Poth

Supporting Teachers in Creating a Cultural Space in Curriculum Summary

At the semiannual educational leadership conference, a team consisting of
myself and three other education majors presented our research and program to
fellow classmates and Miami University faculty. Our conference session focused on
the need to implement a curriculum that would renew teachers ideologies about
the cultural differences of their students. Through professional development
informed by community collaborations and scholarly work, teachers will create a
deliberate space for all students to express and share their individuality and cultural
differences.

Our presentation fixated on the importance of providing the opportunity for
teachers to enhance the cultural space within daily classroom activities. We
explained that there is an increase in diverse cultures throughout the American
education system. Schools, communities, and teachers need to encourage the
exploration and celebration of cultural differences in and outside of the classroom.
We emphasized that to do so, we must develop more informed teachers, both
current and future educators.

Our program implementation is structured through professional
development workshops focused on culturally relevant pedagogy. These workshops
will provide forums for teachers to share ideas/information with one another. An
important part of our program includes teachers being paired with a partner
teacher and critiquing one another to assure that they are on the correct path
towards the curriculums overall goal: creating a deliberate space for culture in the
classroom and school as a whole.

The presentation concluded with a question/answer session, where the
audience was given time to express concerns or further questions about the
program. The majority of the discussion focused largely on the stressed importance
of allowing students to discover and form their own conclusions about different
material. We also expressed the need for teachers to convey that different cultures
are encouraged throughout the classroom, not something that the student must
reserve for outside the classroom. While our program will require a collaborative
effort and years of implementation to reach an efficient level, we hope that our
planned curriculum will provide students of every different culture the chance to
express themselves in the classroom in a way that benefits themselves and the
community surrounding them.