Dr. Karen Bates and Dr. Deborah Larson ______________________________________________________________________________
Embracing Diversity –Professional Development Heightens Awareness of Economically Disadvantaged Learners Teachers are highly cognizant of the fact that elementary classrooms today have a wide range of students, in terms of abilities, personalities, and motivations. Students also come from all types of families, representing varying parental arrangements, cultural backgrounds and socio-economic levels. Regardless of the range of students who arrive in classrooms, teachers are expected to develop a caring environment, plan instruction that advances students’ abilities and nurture students to become their best selves. As our country become increasingly diverse in nature, these are worthy but lofty expectations for teachers today. In order to help beginning teachers and teacher candidates who will become beginning teachers prepare for these lofty expectations, the authors felt it was important to incorporate professional development designed to assist novice teachers in learning more about the students populating their classrooms; we especially wanted to help our mainly middle class teacher candidates to become more knowledgeable about the backgrounds of our at-risk students in order to develop effective ways of working with and supporting them as learners and as individuals. Rationale Since we are teacher educators, we use our university’s Conceptual Framework when planning our work in developing educators. This framework, however, could also be applied to any professional development work done with adult learners, including mentoring beginning teachers in schools and districts. Our Conceptual Framework defines the philosophy, purpose(s) and goals of our work and features six “pillars” which include (1) service to society,(2) application of interdisciplinary and scholarly knowledge,(3) engagement in effective practice, (4)response to uncertainty and change, (5)reflection especially self-reflection and (6) belongingness to the professional community. (The Teachers College Conceptual Framework, Emporia State University, 2016). Underlying the Conceptual Framework are proficiencies set out for the professional development and growth of teachers and other school personnel, including diversity (The Teachers College Conceptual Framework, 2016). As former classroom teachers, we are fully aware of the need for educators to be able to respond to increasing uncertainty related to our ever-changing world; we know that there are many and variable students’ needs presented as our classrooms more and more reflect our global society. Beginning teachers need to improve communication techniques in order to develop positive learning experiences. Above all they need to work with students in such a way so they can be successful as they grow and progress toward becoming increasingly mature in this ever-widening world. All of these expectations are in service to the goal of preparing “teaching professionals.”
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