Reflection on my development task from a multicultural perspective

Here I have reflected my development task that how cultural issues are evident in my sustainability course and how the cultural issues should be taken into consideration. In my reflection I have used design principles (McLoughlin and Oliver 2000) that emphasize the importance of minimizing cultural misunderstanding among teaching and learning groups.

Design principles for a culturally inclusive curriculum for online learners Principles	My reflection
Adopt an epistemology that is consistent with, and supportive of constructivist learning and acceptance of multiple perspectives.	I think that epistemology in sustainability course is authentic learning, and that should support constructivist learning and accept multiple perspectives. I think that sustainability as a task almost demands multiple perspectives.
Design authentic learning activities that build on existing knowledge, values and skills of all learning groups in the learning community. Create flexible tasks and tools for knowledge sharing to enable the notion of online learning. These tools include shared workspaces, discussion forums and other web-collaborative tools for study and social interaction.	Sustainability course aims to gain the skills and knowledge which can be applied to own personal life in order to make sustainable choices. Aim is to keep the course content flexible. Students can plan to work themselves. Students can choose the topics they want to work with and decide the working order. Tools planned for knowledge sharing in online learning are online discussion forums for working groups and blogs for writing the diary.
Establish responsive student roles and responsibilities to provide a sense of autonomy and ownership for students. This includes creating self-direction tasks and having methods that encourage students to take charge of their own learning paths.	Purpose is that work is done in self directing groups. Students plan themselves how the work is done. Roles and responsibilities in groups are agreed and they are also changing between the members. Group members will be positively dependent on each other.
Provide different forms of support, both within and outside of the learning community. This includes online help tools or provision for students to contact one another using web-based tools as well as providing flexible tutoring and mentoring roles. Another way is to provide various access means to different resources to promote students’ efforts to obtain information from multiple sources and perspectives.	There are student available for coaching who have already passed the course. Teacher is available also to provide support. Accesses to expert support is provided e.g. with online discussions. Groups have also online discussion forums and the blogs they are writing will be commented by other groups. Also the public presentations are arranged in common discussions online.
Provide flexibility in learning goals, outcomes and assessment modes. Using learner contracts with mature students or guidance.	The product will be a refined article to the magazine. Assessment will be integrated with the activity; there will be no separate testing. There are multiple measures of learning during the course, e.g. collaboration and article.