Want to be smarter? Heredity is not the barrier you might think it is, says University of Michigan social psychologist Richard E. Nisbett, PhD. After analyzing decades of intelligence research, Nisbett maintains that past studies give too much credit to heritability’s role in intelligence. Culture, social class and education, he argues, matter more, and explain racial gaps in IQ.
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What’s The Difference Between Children’s Books In China And The U.S.?
psychologist Cecilia Cheung, a professor at University of California Riverside.
Cheung notes that children in China consistently score higher on academic tests compared to children in the U.S. and Mexico. But she says more research is needed to determine how much of that is due to the storybooks or even to the larger differences in cultural values that the books reflect. Other completely unrelated factors, such as different teaching techniques could be at work.
In the meantime, Cheung says her study suggests all three cultures might have something to learn from each other.
For instance American parents might want to take a cue from Chinese storybooks and supplement their children’s reading with more tales that promote a view of intelligence as changeable.
After all, says Cheung, if you think intelligence is gained through effort, then when you’re confronted with a challenge or even an outright failure, “you just put more effort into it. You try to learn from the experience and you think about different ways of approaching the problem rather than saying, ‘No, I’m just not smart and I’m just going to give up right away.'”
Strategies for Teaching Culturally Diverse Learners
February 28, 2016 in Volume 6, Dr. Hope J. Hartman
the author explores the importance of understanding the multidimensional of cultural diversity and inclusion and how this understanding can be used by professors and instructors to more effectively develop varied instructional strategies which will allow them to teach with better cultural responsiveness. The author describes a variety of approaches she has used in highly diverse classrooms with undergraduate and graduate teacher education students.
Teaching with cultural responsiveness means applying strategies for culturally responsive teaching in my own courses. Teaching for cultural responsiveness means that students, pre and in-service teachers, should implement culturally responsive teaching strategies with their own preK-12 or higher education students.
Maturity
Both pre and in-service teachers are aware of culturally specific behavioral norms that result in discrepancies between the culture of many black students and the culture of the classroom. To address this gap, my students learn strategies for “culturally responsive social skills instruction” specifically designed for black adolescent males
Intelligence
Learning about this research helps students realize that even when they think that they are being responsive to cultural differences, they might be blinded by a cultural lens of invalid assumptions, causing them to lose sight of important cultural differences that can affect thinking and learning.
Cultural Identity
Everyone should realize that cultural stereotypes affecting identity go beyond race and ethnicity. For many people, their identity as adults is defined by their careers.
Gender identity/sexual orientation
Making LGBTQ resources and discussions a formal part of the curriculum helps to create a safe and accepting environment for the LGBTQ community, including not only people who identify as such, but also their parents, relatives, friends and teachers.