Last week I had the chance to share my findings with my classmates. It was an interesting experience, I presented my inquiry with my colleagues Michelle and Karla, whose blogs can be found here:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/kwelaxtelot/
We presented our inquiries under the common theme of “Developing a holistic pedagogy that nurtures and creates opportunities for all learners in a diverse classroom.” Karla has been looking into how to integrate a Stó:lō way of knowing into her practice, while Michelle has been investigating how to involve diverse students in classrooms. Our original idea of a common thread was suggested by our teacher David – that in making a classroom more accessible for one group, a teacher is in fact helping other groups as well. His analogy was wheelchair ramps being designed for people in wheelchairs, but they also benefit the elderly, people with strollers, skateboarders, etc. As we presented our ideas, comments from the group suggested that perhaps our common theme is also one of teachers using their students as resources to build a pedagogy of diversity.
The feedback that I received from the research that I presented was also valuable. My colleagues were interested in several of the ideas. The Takeuchi study on student groups was met with great interest, and the discussion extended to student-teacher relationships, and how these are culturally-specific. We also discussed the idea of incorporating students’ first language in the classroom. Many of my colleagues are using English as an additional language, and were able to comment on this idea from personal experience. We talked about our various experiences with teachers and students in regards to language use. It was interesting to see how universal many of these themes were, and how others were able to make connections to their own inquiries.
Supporting Mother Tongue is something that the PYP encourages all schools to do – it is often in the evaluation visit reports as a recommendation of something to develop further. That said, it is something that many of us struggle with – knowing how to do it effectively. I am interested in what the people in your group who use English as an additional language said about this. Perhaps this could be how you develop your ideas while on practicum – How do we effectively support Mother Tongue?