Teaching Cultural Diversity in a Virtual Classroom

Abstract

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing uoted at the last board meeting to add a column on cirlttirnl issues. Z am delighted to introduce the column as section editor. As Z began looking around the country for topics and authors, I attmded a workshop hosted by the People of Color Leadership Institute located in Washington, DC.Joyce Thomas, RN, MPH, moderated a panel of speakers who provided an overuiezu of topics on culturally competent mental health assessment of children.As a result of that workslzop, Z was able to invite Dr. &thy Sanders-Phillips, a psychologist who has con-duct& research on African-American arid Hispanic ad@ lescents, to speak at the Salt Diego conference, and Joyce Thomas is contributing an article on child abuse prevention and intervention in the African-Anzerican community to the journal. I7714s, what began as an idea for a coluinn in the journal has expanded into a variety of ways to enhance our practice arid cultural awareness. 1 am committed to this as a sustained focus in all of our ACAPN endeavors. focus on cultural issues in the journal was related to my teaching assignment ouer the past three years, "Health Care in Diverse Popula tiorzs," a required course for second-year nursing students. I have learned so much by being in the course and it h s furthered my resolve that knozoleiige of culture is essential fo the practice of nursing. As the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurses (ACAPN) becomes international in scope, arid as information technology connects us in a truly "global village," the possibilities for topics in the column are unlimited. M y hope is that Cultural Perspectives will attract qualify pieces that can help meet the need for content specifically related to the emotional care of children and adolescents, their families, and their communities. One of the reasons Z zuas interested in adding a specificA f t e r teaching the culture course using a combination of large lecture classes and small seminar discussion groups, a member of the teaching team attended a conference on using technology in teaching. One of the sessions demonstrated how electronic "discussions" provide an additional form of pedagogy. These on-line conversations promote writing skills, encourage a different kind of dialogue among students, and may produce interesting new learning results and interaction among students (Harris, 1995). We were fortunate that the teaching team supported the idea of pilot testing this form of teaching in the culture course.As we contemplated the idea of an on-line discussion, we examined several options. First, there is simple e-mail. Many faculty are adding e-mail to their teaching repertoire. E-mail has advantages, particularly for commuter students who have less access to faculty during office hours. E-mail is a form of "asynchronous" communication, meaning that one person sends a message at h i s h e r convenience and the receiver gets the message at his/her convenience. The disadvantage is that the ...

Using Chat Rooms in a Plant Nutrition Course: Bane or Boon?

“…nternet chat rooms provide social and technical information and interaction to the computer-literate of any age (Betzold, 1998;Heid, 1998;Jackson, et al, 1996). Weekly chat rooms linking our upper division undergraduate and graduate students with national and international plant nutrition experts in horticulture and agronomy were an integral part of a newly created course in Plant Nutrition and Nutrient Management.…”

Factors of influence on sharing of cultural heritage knowledge

“…Examining CHK sharing is necessary to allow youth to understand their value and to uphold cultural traditions, otherwise forthcoming generations will never appreciate the rich cultural heritage they inherited/have been handed. A wide range of inventive methods to educate on cultural heritage awareness have been defined in the literature, ranging from complete courses dedicated to cultural subjects (Lockhart and Resick, 1997), cultural diversity via virtual classroom (Jackson et al , 1996), heritage festivals, freedom walks, heritage trails, heritage walks, heritage awards, street plays, heritage newspapers (Herrero et al , 2012; Srivastava, 2015; Shankar and Swamy, 2013), etc. So far an effective valuation instrument that can aid different persons to ascertain their outlooks on sharing CHK was not undertaken, therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the “factors that influence on sharing of CHK.” The practical applications of the study will enable youths to identify the various factors that will influence them/on sharing of CHK.…”