Inclusive Excellence: Using Diversity as a Tool to Achieve Learning Outcomes

Community college teachers are continually challenged to help their students learn, especially when students bring a wide range of educational issues to the classroom.  The sobering reality, however, is that many students do not succeed.  Educational experts are now focusing more and more on the fact that while teaching is occurring in a classroom, learning isn’t always the result.  Each classroom of students brings its own unique challenges, but also its own opportunities.  In Inclusive Excellence: Using Diversity as a Tool to Achieve Learning Outcomes a learnshop offered by the Maricopa Center for Learning and instruction (MCLI), faculty participants are encouraged to use the diversity inherent in their classrooms to their advantage to help their students to learn and achieve.

Using theories of intercultural competence, multicultural education, and intellectual and ethical development the facilitators work with faculty to help them understand and create effective multicultural classrooms.  The initial learnshop focuses on two ways to use diversity to drive learning:

• Being able to understand the cultural contexts of students so that faculty can more effectively facilitate learning in individual students, and
• Using the diversity of the students in a classroom, as well as within the discipline, to help students achieve desired learning outcomes such as critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Facilitators Stephanie Fujii, Eric Haas, and Tanisha Johnson-Maxwell have facilitated a number of MCLI learnshops on the topic of diversity and multicultural education.  In this latest learnshop they worked with MCLI to create an a-la-carte style format in order to better allow time-strapped faculty the opportunity to participate.  New participants take the initial learnshop to learn the different models and the overall philosophy of the series, and gain an initial exposure to particular teaching strategies.  After that, participants can select follow-up workshops that focus on particular topics.  For example, the first follow-up, Inclusive Excellence: Equity Pedagogy Workshop I, took place last Spring semester and focused on equitable teaching strategies.  As more faculty participate they will be able to try new ideas and then share their experiences with a community of interested faculty.

The learnshop and follow-up sessions are offered both Fall and Spring semesters.  The next learnshop will take place September 23rd and 30th from 2:30-5:40 pm at MCC in the Southwest Reading Room.  Interested faculty can register at: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/learnshops/inclusive/

Contributed by Eric Haas, Psychology SCC