Teaching across Cultural Barriers
Last week, we visited King school in Framingham, an elementary school which has many students who are English language learners. We were hoping to observe any nuances around teaching students from different cultural backgrounds. One important observation came during a Mandarin Chinese class. The teacher, who is originally from China, seemed to have trouble maintaining order in the classroom. We wondered how a classroom here would compare to a classroom in China, and what barriers might exist for a teacher or a student coming from a different background. In a later teacher interview, we talked to an English teacher originally from the United States who has taught all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, and the US. We were interested in exploring in what ways classrooms change across cultures and what tools could lower those barriers.
Kinesthetic learning tools
This area of opportunity stemmed from watching teachers have trouble maintaining order in a large classroom full of very energetic first graders. For many of the children, it was difficult to get them to sit still for even a minute, let alone dedicate any attention to the subject they were learning. There is a mountain of research on kinesthetic learning tools -- toys or devices that allow children to be physically occupied so that they can mentally concentrate. There is evidence that introducing these tools could have huge behavioral impact. Even small changes such as a teacher snapping or clapping rather than speaking or yelling have anecdotally proven to be effective. We thought it could be interesting to explore tools that already exist but have not been introduced to the classroom that might help children concentrate.
Improving Incentive/Punishment Structure
During our recent visit to an elementary school, we realized that the traditional punishment structure is flawed. Traditionally a student that is misbehaving is often separated from the rest of the group and moved to the back of a class for some amount of time to “think about what they have done wrong.” While this may give students the ability to effectively sound apologetic it makes the student miss the lesson being taught to the rest of the class. This puts that student behind his or her peers making it less likely that he or she will be enthusiastic later on. In addition, the current incentive structure does not accurately represent what is currently known about the sources of human motivation. Giving an incentive such as grades or at younger levels, stickers, removes the sense of doing the activity because that activity is interesting and instead makes it about work. If an activity is sufficiently engaging students will learn it without having the joy of learning tempered by the feeling that they are doing work.
Incorporating personal interests
In the vein of the above area of opportunity, incorporating a student’s personal interests is one of the more reliable ways of keeping a student engaged. While visiting an elementary school this past week, we noticed that most students were very engaged in their reading. For instance, many of the students had books about the characters from the Lego world while others were reading about the orbits of planets. It seems obvious, but if there were a way for a teacher to tap into those interests in order to teach about a math concept then many students would find it more engaging. Educators have been attempting to do this for many years, but for the most part it is obvious that the introduced concept is not native to the material.
Learning skills vs material
Many students see school as simply a place they learn material. They don’t recognize the skills they can gain through the work they complete. For example, a student can learn organization and time management, invaluable skills, through the assignments they do in a class. These aren’t things that students can only learn on their own; the development of these skills can be incorporated into a classroom, through the work that is assigned and the environment the teacher creates. We think that more of an emphasis could be put into the incorporation of developing these skills through the material students learn.
Activities that work best for certain students
During our visit to an elementary school, we saw a few activities that didn’t seem to work as well for every student in the room. In one specific activity, two ELL students were playing a game with the teacher while the rest of the class did reading on their own. The teacher would place about ten index cards down on the table, each with a short word on it. She would then say the word, and whichever student pointed to the correct card first won a point. At the end of a round, the student with the most points won. The boy playing the game seemed to really enjoy it; he seemed to be at a level where he could enjoy playing the game, get something out of it, and still try to win. The girl, however, struggled with this game a lot. She panicked each time the teacher said a word and frantically pointed to as many cards as quickly as she could. With the pressure of winning, she wasn’t focusing on recognizing the words and finding the one that the teacher had just said. Because of this, the activity did not seem nearly as valuable or enjoyable to her as it was to the boy. As an observer, it seemed clear that this game only frustrated the girl and made her feel much less competent, but with all the responsibilities the teacher had, it seemed that she didn’t notice that this game was not helping one of the two students. We think it would be very valuable if there were a way for teachers to track how certain activities affect a student’s understanding of the material and improvement. With this knowledge, a teacher could more appropriately and intentionally design activities to fit specific students.
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