An educator teaching a diverse graduate-level class aims to foster a collaborative and inclusive learning environment that accommodates various cultural backgrounds, learning styles, and abilities. She seeks to implement evidence-based strategies that not only encourage mutual respect and understanding among students but also actively engage them in the learning process. Which of the following approaches best achieves this goal by integrating principles of social interdependence theory and universal design for learning (UDL)?
✂️ a) Applying direct instruction methods, where the teacher delivers content uniformly to the entire class, ensuring all students receive the same information in a controlled environment. ✂️ b) Allowing students to self-select peer partners for collaborative projects, enabling them to work with peers they are comfortable with, thus enhancing communication and efficiency. ✂️ c) Utilizing the jigsaw classroom technique, assigning each student to become an expert on a subtopic and then teaching it to their diverse group members, fostering interdependence and valuing each member's contribution. ✂️ d) Implementing competitive group work, where students are grouped based on similar abilities and compete against other groups for rewards, motivating high performance through competition.