Respond to at least 2 of your peers by asking a thoughtful follow-up question

Respond to at least 2 of your peers by asking a thoughtful follow-up question. Review any replies before adding your own to ensure your follow-up question is unique.

EBONY

Analyze the diversity considerations that are relevant to teaching in human services. Describe how you would consider diversity in your teaching, course planning, and assessment.

Connecting with different people in a meaningful and important way so that you can relate to them without being judgmental is vital to teaching in human services. When teaching, you must be around many different cultures, ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic statuses. Therefore, bringing people together from diverse backgrounds and cultures creates a learning atmosphere that acknowledges the differences between them and appreciates and celebrates them (Tan, 2019). My professional experience in social work and my time in the military have taught me that no matter how similar people may look on the outside, everyone is different in their way. Recognizing this is a crucial aspect of being able to lead and teach. Consequently, how diversity would be incorporated into teaching, course planning, and assessment is to get to know those being taught, have a clear line of communication, and, most importantly, acknowledge and maintain a level of respect for each student. Likewise, it has been found that to promote academic success and retention of students is to create an all-encompassing learning environment (Moreu et al., 2021).

Describe your own cultural identity and explain how this identity could shape your teaching and interactions in the classroom.

My cultural identity is being a southern African American female. Although my family is mixed race, I relate more to the African American side as that is who I have primarily been raised around. The traditions I was taught also came from the African American side of my family, and the main one that stands out to me is to protect one another and always look out for those struggling. In addition to being an African American, I was blessed to be raised in a middle-class family. I was expected to maintain good grades and behavior so that my family would not be looked at in a certain way. Where we lived, we were always the only non-white family in the neighborhood. When it comes to religion, my cultural identity is questionable. My family experimented with different faiths, from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Islam. So, I need clarification on faith to relate or commit fully to one religion. With that being said, my cultural identity would be to help shape how I teach and interact with people in the classroom by listening and understanding the individual. I would also foster an environment where questions are welcomed and answered so that the student will still feel that respect is reciprocated back to them. Similarly, as my family would do, I try to ensure that no one is left struggling and understands what is being taught.

References

Moreu, G., Isenberg, N., & Brauer, M. (2021). How to promote diversity and inclusion in educational settings: Behavior change, climate surveys, and effective pro-diversity initiatives. Frontiers in Education, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.668250

Tan, T. Q. (2019). Principles of inclusion, diversity, access, and equity. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 220(Supplement_2), 30–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiz198

VINCENT

Analyze the diversity considerations that are relevant to teaching in human services. Describe how you would consider diversity in your teaching, course planning, and assessment.

When you are presenting, teaching, or instructing you must always consider your audience because everyone does not have the same background, upbringing, history, beliefs, family dynamics, or family structures. This should be the foundation for all learners to know and have the ability to relate and connect or bridge the gap to connect when considering teaching in human services. According to Azzopardi (2020) “whether at the individual, family, group, organization or community level of practice, it is fundamental for emerging social workers to begin the ongoing process of developing and demonstrating a complimentary blend of cross-cultural awareness, values, knowledge and skills necessary to work effectively across diverse social locations and intersectional identities. The manner and degree to which social work education fosters cultural sensitivity and responsivity and the extent to which it successfully translates into professional practice, however, continue to be pivotal issues with which students and educators grapple” (pg. 465).

Describe your own cultural identity and explain how this identity could shape your teaching and interactions in the classroom.

As a human service professional practitioner, my goal would be to be mindful and creative enough to create an atmosphere that will provoke a level of comfort that would enable some to understand and could relate to and would be open to connecting and participating. In describing my cultural identity and how my identity could shape my teaching and interactions in the classroom would be there will be young men and young women that look like me and can be inspired. In some settings, some educators are unable to relate and connect and sometimes are often frustrated. It’s not saying that they can’t connect or relate it’s sometimes there are challenges. It was stated by Johnson et. al., (2020) “one instructor noted his struggle with understanding the perspective of students from other cultures and how to incorporate that perspective into the class. This instructor states: It’s still hard for me to figure out how a minority student might perceive the history that we’re talking about” (pg. 23). At the beginning and the end day my goal would be to inspire, educate, uplift, motivate and change the bad views that have been taught to change the minds of those who are open to receive.

Reference

Azzopardi, C. (2020). Cross-Cultural Social Work: A Critical Approach to Teaching and Learning to Work Effectively across Intersectional Identities. British Journal of Social Work, 50(2), 464–482. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcz169Links to an external site.

Johnson, C. C., Middendorf, J., Rehrey, G., Dalkilic, M. M., & Cassidy, K. (2014). “Who am I to bring diversity into the classroom?” Learning communities wrestle with creating inclusive college classrooms. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 14(4), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v14i4.3895Links to an external site.