious groups are free to maintain their own identity and yet simultaneously share equitably in a larger common political organization, economic system and social structure. The responsibility of ensuring that cultural pluralism continues to be a driving force of our nation lies in the hands of the educational system.

The question arises as to what would happen if we ignore the need to conform to cultural pluralism. This statement, while sounding contradictory within itself, is a condition that occurs throughout our educational system, and has detrimental impact on students of all backgrounds (Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes & Simmons, 1997). For example, research shows that teachers who do not acknowledge learning differences tend to classify students as "teachable" or "difficult to teach". This mental schema has several negative outcomes.

Teachers who fail in the attempt to build a classroom community will in turn classify students by their ability and will often negatively influence the achievement of those students. Considering this, many students fail to make adequate, if any, progress throughout school (Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes & Simmons, 1997) and will develop a very low self-esteem and many drop out of school during secondary education (Ovando & Collier, 1998).

Teachers are faced with the extraordinary challenge of creating a classroom that enables children from diverse backgrounds to develop optimal learning tools applicable to the challenges of our post-industrial world. As diversity is on the rise in the U.S,, a classroom is a reflection of that population. Therefore, teachers need a variety of options to choose from when working with diverse populations, under stressful conditions. A number of strategies, practices and beliefs can be applied to assist in developing a positive classroom community.

Classroom Community

First, in order to provide an optimal learning environment for students, one must first work to establish a classroom community (Au, 1993). A classroom community provides each child with space to develop specific capabilities and to experience a sense of inner balance and wholeness in a community with others (Easton 1997). The school environment is the broader context of the school that allows for classroom instruction and student learning (Tunney, 1996). A transformation to a community should take place throughout the school wide environment by maximizing the number of positive interactions with students and parents. Teachers are capable of producing profound and positive changes in student behaviors and learning by effectively modeling the positive processes, skills, and attitudes that parents teach (Hindle, 1996).

Bringing members of a class together for certain activities engenders the feeling of belonging to a group and in turn establishes class spirit (Bergin, 1999). With this, students who feel that they belong to a group have power in decision-making and have freedom of choices (Tunney, 1996).

The classroom community can be developed by a number of means. Students should develop a process of understanding, sharing, compassion and empathy. The classroom should be referred to by the teacher as "our classroom" rather than "my classroom". The development of a community is moving from doing things TO students to doing things FOR students (Tunney, 1996).

Language Arts Strategies

Language arts in the classroom consist of "listening, speaking, reading and writing" (Cox, 1999, p.1). Listening and speaking skills are developed through oral communication, and are critical to children's social and academic success (Au, 1993). Butler and Stevens (1997) stated that students listen and speak before they read and write. Fluent oral interaction between peers is a necessity in a classroom as a predecessor to written communication (Tierney & Readance, 2000) and group discussion often reflects their overall self-image (Butler & Stevens, 1997). In addition, oral communication is the primary form of interaction between students, parents and teachers (Au, 1993). Therefore, teachers must deconstruct the oral operations of the classroom to ensure optimal communication opportunities for class members thus, extending to an understanding of language meaning with reading and writing (Ovando & Collier, 1998).

Butler & Stevens (1997) found that in order to develop positive oral communication between students, an open classroom environment where students are free to use oral language provides teachers with opportunities to assess and monitor how well students are developing communication skills. "In a supportive classroom environment, students are free to react orally to what they hear or read" (p. 215). By allowing students to react positively to material and to one another, the environment helps students develop feelings of pride, personal power, and success (Zaragoza, 1997; Au, 1993).

The following are examples of oral language tasks that can be assessed in group settings. Students can engage in book talks, a spontaneous discussion of a book (Butler & Stevens, 1997), or prompting a discussion by viewing a clip from a book or video encouraging the students to write the ending or a solution to a problem (Butler & Stevens, 1997). Another example of a group activity is a partner read with retell. Research has shown that rereading strengthens decoding and comprehension of narrative text (Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes & Simmons, 1997; Tierney & Readance, 2000). Sharing time, or "show-and-tell," is another prime opportunity to assess oral skills and enhance group discussion. Not only does this allow students to experience the diverse backgrounds of their classmates, but it also gives students the chance to strengthen their ability to interact in successful literate discourse (Au, 1993; Zaragoza, 1997).

The second strategy for language arts is that of allowing and encouraging students to write about their own experiences. Students can enhance their reading, writing, communication, and comprehension skills by portraying their personal experiences in their work (Au, 1993; Cade, 2000). Barabara Cade, curriculum director of Mathis I.S.D., stated that she has, "found that when students are able to relate their thoughts to past experiences, they are able to write more in-depth ideas, as opposed to trying to write about a topic that they have little prior knowledge."

First of all, research shows that learners link new information with personal experience and pre-existing knowledge, by elaborating on the new information in order to integrate it within an existing schema (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997). Additionally, if students are given the choice to choose the topic they wish to write about, students find that what they have to say is important (Cade, 2000; Zaragoza, 1997). Thirdly, the same authors' claim that by writing about one's own experiences a student author has developed a strong foundation of the major points of discussion.

