Monica Davis, UNC Learning Center – Pedagogy Seminar

“Transforming Instruction By Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment: Pedagogical Best Practices”

I invite participants to consider this thought:

“Teachers’ [educational leaders’] cultural competence holds a great potential to positively influence student learning. Teachers can successfully nurture the gifts inherent in each student by implementing instructional strategies that foster respectful intergroup relations and counter the effects of poverty and institutional prejudice.”  (A Classroom of Difference, 2007) 

In this session, the goals and core components of two emerging instructional models in education — A Classroom of Difference and Conscious Discipline — will be used to promote the cultivation of respectful, inclusive, and safe learning environments to build understanding of the value and benefits of diversifying learning experiences. The goals of the model that will be central to this discussion are:

1) Improve intergroup relations through self-regulation,

2) Encourage relationship-building using instructional best practices,

3) Develop a compassionate classroom culture by changing our response to conflict and difference.

The aim of the session is to expose participants to key components extracted from the Classroom of Difference and Conscious Discipline learning models by exploring strategies that can be implemented during instruction and lesson planning to foster culturally sensitive spaces where all community members take an active role in the learning process and have an opportunity to learn as much about themselves as they do about others.