Designing Pedagogies For Diverse Students Using Multimodal Resources

Pedagogies for Diverse Students

Question:

Discuss About The Traditional Literacy Diverse Student Needs?

The world is turning more diverse both linguistically and culturally with every passing day. The teachers in the classrooms are facing more challenges with the students from diverse backgrounds. The multimodal resources are a great method of designing the pedagogies for the students who come from diverse backgrounds and have difficulties in learning (Mills 2013). The primary challenge is felicitating the identification of the diverse resource that can be offered to the students, while at the same time, the access to the specific content and the official discourses of the curriculum should be enabled. Australia is a country of several ethnicities and languages, the teachers tend to experience diverse students from all over the world. The diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages have characterized the educational contexts of Australia. The educational pedagogy in Australia has been designed so that it can provide the primary cultural and social education to the young children and the students in the later ages (Loughran 2013). English is mostly chosen as a common language for teaching and learning. As globalization has influenced all the possible sectors of life, the educational sector is no exception to that. The new literacy trends have adopted the multimodal approach within the classroom because this can be a major source of creativity and resourcefulness for both the students and teachers (Craft et al. 2014). There are several audio, visual and kinesthetic models available such as wiki, animated video, PowerPoint/Prezi, E-book, applications etc that can be utilized for the learning process. This essay will trigger the different sources of designing pedagogies and develop the teaching process.

Designing is the procedure which gives the shape to the purpose and interests for the maketing for the assumed audience by utilizing the accessible semiotic resources. In this context, the concept of designing to the educational pedagogy tends to give rise to the alternate approaches to the primary questions of identifying and accessing. As stated by Cochrane et al. (2014) the designing is a semiotic work which motivates each of the acts of meaning by making the points for identifying the principles of learning along with the materials with which the teaching will be done. In other words, it can be said that the concept of designing identifies the creation of the resources in large number which makes a significant meaning. This concept is also about assembling and choosing the resources in accordance to the individual requirements and the perception about the context. The learners tend to receive several signs across such semiotic modes which are drawn from several represented resources as well (Goodyear and Casey 2015). The traditional classrooms have changed with the course of time and several new technologies are being utilized for designing the pedagogies for students. The multimodal classrooms are a new way of teaching students while using different multimedia services. However, it is very much necessary that the knowledge and the discourse of the particular discipline are accessible.

Designing Pedagogies using Multimodal Resources

Figure: New Literacy and Diverse Student Needs

The discipline specific knowledge can be described as a particular set of comprehensions which is not confined in a particular field; rather it is more than the basic knowledge of the subject. This can also be considered as the knowledge which is specified to the particular discipline but defined as a specialist in the area. This knowledge is significant for the students to learn as in their later life, they may require fundamental and particular knowledge on a subject for pursuing their career (Starkey et al. 2016). This pedagogy can be designed in different ways. There can also be different learning environments such as lecture within the classrooms, laboratories or within the learning environments integrated with practical work. However, the teacher can design this pedagogy by using different multimodal resources as well. The class environment can also be cloud located if the classroom is an online one. If the teacher is conducting any tutorials other than the scheduled tutorials, he or she can conduct the class online as well. For this pedagogy, the students can be given multiple choice questions where they have to choose only one correct answer among three or four choices. These kinds of question papers generally consist of a single question followed by three or four choices of same kind. For the design specific knowledge and capabilities, the learning environment integrated with work can be the most effective one as it can provide the students a genuine learning environment which may represent the real work to them (Hughes and Keith 2015). Other than multiple choice questions, there can be essay or practical examination for this specific genre. Within the practical environment, the teachers will be capable of assessing the practical knowledge of the students.

Figure: Design specific thinking

For this particular pedagogy, the teacher can design a multiple choice question on the basis of a practical examination that has been held previously. The students have to appear for an online test for half an hour which will consist of different questions regarding the practical examination. This can be applicable at any discipline which will help the students to gain more knowledge about a specific design. The teacher can utilize a jig-saw model approach for this teaching as well. The entire classroom can be divided into five groups with different topics given individually. The teacher can ask the students to research on specific topics on their own; therefore share with the other students with same approach. They can also come back to their previous group and share their learning and findings. Therefore, the students can be given multiple choice questions on their subjects that will help the teacher to review their knowledge.

Traditional and Digital Literacy

Frey and Palmer (2017) has stated that the changing strategies and roles of utilizing the computer and information technology within the classroom are supported by the new trend of learning and teaching at the secondary level. The classroom interactions, selected activities or the instructional activities within the classroom setting can be very helpful in this context as well. However, if the students are utilizing the multimodal resources without any proper instruction or narrative structure, they tend to become unfocused (Dannels et al. 2014). Therefore the teachers require supervising by imposing an organized structure for making the classroom activities more productive.

For designing this pedagogy, the teacher must understand that the communication between teacher and students is a two-way process. The communication should be interactive and the students should be valued in the communication. After entering the classroom, the teacher will divide the students in small groups of two to three students. Each of the group will have to do a double entry journal. After they are done with their journals,economics can collaborate and communicate their ideas with the teacher and the rest of the class. The students will be given access to the computers and internet if they want to search for any information. Each of the team will be given a topic, therefore on one side of the journal, the students have to write the information they get on the topic. On the other side they have to write whatever they think about the information. This pedagogy can be very effective for literature learning, where the students will be given a piece of reading and a question and they have to search for information. After the journal entry is done, the students will communicate their concepts and information. Here the teacher can put more valuable information. The most effective part of this pedagogy is that the students can communicate with each other with their ideas and help each other with information. At the end, the teacher will also take part in the communication process and help them to learn.

