Diversity in my Classroom

Diversity in my Classroom

    The students I teach in my classroom are not very diverse from a sociocultural perspective. Between my three classes, I have about seventy students. Of those seventy students, I have two Asian-American students, two African-American students, one Hispanic student, and the rest are Caucasian. Furthermore, I don’t have any English language learners or students from low socio-economic backgrounds. Despite not having diversity of this type in my classroom setting, I still use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies to appeal to learners with various preferences, styles, strengths, and weaknesses. For example, I try to present information in various forms, such as via text, video, kinesthetic activities, and hands-on labs. Similarly, I assess students using projects that allow for student choice and expression in addition to more traditional written tests of content knowledge. Finally, I encourage mastery orientation and a growth mindset to provide options for sustained effort and persistence. All of these strategies are found on the UDL worksheets that accompany our lesson plans.

    Without significant diversity in my classroom, I can deliberately bring diversity into my lessons in a few ways. One way to incorporate diversity is to teach about scientists of diverse backgrounds. By teaching students about successful African, Asian, and South American scientists, I can show students that people from any background can be successful scientists. I could even assign students a project in which they must research and teach the class about a scientist. This would allow students of differing cultural backgrounds to find a scientist similar to them that they find interesting, providing them with a positive role model in science.

A second way to incorporate diversity could be to analyze scientific discoveries and events from multiple perspectives. For example, when learning about pathogens and vaccines, I could start a discussion about how exposure to pathogens and access to medicine creates inequalities, and I could have my students analyze these differing perspectives. Controversial topics can be analyzed from multiple perspectives during debates. Two of my cohort classmates and I planned a debate about the ethics of using Henrietta Lacks’ cells when we read about her for our literacy course. There are many similar topics throughout the biology curriculum, and analyzing some of these could incorporate diversity.  

Finally, I can have high expectations for all my students, irrespective of their background, and do my best to minimize stereotype threat and discrimination in my classroom. I’ve learned in our MAT program that ethnic minority students and women tend to struggle in STEM fields due to stereotype threat, but encouraging a growth mindset can combat this. I try to promote a growth mindset in my classroom by using master-oriented feedback. For example, I compliment students on their effort rather than their ability and I use second-chance learning opportunities to help students learn from their mistakes and adjust for improvement. There are many other ways to make my classroom a safe place for students of diverse backgrounds, but these are the three I can use to most naturally incorporate diversity.