CCU 1 - Connecting Community and Culture

Citation

Brown, C.M & White, M. (2014). Connecting Community and Culture. Canadian Center of Science and Education, 3 (1), 134-139. 

Summary

This journal entitled “Connecting Community and Culture”. This research subject is sophomore-level teacher candidate at four-year, the focus aspect is environment which consists of the community, classroom, and teacher. 

This journal talks about the importance of community connection and culture for teacher candidates in this 21st century. The teacher candidate has to be aware, to be care and understand the culture and other contextual factors in the students’ surroundings like the classroom condition which must be comfortable for the students. Here, since the majority is urban students, the teacher are demanded to be able to solve the crucial problem of issues of race and diversity of different students’ background and to build a responsive classroom.

In this article, the researcher use TWS (Teacher Work Sample) to assess the teachers’ self-reflection including the step to address students who lack mastery of material by considering the community connection and culture.  The elements included in the TWS are contextual factors, learning goals, assessment plan, design for instruction, instructional decision making, analysis of student learning, and evaluation & reflection. The teacher candeidates make an implication essay containing their understanding of social context of urban students combined with learning community. It shows that the effective learning community and culture helps the students to enjoy the class because the different atmosphere makes them feel comfort. This can make the goal of education achieved by the students and teacher. 

Implication

Building the cultural awareness in the classroom is not something easy. Implementing the TWS can be a good way of learning to be an aware teacher.