As outlined in previous blogs, higher education classrooms are becoming more and more diverse. Students from minority groups in the classrooms often face significant challenges, and unfortunately not obvious to most educators. International students, as minority groups in Australia and in the classrooms, face immerse challenges that is magnified by the lack of community and family support outside of the formal education system. Some of these challenges include:
In some classes you sometimes notice students sitting on their own, away from other students. Educators often point out that international students do not take part in classroom discussions and/or ask questions etc. Did you ever find yourself in a situation where you did not know anyone, or did not fully understand the discussions, etc. It’s an uncomfortable situation even for adults, but for teenagers it can be daunting. For example in one research that I did a while ago with a number of my Confucian heritage students in my class, I noticed that they were not offering too much to group work discussions, and particularly concerning for me was that these students were happy to adopt ideas and suggestions offered by domestic Australian students. I started to look more closely at this phenomenon, and identified that even when the ideas and/or suggestions that these international students held back were in fact, in most cases, more superior to what they ended up adopting only because it had been offered by a domestic student. There are a lot more nuanced explanations to this, which might be shared in future blogs. Learning environments that recognise these challenges, and how these manifests in classrooms, and then learning activities that are designed to engage all students are more likely to bring the best in all students. In the case of group work type activities, enable a greater diversity of ideas to be addresses and interrogated. So how can we engage all learners?
Just because we are creating an inclusive curriculum does not mean that we are moving away from the Australian teaching philosophy, quite the contrary….a affair go for all!
2 Comments
Amy
18/9/2019 11:07:01 am
I agree with all the challenges experienced by international students listed here. These also apply to domestic students who move away from home for study. Thus it is important for all academics to apply various techniques to help these students settle in class and form some connections with their peers.
Reply
pranit
18/9/2019 11:28:51 am
absolutely agree, we need to design learning experiences for all students. students (all students) have things that impact on their ability to engage in studies....flexibility if extremely important
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
For more information and/or to collaborate please contact:Dr Pranit Anand Archives
December 2019
Categories |
Photo used under Creative Commons from Philippe Put