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Homework And Multicultural Students Article

¶ … Teachers Reality Barriers to Providing Quality Homework in a Multicultural School Community

Teaching in a multicultural school community can be fraught with both barriers and opportunities. Diverse multicultural classrooms are becoming the norm as the world continues to globalize as well as the population becomes more unequal relative to income and resources. Many teachers have to deal with both aspects of diversity. Diverse student populations are defined in their departure from mainstream society by either language, cultural, or class differences as well as some combination of these factors. In these environments, homework can be an effective tool in many regards. Not only does it further the ability to learn materials outside the classroom, but it can also be used as a diagnostic tool as well to identify different students' needs. This analysis will conduct a brief literature review to identify some of the benefits of using homework to mitigate challenges found in a multicultural school community, as well as provide a brief discussion of the best practices relative to designing homework activities.

Benefits of Homework

There are many benefits of using homework as a prominent tool in a multicultural school environment. One benefit is that students can work at their own pace. In a multicultural environment,...

For example, there are some learning differences that can be based on culture and ethnicity. One study found that Arab and American have different learning preferences; Arab students preferred significantly more rigid structure and a preference for significantly more interaction with their instructors compared to American students while a negative correlation was found between self-efficacy and structure for the American group (Al-Harthi, 2010). It is reasonable to suspect that other learning preference can be found among different demographics and cultures among students.
Homework can also provide a diagnostic tool for teachers to establish a base line for student learning and track progress; some researchers have found that homework correction techniques can help teachers devise new intervention strategies, and orient their teaching towards students' real needs (Ignat, 2013). Furthermore, if homework is employed effectively, it also represents an opportunity for students to develop self-learning strategies, as students can become aware of their own failings and their learning styles. Homework in some classroom cultures has shifted from the teachers' perception of it as a…

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References

Al-Harthi, A. (2010). Cultural Differences in Transactional Distance Preference by Arab and American Distance Learner. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 257-267.

Durden, T. (2008). Do Your Homework! Investigating the Role of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Comprehensive School Reform Models Serving Diverse Student Populations. The Urban Review, 403-419.

Ignat, C. (2013). Effective Strategies for Homework Correction in EFL Classes. The Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education, 107-116.

Levine-Rasky. (2009). Dynamics of Parent Involvement at a Multicultural School. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 331-345.
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