Culturally Responsive Teaching: Essential High Leverage Practice

1. High Leverage Practices (HLP) Webinar 5: Culturally Responsive Teaching: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners

2. Disclaimer This content was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, Award No. H325A120003. David Guardino serves as the project officer. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or polices of the U.S. Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, or enterprise mentioned in this website is intended or should be inferred.

3. Facilitator Introductions                 Pam  Wetherington, Ed.D. Melissa K. Driver, Ph.D. Kate             Zimmer, Ph.D.     DaShaundaPatterson, Ph.D. Neporcha Cone, Ph.D.

4. Poll Time! • Select the option that best describes your role: • Educator Preparation Provider • P-12 Teacher • Instructional/Academic Coach or Teacher Leader • School or District Leader • State or National Policy Maker • Other (please indicate in chat box)

5. Webinar Roadmap • Why are we here? • What high leverage practice will we focus on today? • What resources are available for these HLPs? • What’s next?

6. Our Mission & Partners

7. Georgia's Systems of Continuous Improvement Framework

8. MTSS & HLPs

9. High Leverage Practices • HLPs are identified as specific teacher practices that are likely to result in improved student outcomes.

10. What high leverage practice will we focus on today?

11. For Today • HLP #18 - Use strategies to promote active student engagement through the approach of culturally responsive teaching.

12. Quick Share! When you hear the phrase ‘culturally responsive teaching,’ what words or phrases immediately come to mind?

13. What Culturally Responsive Teaching is NOT: • A rigid set of strategies • A pre-determined, or pre-packaged, curriculum • A watering down of the curriculum • A feel good approach for students from diverse background (e.g., students of color) • Only for students of some backgrounds

14. There are no quick and simple solutions, no single program or packaged interventions to train teachers to teach culturally diverse students. Any attempt to generate “tricks of the trade” must be avoided because of the complexity of the issue and because of the individual needs, motivations, experiences, and abilities of children of color.” (Irvine & Aremento, 2001)

15. Culture • Culture refers to the ways of living; shared behaviors, beliefs, customs, values, and ways of knowing that guide groups of people in their daily life and are transmitted from one generation to the next. • Culture affects how people learn, remember, reason, solve problems, and communicate; thus, culture is part of students’ intellectual and social development. Understanding how aspects of culture can vary sheds light on variation in how students learn (Gay, 2010). The Education Alliance and Brown University

16. The Iceberg A Deeper Understanding of Culture

17. Explicit, visible, and taught: Food, dress, music, dance Unspoken rules: Personal space, rules of conduct, facial expressions, nonverbal communication, body language, eye contact Unconscious rules (Hidden culture): Tone of voice, attitude towards elders, competition vs. cooperation, concept of self, Beyond Culture, Edward T. Hall, 1976

18. Reflection: Student Narrative I am completing my clinical experience in a low-income school. I have heard endless stories of parents who are not involved, students being defiant, families and students who are lazy, parents and the community being a distraction, and teachers who are not supported to teach in a dangerous environment. One of my classes has 33 students, 11 of which have an IEP. The rest of the students are low-skilled. I know that along with low skills comes bad behaviors. At this school, a number of students yell out, say and do inappropriate things, and are disrespectful to other students and adults. I am bitter about my placement and frustrated that I must deal with behavior rather than concentrate on instruction.

19. Quick Share! What are your thoughts after hearing the teacher candidate’s reflections of her field placement?

20. Our Cultural Background

21. What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

22. Culturally Responsive Teaching • Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is a mechanism by which students become leaders of their own learning

23. CRT is: • A mindset that understands and respects students’ cultures, histories, and experiences • A way to center students’ cultures, histories, and experiences in the curriculum and teaching • A disposition and behavior that engages in critical reflection and values language and culture • Having high expectations for ALL students (DREAM BIG)

24. Reflection: How might a student’s culture (gender, ability, SES, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, etc.) negatively or positively impact their opportunities to experience a “fair” chance in and out of school?

25. CRT is: • High academic achievement and other positive student outcomes • Equitable access and inclusion • Equitable treatment • Equitable opportunities to learn • Equitable resources • Accountability

26. Accountability • Assurance that all education stakeholders accept responsibility and hold themselves and each other responsible for every learner having full access to quality teaching, a challenging curriculum, full opportunities to learn, and appropriate, sufficient support for learning so they can achieve at excellent levels in academic and other student outcomes.

28. What is equity? • Reducing the predictability of who succeeds and who fails • Interrupting reproductive spaces, practices and policies that negatively impact culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse students (i.e., accountability) • Cultivating the unique gifts and talents of every student National Equity Project

29. Equity + CRT • Unpack the words and develop a shared language • Improving the learning capacity • Centers around the cognitive aspects of teaching and learning (academic mindset) • Pushes back on the dominant narrative (deficit discourses) about diverse students

30. Deficit Discourses • “Culturally deprived” • “Culture of poverty” • What’s missing from these discourses? • Acknowledgement of institutional policies, practices, traditions, and behaviors that create and exacerbate educational inequality

31. Equity & CRT • Features of “equitable” instructional practices • Leverage student'sassets (funds of knowledge) and prior academic learning • Curricula that address student strengths/assets and needs (cultural, linguistic, academic, social emotional, etc.)