As a reference for this strategy, the lesson plan, "Our Day at School" can be incorporated into the writing portion of the language arts curriculum. The lesson plan can be located at http://ericir.syr.edu/Virtual/Lessons/Lang_arts/Reading/RDG0011 .html. This learning plan was placed on the Internet, and was found randomly by a teacher who applied it to her classroom. "The biggest improvement I saw in my students were their writing skills, thinking skills, and most importantly their comprehension skills. They also gained a lot of self-confidence in their reading and writing skills because they wanted to share their writings with their classmates as well as other people who came in contact with them during the day" (personal communication with Melissa Jones , third grade teacher, November, 2000). Ms Jones (2000) used the lesson plan, "Our Day at School". When asked "What improvements did you see with your students?" She stated: "...I have found that your activity has worked wonders with my students. I have quite a few low students and they have become stronger readers and writers because of this activity done 3 times a week."

The lesson was incorporated into the language arts curriculum as follows: Step 1: "The students after the morning work would do a quick write of what they had learned in the skills and language arts area of the morning. The writing may have been in what they had done in the small group reading or independent skills at their own level. This also helped in their comprehension of what they read in small groups and independently." Step 2: "Then in the afternoon before going home they did the same for the afternoon work and then a more broad overview on Fridays of `what I have learned and interested me the most during the week." Results: "I also found that this lesson really helped in the diversity of my children last year because I could see great strides in their writing and reading levels".

Mathematics Strategies

In this changing world, those who understand and can do mathematics will have significantly enhanced opportunities and options for shaping their future (NCTM, 2000). The five content strands for mathematics, according to the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000), include number sense and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability and the five process standards which are problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connections, and representation (van de Walle, 2001). Within this, a mathematics curriculum can be developed that provides a solid foundation to structure mathematics instruction.

As each content standard is implemented across the process strands, strategies are useful for teaching in heterogeneous classrooms (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997). Therefore, the teacher is responsible for accommodating learning for all students. "Teachers who try to teach in heterogeneous classrooms are faced with enormous difficulties because in many of these classrooms the range of instructional levels is more than five grades per classroom" (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997).

Zemira R. Mevarech and Bracha Kramarski developed the instructional strategy that can be applied to heterogeneous classrooms in their study "IMPROVE-- Multidimensional Method for Teaching Mathematics in Heterogeneous Classrooms". The strategy, IMPROVE, (Introducing new concepts, Metacognitive questioning, Practicing, Reviewing and reducing difficulties, Obtaining mastery, Verification, and Enrichment) has been proven to keep mathematics progress at a constant pace throughout the school year. The academic group as a whole continued to progress, and the progress of one academic group did not come at the expense of the other groups.

Based on research in knowledge construction within cooperative settings it was found that by working in cooperative settings within constructive and corrective enrichment, students' elicit elaborate explanations and enhance mathematical reasoning. This enhancement occurred by invoking a combination of questions for the math instructional material that included comprehension and connection questions in addition to a variety of questions regarding strategies, tactics, or principles. Furthermore, as students should be moving towards an increase in metacognitive awareness, the study shows that mathematics reasoning increased to higher levels with cooperative learning than on basic skills that can be practiced on an individual basis (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997).

The IMPROVE Strategy:

The teacher first of all introduces (I) the new concept to the whole class. The students are placed in small heterogeneous groups consisting of 2-4 students and they engage in metacognitive (M) questioning. During this stage, students take turns asking and answering three kinds of questions: comprehension, strategic, and connection. Comprehension questions oriented the students to articulate the main ideas in the problem, classify the problem into an appropriate category, and elaborate the new concepts." (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997, p. 369) Some examples include: (a) Describe... in your own words, (b) rate problem in the form of cost-per-unit rate, (c) problems with negative multiples, (d) definitions and meanings is..., and (e) given versus unknown is... (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997).

The next types of questions are strategic questions that refer to strategies appropriate for solving problems. When the idea focuses on specific principles, students select the appropriate principle, justify their decision, and describe the application of the principle to the given problem (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997).

The final form of metacognitive questions are connection. These questions often refer to similarities and differences between the posed problem and problems previously solved (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997). The use of connection questions draws the student to distinguish between complicated problems, which may share the same story structure, context or mathematical structures.

As a recapitulation of IMPROVE, students are first introduced to (a) new ideas and (b) the students are broken into groups where each of them has a specific problem. As each student reads the problem aloud to the class they are able to listen to others reading from print. The group then asks and discusses metacognitive questions to find solutions to the specific problem.

It is interesting to note that when this procedure was tested in the classroom, if the group could not arrive at consensus, they would discuss the problem until it was solved. In the discussion process, the team talked about the problem, and explained it to one another. They often compared it to what was already known, approaching it from different perspectives, balancing the perspectives against one another, and proceeding according to what seemed to be the best option at the time. The students actually used the diversity in their own prior knowledge to self-regulate their learning (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997).

