It’s important to examine your own personal lens through which you approach  teaching/learning situations.  This involves reflecting on your own prior experiences and implicit biases that impact how you choose teaching materials, relate to students and assess learning. Linguistically and culturally diverse learners bring a wealth of diversity and prior knowledge to the learning environment.

1. In your own personal experience in higher education, what was the style of teaching? Who was responsible for your learning? What kind of interaction was there in the classroom?
2. In your current teaching, do you teach at the students primarily or engage them actively in the learning?
3. If active participation in the learning is expected, are there any circumstances in your students’ prior education that may have a strong influence on their understanding of the need to engage in the classroom learning?

We know that active engagement in learning leads to deeper learning and student engagement with the course work. As you watch this short video clip of a few International students recounting their previous experience in educational settings, think about the kind of framing you may need to do at the beginning of your course to not only make the expectations related to interaction and engagement clear, but also to create a welcome, safe space for your ELLs to develop confidence in actively participating in class.

We know that culture shapes how individuals think and learn and how they communicate; likewise, learning, thinking and communicating shape culture. Consequently, in CRP teaching, including students’ cultural references is central to the learning. Teaching to this diversity through careful curation of learning materials and deliberate changes to teaching style supports equitable access to learning for students from all cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Learners need to feel respected, reflected and heard in the classroom. A CRP approach supports learning that is collaborative and cooperative where students complete meaningful, engaging learning tasks.

UDL principles underpin the CRP approach to teaching. The guidelines support a student-centered learning environment that provides equitable learning opportunities for all students, including linguistically and culturally diverse learners. Materials and assignments should reflect the diverse make-up of the class and provide meaningful connections to prior learning for all learners. Instruction should integrate diverse ways of knowing, understanding, and representing information. Students need to be given choice in how they demonstrate their mastery of the content in order to let every student reach his or her potential.

We know that students are more engaged when they are involved in the learning process, see the relevance of what they are learning, and can actively work with others to contribute and build their knowledge. This student-centered approach is significantly more successful than a teacher-centered approach when we talk at students. One of the educational theories that supports this approach to student-centered learning is social- cultural constructivism.

We have already examined how UDL principles support a learner-centered approach to teaching and learning. There is a great deal of similarity between UDL and Social Constructivist Pedagogy. Both approaches require the teacher to build on learners’ prior knowledge and background and to scaffold that learning.  The theoretical framework of socio-cultural constructivism establishes the importance of the social context of learning communities. According to Russian researcher and theorist Lev Vygotsky (1978), learning is a socially mediated process in that individual experience is part of what shapes a person’s understanding of a given situation. The social environment in which we experience the world also significantly shapes our interpretation.  Learning occurs through the transformative process of the dialectic relation between an individual’s existing knowledge and beliefs and encounters with socio-culturally shaped different knowledge and beliefs. This learning and development is a direct result of individuals’ agency and engagement in a specific task (McPherson, 2014).

In a socio-cultural constructivist knowledge building environment, learners are expected to be actively engaged in the learning process and work collaboratively to build socially mediated knowledge. The opportunity in the class to engage in activities that encourage learners to share viewpoints and perspectives based on their own cultural experiences supports learners’ active participation (Nieto, 1996) and helps to develop an awareness of other cultural values and perspectives.

Understanding that there are multiple ways to interpret information and events and encouraging the dialogic communication that supports diverse ways of learning, sharing viewpoints and perspectives based on diverse cultural and social expectations is important. This approach to learning stresses participation in a community of learners as a way of actively seeking to clarify different perspectives. While it may be incongruent with individuals’ historical views and attitudes towards their role in the educative process, mindful engagement scaffolding on learners’ previous knowledge and experience is requisite for knowledge construction. Consequently, constructivist pedagogy emphasizes discussion, collaboration, cooperation, problem-solving, negotiation and creation of shared meanings (Ernest, 1995).