Figure: Classroom Communication

The Australian MCEECDYA report has stated three kinds of digital literacy: creation and sharing the information, working with the information and using the information and communication technology in a responsible way (Lankshear and Knobel 2015). Later six procedures have been included in the digital literacy such as availing, managing and examining information, creation of new understanding, conversing with others utilizing the information and communication technology etc. The digital pedagogy involves a drastic change in the traditional pedagogy with a constructivist approach where the students can create their own knowledge (Tyner 2014).

Critical Thinking

For this pedagogy, the teacher will use a teaching approach utilizing the digital story telling with the help of power point presentation and recorded voice. This electronic story books can be very much effective in increasing the motivation of the students. The teacher can use YouTube videos or create a presentation for the students as well. The video should be of minimum four to five minutes. After the video ends, the teacher will propose few questions regarding the topic. The students will participate in the discussion and share their thoughts and ideas with the class. This will improve their ability of accessing and evaluating the information along with creating new understanding.

Figure: Digital Literacy

Critical thinking is an intellectually restricted procedure which helps the individual in conceptualizing, analyzing and evaluating the information in a more active and skillful way. In other words, it can also be said that it is a kind of thinking which has the ability of assessing itself. Critical thinkers tend to raise important issues and questions, tend to formulate them more clearly (Kong 2015). This thinking procedure is a vital skill, especially within the workplace. Critical thinking can be utilized for evaluating policies, people and the other institutions which can solve many social problems. Therefore the teachers should trigger the critical thinking through the classroom activities. The following pedagogy has been designed based on the 5 step model for moving the students towards critical thinking.

The teacher will give an online game to the students. The entire lesson will be based on the Quandary game where the players need to make tough decisions which may not have any clear wrong or right answers; however each of the answer has its own consequences. Therefore this game will require several concepts and skills that can be achieved by the critical thinking. Here the teacher will tell the students about the game and ask what they think just by hearing the name. Then the teacher will play the introductory video of the game so that the students are introduced with the primary objective of the game and the teacher will clear the meaning about the name of the game. The teacher will make groups of students consisting of three or four students and start playing the game. The students will be allowed for 15 minutes to play each of the episodes. If any group of students finishes the game within the time, they can replay the episode and see how things would turn out if they make any other choice. After this playing time, the teacher will bring all the students back to the class and ask questions regarding the game. Some sample questions would be like “Why do you choose the solution?” “What is the basic difference between an opinion, a fact and the solution?” “What are the possible dilemmas while playing the game?” “How did you overcome it?”  And so on. They can also be asked to write down the key concepts about the game. The teacher can assess the learning of the students by reflecting on their writing about the key concepts. This activity will make the students think more profoundly regarding the concepts used in the game and it will also improve their problem solving skills. Later, when the students will be done with minimum of three episodes of the game, the teacher can discuss the game on the whiteboard through a introductory session. Each of the step of the game can be facilitated through discussion.

Figure: Critical Thinking and problem solving

Most of the times, the teachers tend to experience that the students are having trouble with finishing their homework as they are not dedicating much time in studies. It is possible that they are wasting a long time in playing or surfing the social media sites or watching television. The self management pedagogies will help the students to understand the importance of the realistic schedule (Ladson-Billings 2014). Therefore it will also make them utilize their time so that they can make time for their studies even after playing.  The teacher will provide them computers where they will use the excel sheet. Through this activity, the students will also learn the usage of excel along with making their daily schedule. The teacher will divide the entire classroom in groups of maximum of three or four students. Each of the team will use one computer. The teacher will give them the first ten minutes to identify what are the important works they have in one week. As this is a group work, one student can use the computer and the others can direct him or her exactly what has to be written. After making the list, the teacher should help the students to categorize the activities. They can divide the activities in different categories such as static time frame and the flexible time frame. They can also differentiate between the most important works and the ones which cannot be rescheduled. After this stage, the teacher can do the entire work on the blackboard for showing the difference between the activities and how the students should distinguish their work timings. Later the teacher can also ask questions such as ‘How important is this task?’ ‘Do you think you can finish this task within this time?’ etc. In making this schedule the teacher should leave sufficient time for the personal work as well. This will help the students to learn self management through the lesson.         

Figure: Self management

Conclusion

Designing the pedagogies for students can be very tricky sometimes, as this requires a sharp creative thinking. While enacting the narrative pedagogy, it accompanies the existing traditional educational approaches along with the new and innovative thinking approaches. In such pedagogies the new potential for teaching tends to emerge along with previous ones. In such pedagogies, the students are mostly inadvertently led to the belief that they are in a system which can offer them a safe practice. The creative thinking helps the students to think in a more empathetic way than before. The fundamental assumptions of the pedagogies provide a sense that the required information in the system are transparent and clear as they tend to experience both the theory and practical practices at the same time. The practical things are not merely the practice of the traditional knowledge; rather the practices help the students to realize that they can think on their own and their thoughts are always welcome. This pedagogies influence the students to develop their thought process as well. This essay has defined several learning methods and how the students can reflect their personal thinking within the classroom environment which will help them in their later working life.

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