BeyondLabels

Here is a useful quote from someone who has significant influence on my thoughts in the context of bilingual education - Professor Jim Cummins.

"Nowhere in this anaemic instructiuonal vision is there room for really connecting at a human level with culturally diverse students. When we frame the universe of discourse only in terms of children's deficit in English and in phonological awareness (or deficits in any other area), we expel culture, language, identity, intellect, and imagination from our image of the child. In contrast .... an instructional focus on empowerment, understood as the collaborative creation of power, starts by acknowledging the culture, linguistic, imaginative, and intellectual resources that children bring to the school"

The general focus for the talk is around ‘opening up’ education. My main area of multicultural education research is focused on pedagogy equity in the context of learning styles, education & identity and intercultural dialogue. In this talk I will explore some tensions and opportunities between multicultural education, learning styles and Web 2. Give you an insight into my experiences in integrating learning diagnostics into the teaching process and finally share some lessons I have learnt. Some broad but central questions for my collaborative research are: (1)How do you deal in an equitable way with the increased diversity in our classrooms? (2)How can we deal with discriminatory practice in our teaching and learning process? (3)And finally how can we use technology to enable pedagogy equity? Being a teacher in the University sector it is clear we have moved a long way in supporting diversity but as we all operate directly or indirectly in ever increasing globalised society/communities this has significantly influenced the form of the educational provision required. The diversity in our communities and institutions requires proactive responses towards equality and this has to be in-tune with our regional communities. With no change in educational practice the implications of diversity may be oppressive to many. Many policy documents from the EU also call for greater integration between informal to formal learning and it is viewed that technology has an instrumental role in widening opportunities for people and meeting regional priorities. In addition understanding the informal and formal learning process and supporting integration between them also offers the opportunity to increase understanding of the changing needs of business and the community. For my research specific to ethnic minority groups and social migrants, and as a teacher, I feel undertaking community based education offers provides knowledge to increase depth of understanding of changing society needs for marginalised groups with high risk of being disadvantaged in our communities and in the workplace Before moving into the education perspective we should also consider some important milestones in England that informs and influences my research perspective. •Scarman Report (1981) - Commission as a response to understanding what was termed the race riots across the England. Did not find evidence for institutional racism and rejected •Swann report (1985) – ‘Diversity within unity’ and the need to identify common values and norms. Racism was seen as a major barrier to education for all. •Stephen Lawrence (1999) Enquiry – A response to the death of an innocent man in the ‘hands’ of the police that led to the MacPherson report. Institutional racism accepted as being in our organisations and institutions The above states the driving questions for the research and the climate that re-enforces the need for multicultural education research to enable changes to pedagogy practice in our classrooms and workplaces. So why multicultural education and learning styles? The rationale is to directly deal with the balance between the teaching and learning process. Multicultural education is viewed as a pedagogic perspective (critical anti-discriminatory perspective) and based on teaching styles. Even though the learner is integral to the pedagogic practice this is clearly based, in most instances, on teaching style and approach. Learning styles is view as integral to multicultural education provision and there is a lack of research directly exploring multiculturalism and learning styles. This talk is about exploring learning styles through using learning diagnostics as an intervention to raising awareness of learner needs in the multicultural pedagogic design process. This has the potential to deal positively with increasing diversity and education for all.

So I have got there MC-DIP Question set now complete, and uploaded to Plone project site, for those I have been working with on the project - Al, Anna, Mike, Steve etc.. Massive task as the diagnostic cuts across three theoretical lenses - Multicultural education, learnign styles and creativity. The logic behind the questions sets that the diagnostic software will be built around is supporting pedagogy equity for educators and learners. In the environment I work in an imbalance on the teacher and on the Web you can see in many circles an imbalance on the learner through what is frequently termed 'autonomous learning'. The Diagnostic 2.0 software is about intervening for positive educational action for social change and hence fits well with much of the e-learning 2.0 developments and for me logical fit with Knownet software apps.

Just a little more on the background need for such an approach and underpinning thoughts. .....

For me the challenge is to create learning environments that maintain the cultural integrity of every person while enhancing their educational success. At the classroom level, culturally responsive teaching essentially involves using students’ cultural experiences and background as a medium for helping them learn important academic skills. There has also been a general agreement that the development of individual cultural identity is a major process of acceptance of the cultural norms, beliefs, attitudes and values of one cultural group rather than another. Hence multicultural education is important and necessary in order for students to be able to develop personal autonomy. To create inclusive education we need learning environments to re-configure to be in a proactive position to support diversity and equality.

Thats enough for now.. Will be posting over next week specifically on Multiculturalism, Learning Styles and eLearning 2.0 from how I see things..