32. Assets: Personal, Cultural, Community “They are existing or emerging interests and preferences, motivational inclinations, passions and commitments, attitudes, beliefs, opinions, self-perceptions, personal or collective identities, and prior experiences, knowledge, understanding, skills and competencies. When asset focused factors are present in the classroom, they are likely to lead to gap closing outcomes.” (Boykin and Noguera, 2011)

33. Quick Share! What are some key characteristics a culturally responsive teacher would exhibit in his/her classroom?

34. Cultural Responsive Teachers (CRTs) • Redefine education as equitable and social just • Are anti-racist and anti-bias critical pedagogues • Promote powerful learning communities • Challenge taken for granted assumptions • Become readers of students

35. CRTs Reshape or Restructure the Curriculum • Develop an integrated, interdisciplinary, student-centered curriculum • Inquiry-based/discovery-oriented • Provide meaningful connections between school and students’ lived experiences • Use resources other than the textbook • Challenge students to develop higher-order thinking skills

36. CRTs Facilitate Learning • Develop a learning environment that is relevant to and reflective of students' social, cultural, and linguistic experiences. • Intentionally guide, mediate, and advocate for students, helping to effectively connect their culturally- and community-based knowledge to the classroom learning experiences. • Use the students' home cultural experiences as a foundation upon which to develop knowledge and skills • Learn about students' cultures • Vary teaching approaches to accommodate diverse learning styles and language proficiency • Utilize a myriad of resources in the students' communities

37. CRTs Communicate High Expectations • Deliver a consistent message that students are expected to attain high standards in their school work. • Provide the structure for intrinsic motivation and fosters an environment in which the student can be successful. • Are specific in what you expect students to know, understand, and be able to do • Create an environment in which there is genuine respect for students and a belief in their capability

38. What Do CRTs Need to Know? • Themselves and their histories (strengths, limitations, biases)

39. What Do CRTs Need to Know? • Their students (who they are, where they come from, their hopes, their interests, their talents, their dreams) • Their students’ communities (parents, where they come from) • Communities are not a wasteland…every community has something to offer

40. Learning Students • Interviews and surveys with them and their families • Their writing (journals, daily questions, writing prompts) • Invitation of family and community to class and school activiites

41. Learning Students: Community (asset) Mapping

42. Learning Students: Critical Reflection Prompts • Students’ strengths (assets) include prior learning. Describe a recent lesson you designed to address and build on students’ prior learning (e.g., knowledge, understandings, experiences). How did you connect the lesson to students’ lived experiences? In other words, how did you make the lesson ”real” for students? • Describe an activity you planned where you deliberately incorporated students’ assets. What community assets support your students’ instruction and non-instructional development? How did these community assets support learning in your classroom? • Creating a classroom climate where all students feel valued is important. Explain some of the strategies you use to model and maintain equitable and respectful relationships. How do you handle “incorrect” responses? How do you redirect students who appear to be off-task? What do you teach your students about listening skills? Communication skills? • Why is it important to integrate multiple instructional delivery methods (and strategies) throughout a lesson? How is student engagement affected when a teacher sticks to one strategy day after day? Is there one strategy you use too often? What can you do to change your instructional delivery?

43. Basic Examples: Starting Point • Learn to say students’ names correctly • Have books and other materials around the classroom that reflects students’ backgrounds and people around the word • Learn about students’ histories, cultures, and realities • Learn about the specific students you teach • Engage respectfully in authentic family outreach • Learn about, and become engaged, in the community • Critically analyze how the school curriculum reflects the realities (or does not reflect the realities) of all students • Learn another language • Cultural and linguistic validation (speaking their words) • Dream big

44. What resources are available for these HLPs?

45. Available Resources Supporting Resources and Literature for HLP Webinar #5 • Heart Maps: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/573575702513772636/ • Teaching Diverse Learners: https://www.brown.edu/academics/education-alliance/teaching-diverse-learners/home/strategies • Rethinking Schools: https://www.rethinkingschools.org • ACSD: http://inservice.ascd.org/14-resources-on-culturally-responsive-teaching/ • Edutopia: https://www.edutopia.org/topic/culturally-responsive-teaching • Literature (i.e., scholarly articles and books)

46. What’s Next?

47. Webinar 6 • When: February 20th 3:30- 4:30pm • What: • Use Explicit Instruction, HLP #16 • To register: http://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/georgia-hlp-webinar-series/

48. Any…

49. Contact: wetheringtonpam@gmail.com