Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
diversity: turning things around
Discussions of diversity in an educational context (and otherwise?) seem to me frequently to start from a presumption, conscious or unconscious, that there is a particular place one wants everyone to get to ("knowledge that is to be utilized to successfully tackle challenges in the real world", some "useful skill to have", and the like). And it strikes me that that presumption creates a whole series of ills ("teaching to the test", difference between classroom and "real world" skills/environments) and problems (what is diversity?, is diversity productive/efficient? ) that collectively suggest it may be worth reconsidering the presumption itself. Its further my sense that taking diversity itself seriously gives us a perhaps more productive way to think about where we want people to get to.
There is clearly still work to be done in getting everyone comfortable with the idea that students are different from one another in all sorts of ways that are relevant to the classroom, but we seem to be moving toward a recognition that "neurodiversity" is, at least, a classroom phenomenon that can't be ignored. The next question is what to do with/about it, and that in turn necessarily relates to what one is trying to achieve. IF the objective is, in one way or another, to get everyone to the same particular place, then one might think of diversity as a problem that needs to be overcome, or as a tool that can potentially be employed to further the objective. In either case, though, one's objective is, to one degree or another, to reduce neurodiversity.
Maybe though that is itself the core of the problem? Maybe educational systems should both start and end with the premise that diversity is not only inevitable but desireable? Maybe
ought to be regarded as not a surprise but rather as an indication of educational success? Start with a recognition of individual differences, use those as a tool to nurture further individual differences? That would not only ensure that "programs like Kaplan would be obsolete" but, more importantly, make classrooms more interesting not only for students but for teachers as well?
Classrooms not so much to give "increased awareness of themselves and their environment" but rather to enhance distinctive abilities and perspectives? THAT might help to give a more coherent understanding of what education is all about, one that would perhaps allow one to more productively thread one's way among what are at the moment uncertainties about a lot of issues of curriculum, pedagogical practice, and institutional organization.
Addendum ("more productively thread one's way ....")