These positive interactive techniques bring in the practice (P) step of the process. The students cooperatively work to develop and agree on a working solution. Also, using the metacognitive questioning, the students intermittently reviewed and reduced difficulties (R) to solve the problem. This occurred as they worked to approach a problem from different perspectives and they checked their work to find the simplest solution.

Obtaining mastery (0) is a step of the process that is found throughout. The students were given practice problems for each new concept. As they practiced cooperative learning through metacognitive questioning, each student mastered each concept at various rates. In the process, the teacher joined in the groups by sitting in on discussion, modeling the thought process for the solutions, and explaining concepts to the class as a whole if difficulties were found across the board. In completing these tasks, the teachers were able to monitor each student's input to solutions and the rates of comprehension and mastery.

Along with the teachers' observations and informal assessment, the students were administered a formative test at the end of every ten lessons. The test focused on the main ideas taught from that unit and was intended to verify (V) mastery. Students who did not obtain mastery were provided with remedial activities. As the students worked on the activities, they did not prevent the class from progressing. The students who did obtain mastery proceeded with enrichment tasks. "The enrichment (E) activities included challenging tasks that focused on mathematical reasoning rather than lower order skills as defined by Bloom's taxonomy. During the corrective-- enrichment sessions, the teacher worked with either the slow- or high-achieving students as she saw fit." (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997, p. 372)

Overall, the IMPROVE Process is applicable to all heterogeneous classrooms and all mathematical curriculum can be incorporated into the process. The diversity of the classroom proved to be an asset to the development of the students' thought processes, problem/ solution skills and interaction between the students. The diversity of students' responses was enhanced as they interacted with one another in the small groups during metacognitive questioning, when the teachers introduced new materials, explained the topics, modeled solution processes, and designed practice activities. In addition, the learning materials included a wide range of problems gradually increasing in difficulty and complexity.

Summary

As our society is composed of a vast array of individuals, the educational system must conform to the needs of a diverse people. Each classroom in the United States is a reflection of the society that it represents; composed of students who have diverse ethnic and social backgrounds combined with multiple learning levels. Therefore, teachers are faced with the difficult task of catering to these students to meet their educational needs. With this, the need arises for optional strategies that can be applied to the classroom curriculum.

I have explained the importance of establishing a classroom community to provide each child with space to develop, along with experiencing wholeness in a community. With the classroom community established, the incorporation of subject specific strategies is possible. Language Arts strategies include developing oral communication skills and drawing on students' prior experiences and knowledge to enhance levels of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The IMPROVE strategy designed to teach mathematics to heterogeneous classes is a method of incorporating metacognitive questioning in cooperative settings to develop math concepts and skills with follow-up verification of mastery and enrichment.

"Change simply for the sake of change isn't enough. You need to clearly see a direct connection between the strategy or program and your aspirations for your students" (Caruana, 1998, p. 137). 1 hope that teachers will take into account the needs of each student to actively take part in their education and cater the processes of the classroom for each student to be proud of his/ her education.

References

Au, K. H. (1993). Literacy instruction in multicultural settings. Austin, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Bergin, D.A. (1999). Influences on classroom interest. Educational Psychologist, 34 (2) 87-98.

Butler, F. A. & Stevens, R. (1997). Oral language assessment in the classroom. Theory Into Practice, 36(4). 214-219.

Caruana, V. (1998). Apples & chalkdust. Tulsa, OK: Honor Books.

Cox, C. (1999). Teaching language arts: A student-- and response-centered Classroom, third edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Easton, F. (1997). Educating the whole child, "head, heart, and hands": Learning from the waldorf experience". Theory Into Practice, 36 (2),87-94.

Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L.S., Mathes, P.G., & Simmons, D.C. (1997). Peer-assisted learning strategies: Making classrooms more responsive to diversity. American Educational Research Journal, 34(l), 174-206.

Hindle, D. (1996). Planning together: Positive classroom environments. Diversity in the Classroom series, number four. Paper developed by the Saskatchewan Professional Development Unit, Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Instructional Development and Research Unit, Regina. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 434 889)

Mevarech, Z. R., & Kramarski, B. (1997). IMPROVE: Multidimensional method for teaching mathematics in heterogeneous classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 34(2), 365-394.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston,VA: NCTM.

Ovando, C. J., & Collier, V.P. (1998). Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts. Boston: McGraw-Hill Co.

Tierney, R.J., & Readence, J.E. (2000). Reading strategies and practices: A compendium, Sth edition. Boston:MA, Allyn and Bacon.

Tunney, K. (1996). Growing stronger: Teaching and learning responsibility. Diversity in the Classroom Series, number three. Paper developed by the Saskatchewan Professional Development Unit, Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Instructional Development and Research Unit, Regina. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 434 888)

Van de Walle, J. (2001). Elementary and middle school mathematics: Teaching developmentalty (4th Ed.). New York: Longman.

Zaragoza, N. (1997). Rethinking Language Arts: Passion and Practice. New York: NY, Gerland Publishing, Inc.

HALEY LYN DAVID

ROBERT M. CAPRARO, PH.D.

Education

Texas A&M University College Station, Texas 77843-4232

Copyright Project Innovation Fall 2001
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