Moving beyond student IDs: Strategies to support multicultural awareness in the online (and face-to-face) classroom

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. (Nelson Mandela) Over the past decade, online programmes have become an increasingly common method of learning for an increasingly diverse population of students (Allen and Seaman, 2017). One relatively recent report found that the number of students taking ‘at least one distance education course’ has reached over six million (Online Learning Consortium, 2017). As Kristen Betts writes, ‘[t]he ubiquity of technology has transformed education, making online learning part of the “new norm”’ (Betts, 2017). Students at all levels (and from a wide variety of backgrounds, demographics and cultures) are increasingly looking to online options for further education. In fact, an article exploring the challenges faced by the further education (FE) sector acknowledges that embracing technology is critical to remain ‘competitive and attractive to the wi