It is very likely that, for a number of reasons, many teachers in our schools often overlook the unique traits of each individual student. This is not just a Malaysian phenomenon - teachers worldwide exhibit this tendency. Why do you think this is the case?

Leslie Harris in the story above made use of online conversations as a way of encouraging students from different racial and cultural backgrounds to encourage full participation and engagement on topics that many of them would have found uncomfortable in a face to face discussion. Her view and caution was that the Computer Mediated Instructional (CMI) environment led to more frank and forthright conversation and her caution was for teachers to moderate in such a way as not to kill the discussion, but to manage it in a way that it does not get out of hand.

With increasing availability of personal computers and affordable connectivity, teachers in our schools have a number of tools at their disposal to cope with diversities in their classrooms. The instances of such utilisation are yet to become common place. But as we become increasingly aware of the many ways in which individuals learn, and as policy makers become familiar with the potential of the various available technologies, there will be increasing expectations that the classroom will become a supportive environment for all learners. Early during his presidency, President Bush of the USA started the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for his country. One outcome of the policy was to make classrooms accessible to every learner regardless of their individual traits. Technological tools became an important part of the classroom environment.

Consider some of the main points from the article:

1. Technology can support differentiated instruction - different individuals encode information through different stimuli (e.g. auditory and visual). Teachers can take differentiated approaches to best exploit an individual's strengths. Many technology resources to support differentiated instructions are already available in schools e.g. word processors, graphics software web resources through which students can gather, respond to and benefit from at their own pace.

1. Some of the tools that are available include:

a. Talking text - e.g. Appleworks.
b. Web resources - these are increasing in numbers all the time.
c. Graphic organisers -.e.g maps.
d. Word processors.

2. The future promises even more technologies to help teachers efforts to teach and support children approaching learning with different abilities and styles.  Between the time when authors wrote the article and 2012, a lot more technologies have become available.  Smart phones, iPads and touch screens provide an even greater number of options, as do voice synthesizing and recognition technologies.

3. Movement towards universal design, which calls for all computer-based learning materials to be flexible enough to support all learners.

Table 5.1 below illustrates ways in which teachers have used technologies in addressing diversity in the classrooms to support personalised learning.

Purpose	Technology Bases techniques	Non Technology based methods
Announcement	LMS or email push	flyer, email, or phone
Overview session	email Webinar	traditional classroom
Self-paced learning	Web-based tutorial e-books simulations	articles books workbooks with "if-then" decision tables
Query resolution	email FAQ instant messenger	face-to-face meeting with expert
Assessment	simulations	print test
Collaborative session	webinar chat	role-playing with peers
Practice	simulations	role-playing with peers
Feedback and closing session	email webinar	traditional classroom

Table 5.1 Different ways in which teachers have used ICTs to support individual learners.
Source: P. Valiathan in Blended Learning Models (http://www.neiu.edu/~sdundis/hrd490/blndedmdls.pdf)

General principles

1. Treat students as individuals whose identities are complex and unique.

For example, you can ask open-ended questions to solicit students' reports of their experiences or observations without calling on a student to speak for his or her race/gender/culture. Also, learning to pronounce all of the names correctly shows respect for varied backgrounds.

2. Encourage full participation while being aware of differences which may influence students' responses.

For example, you can make eye contact with everyone, increase your wait time to include less assertive and/or more reflective students, ask questions that draw out quieter participants or challenge dominant students in small groups, or talk with students outside of class to provide encouragement.

3. Vary your teaching methods to take advantage of different learning styles and to expand the repertoire of strategies tried by each student.

For example, you can foster peer relationships with in-class collaboration, include concrete examples whenever possible, use visual or dramatic presentations, or value personal knowledge and experience when students share it.

4. Promote a respectful classroom climate with egalitarian norms and acceptance of differences.

For example, you can encourage student projects involving diverse perspectives, discuss guidelines or ‘ground rules' for good participation, and monitor language use for implicit assumptions, exclusions, or overgeneralisations.

5. Be aware of possible student anxiety about their performance in a competitive environment such as Carnegie Mellon's but try not to ‘overprotect'.

All students - including those whose personal or cultural histories may include being a target of stereotypes and discrimination - need clear standards and evaluation criteria, straightforward comments on their work delivered with tact and empathy, and early feedback so that they can change their learning strategies or get help if needed.

Avoiding common problems

1. Avoid highly idiomatic English.

Idioms are especially confusing for non-native speakers of English or any student who may have been raised in another country or another region of the U.S. While the expressions may be colourful, many students may miss an important concept if the phrase in unfamiliar (e.g. "once in a blue moon," "between a rock and a hard place").

2. Provide some linguistic redundancy.

Many students, particularly non-native speakers of English, benefit from both seeing and hearing language (e.g. through the use of the blackboard or overhead projector) and from hearing key ideas stated in different ways.

3. Use diverse examples rather than ones which assume a particular background or experience.

Examples that come easily are often those which come from our own experiences. Make sure you do not consistently assume all your students share that experience. For example, notice when many of your examples are based on cultural or regional knowledge, hobbies favoured predominantly by one gender, or political or historical knowledge unfamiliar to those from other countries.

4. Do not assume that students who do not talk do not know the material.

Being quiet in the classroom and not 'showing off' are considered respectful in many Asian cultures. For some women and people of colour, silence in the classroom may have been learned in response to negative experiences with participation (e.g. being interrupted by others, not getting credit for their ideas, having others talk to them in a condescending or dismissive way).

5. Watch the type of humour that occurs in your classes to be sure it denigrates no one.

A surprisingly large number of jokes involve putting down people who are different in some way and who may already feel marginal because of those differences. For more about classroom humour, see page 30 of Collected Wisdom.

Source: Freeland, R (1998) Collected Wisdom: Strategies & Resources for TAs, Pittsburgh, PA: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, Carnegie Mellon.
Extracted from http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/trynew/checklist-studentdiversity.html