Teaching Every Ohter Day

  10/19/2012; Week 6: Response to "Differences in Emotional Expressivity."   The way people express emotions varies from one culture to another. And this is a reason why misunderstandings may occur, inclusively, while teaching.   Knowing the backgrounds of the students will help the teacher to understand their behaviors, learn to distinguish if they are learning and understand the subject, or if they are getting confused and bored.   Also, the teacher needs to evaluate if is necessary to be dynamic in the way he does things while teaching. How can the teacher discover it?   However, some conducts are passed down subconsciously, through the culture, even the students know they got them. So it is important the teacher will consider this too.   Taking this into account, it is crucial that the teacher pays attention to the students very carefully. Knowing their reactions, their tolerances, the way they show their emotions in public and in pr...

10/21/2012; Week 6: Response to "Individualism vs Collectivism."   It is necessary to understand students´ backgrounds, behaviors, and needs in order to succeed in teaching them. One aspect is to assess if they belong to individualism (stresses individual goals) or collectivism (focuses on group goals).   Being on one side or another, how do they achieve their goals? By themselves or with the help of others. How do they work better? How is their development? These questions can be answered by knowing the students.   If a teacher only approaches in a collectivist way, those individual students may not thrive in their assignments or could get bored, or even though, lose interest in the class. An individualist student will be motivated by personal rewards and benefits, so the teacher could help them by encouraging them with incentives. This type of student will work with autonomy and not part of a team.   How can the teacher integrate an individualist st...

 10/16/2012; Week 5: Response to "Culture Miscommunication." Sometimes the students come from the same culture, but not always happen that way. So it is necessary to learn about it to avoid miscommunication while teaching. The behavior, the speaking, and the way the people act vary from one country to another but from different regions from the same county.  How could the teacher know his students cultures? How could he distinguish the possible miscommunication he may encounter? The teacher has to be in touch with his students and know as much as possible about them.  After doing some research about the students cultures, the teacher will be aware of the strategies to use for teaching, the way he will speak and act in front of them and their families. Sometimes doing this could be difficult, but the more the teacher knows their students backgrounds, he will reach their goals at teaching.  The teacher must meet the needs of his students according to them and not by wh...

 10/14/2012; Week 5: Response to "Culture Differences Concerning Time." We live in a world with different time cultures. On one side, monochronic cultures value schedules, while polychronic cultures value interpersonal relationships. So is necessary to consider all of them as we prepare for teaching to thrive. Depend on the country we live in and the time culture we are in, we need to consider if the students and families have the same time culture as us. Knowing this, we can stay in tune with each other as we teach, improve communication, save time, and build better relationships. Some of the challenges a teacher can face because of these differences could be lack of attention, loss of concentration, business with many activities done at a time, boredom if they are not used to focus on only one task, the ability to use the time effectively. But how can the teacher help the students of different time cultures? How will the students take advantage of the time culture differenc...

  10/12/2012; Week 5: Response to "Cultural Paradigms."   Each head is a different world. There is no need to go abroad to find out the differences between cultures. We can encounter them within our own family, classroom, and workplace. Society has made us accept so many paradigms and has shaped our life, thoughts, and believes.   Paradigms have influenced the life of every person. They alter the way we have been teaching and teach others.   The teacher needs to be clear in the method they give data to the students, never suppose or take it for granted. However, the students should ask questions, share opinions, and not be afraid to speak it out. How will the teacher accomplish it? How will the students do it?   I think that every teacher should be open-minded, be willing to accept differences, tolerant, humble, and be friendly with new ideas. An even more important is to help the students to become the same.