This article by Jana Noel (California State university, Sacramento) examines the idea that students construction of identity can be linked to their understandings of multicultural education. This article was written from the prespective of the teacher/educators in the sense that they need to have a good understanding of why our students have such a wide range of definitions of multicultural education. This article ties in really well with my PhD in the sense that, one of my dimension is looking at the identity implication form the learner perspective as well as teacher's perspective. There are not as many discussion around in terms of teacher's identity compared to learners's identity.

Jana discussed how she found out for the first time from her 'student teacher' ......" I don't need to take Multicultural Education, because I'am in Agricultural and we feed the world". Such perception about multicultural eduation is and if it is part of the 'student teacher' thinking has made Jana more determined to gain a better understanding of why her students have such a different understanding of multicultural eduation.

Recent event in the north England. On going collaboration with EMCI. Always fun and amazing theatre education for children and powerful message below the fun.............. bridging learning styles and theatre/performance loads of potential and needs more exploration 

According to Hanh (1991), in order for reflection to lead to transformation, one needs to engage in the practice of mindful contemplation which requires one to look deeply at/into the issues that one confronts. By doing so, you are able to see how self and other "inter-are". Hanh points out that "Roses and garbage inter-are"...read the following pharasing........ "If we look more deeply we will see that in just five or six days, the roses will become part of the garbage. We do not need to wait five days to see it. If we look at the rose, and we look deeply, we can see it now. And if we look at the garbage can, we see that in a few month its contents can be transformed into a lovely vegetables, and even a rose. If you are a good organic gardener, looking at a rose you can see the garbage, and looking at the garbage you can see a rose." (1991, p.97) Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk. The difference between Freire and Hanh, noted by Hook (1994) is that while Freire speaks mostly to the mind, Hanh's vision of pedagogy emphasizes "wholeness, a union of mind, body and spirit". Therefore an "engaged pedagody" is a process of healing the splits, of developing integrity of interbeing between theory and practice, intellect and spirit, teacher and student, and embarking on a process of transformation in which being-in-the classroom is recognized as part of being-in-the-world and vice versa.

800,00 school students took action in Chile on Wednesday of last week.. Over 100 schools involved and supported by some universities. Students demaingin free travel to school and no college entrance exam fees... and restructuring of education system meeting needs of students as opposed to private sector interests. The movement most obvious on the streets of Santiago. The change in feelings may be in part influenced by Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. Irrespective of views on his approach there is clearly support for public services and the needs of the poor and yes this seems to be creating winds blowing in the America's Can across a demonstration banner in Santiago with the words.... "be realistic, demand the impossible" - May 1968 Paris rising...

I am fascinated by all the PLE's push but the part that works most for me is the distributed and uncontrolling edge to the moves in this area. But at the same time the individualist push may also be seen to be driven from a technology driven culture. As often happens I feel with learning environement apps developed by technical and tested with users who may be learners of some sort. Mike mentioned 'this is suttle stuff' and totally agree and how can we engage educators. Questions for me ... is this movement being driven by the current european constructivist type edge. In parts seems to be. What about educators more interested in intervension through education - positive actiion for social change. Clearly some of the tools ideal for this but 'sutble' is the word and how can we project this to educators and educators who are not coming with the view to learners as just get on with it type approach. Self organising groups with appropriate interventions based on collective choice is where I am keen to explore more... How do you manage the collectivity and diversity?

The short motion graphics of myself, produced by Rob Chiu, is compiled from a few different times/events that provides an insight in areas of activity but just as importantly a tool for me to explore and reflect. This approach is used as a means to illustrate where I want to push the BeyondLabels initiative with friends and partners. The main focus needs to remain routed in multicultural education as a critical pedagogic approach but also reach out to partnering areas related to social change and direct action related to exclusion.

Multicultural education and diagnostics as a means of supporting the learning in the educations experience is an area that needs exploring. In particular major research project have been undertaken into personal and group learning needs and how the way people learn, based on individual preferences, directly impacts on education performance (Dunn & Dunn, 1997).

An issue that has always been a problem for educational institutions is how to apply many of the learning styles techniques to large groups and mass education. Technology is undertaking an important role in making learning styles possible for large group sizes and also as a means of enabling teachers to connect again with learners. For example have a picture of detailed profile of individual learners and potential impact on group dynamics has great potential. Learning diagnostics tools are important as enablers and as it indicates diagnostics is view as next generational tools to say Honey & Mumford style 'learning inventories'. As learning diagnostics indicates there is a need for profiling but diagnosing as a means of supporting pedagogy of equity. MC-DIP as an initiative is further developing this an on-going initiative led by the University of Huddersfield. Also Knownet are transforming existing software into a web services application.