Diversity: The Changing Face of American Classrooms

3.1 Identify the different dimensions of student diversity. Explain how these dimensions will influence your work as a teacher.

• Culture and ethnicity, Socioeconomic status, Physical and emotional maturity, Personality, Gender, Learning capability, Location (rural, urban, suburban), Language, Religion, Learner exceptionalities
• These dimensions will create many opportunities and challenges as a teacher. It will provide a means of personal growth as a teacher and impose opportunities for understanding and compassion. It will garner chances to teach students about commonality and difference and gain a better sense of it myself. It will teach me to appreciate diversity even more and perhaps even appreciate the challenge in working among such diversity. There will be many challenges. Some students may not be willing to learn or have other things to worry about. Political correctness could become an issue. Choosing where to place my focus or staying on task could be difficult if some students need a lot of extra help. Learning how to respond to all these differences will influence how well the students learn, how they feel about school, and my own enjoyment of teaching.

3.2 Why is an understanding of different teaching and learning environments important for beginning teachers?

• Understanding the differences between different environments will be beneficial in choosing the best suited place to teach for individual teachers. It will also help prepare them for the challengesnand give them a general understanding of what to expect when they step into the classroom for the first time.