Methods to Integrate Diversity into the Classroom Structure

TEACHER CLASSROOM GOALS AND ORGANIZATIONAL TECHNIQUES

Teacher Goals Organizational Techniques

To acknowledge students’ cultural, linguistic, academic, social, and developmental needs when facilitating learning events

Adapt lesson plans, instructional strategies, and instructional resources to meet the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students

Anticipate and develop ways to connect lesson content with students’ prior knowledge

Provide a balance of instructional strategies to meet students’ cognitive preferences

Schedule the sequence of classroom events and time given to particular activities to meet students’ developmental needs

To use physical resources to accommodate students’ individual and group needs, ability differences, linguistic skills, and friendship choices

Organize the classroom physically in ways that provide multiple opportunities for students to select to work and communicate with others of the same race, ethnic, linguistic, and gender groups, as well as diverse groups

Provide small group collaborative work and resource areas

Create large group community building spaces

Anticipate how the room’s physical arrangement affects movement patterns, access to shared materials, and opportunities to develop interpersonal relationships.

Sheets, R.H. (2005). Diversity Pedagogy. New York, NY: Peterson Education