Culturally Responsive Teaching:

Best Practices Share Out

Jennifer Wallace-Johnson

Yezenia Lopez

September 1, 2022

Discussion: What is your definition of Culturally Responsive Teaching?

Let’s Break it Down; With Some Common Sense!

Culture =

• the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. -Oxford Languages
• the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.-Merriam-Webster
• Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.-Live Science

Responsive=

• reacting quickly and positively.-Oxford Languages
• answering -Oxford Languages
• giving response : constituting a response : ANSWERING -Merriam-Webster
• quick to respond or react appropriately or sympathetically : SENSITIVE -Merriam-Webster
• If someone or something is responsive, they react quickly and favorably. -Collins Dictionary

Teaching=

• to help in learning how to do something -Merriam-Webster
• Teaching is the process of attending to people’s needs, experiences and feelings, and intervening so that they learn particular things, and go beyond the given. -infed.org
• Teaching is one of the instruments of education and is a special function is to impart understanding and skill. The main function of teaching is to make learning effective. -physicscatalyst.com

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Therefore, Yezenia & Jen’s Definition

Culturally Responsive teaching is infusing the art of instruction with cultural features unique to different demographics and social groups around the world.

• It is answering the call to action to fill in the gaps in traditional instruction that exclude certain groups.
• It responding to the learning needs of individuals as they relate to culture and in turn building sense of belonging and community.
• It is taking action (responsiveness) to enhance teaching and learning with the goal of creating a vehicle of empowerment for underrepresented students while impacting social justice in education.

Paulo Freire; Pedagogy of the Oppressed Quotes (1968)

Chapter 2: The Banking Concept of Education�

• “Education is suffering narration sickness. The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential existence of the students”�
• “The outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their transforming power”��
• “Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor… this is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits”

ED Week.Org says…..

For decades, researchers have found that teachers in public schools have undervalued the potential for academic success among students of color, setting low expectations for them and thinking of cultural differences as barriers rather than assets to learning.

In response, scholars developed teaching methods and practices—broadly known as asset-based pedagogies—that incorporate students’ cultural identities and lived experiences into the classroom as tools for effective instruction. The terms for these approaches to teaching vary, from culturally responsive teaching and culturally sustaining pedagogy to the more foundational culturally relevant pedagogy. Though each term has its own components defined by different researchers over time, all these approaches to teaching center the knowledge of traditionally marginalized communities in classroom instruction. As a result, all students, and in particular students of color, are empowered to become lifelong learners and critical thinkers.

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DHE Equity Agenda States

“Culturally responsive and sustaining teaching seeks to create an inclusive learning environment “in which all students can thrive and are regarded in the totality of their human dignity.”

Why is Culturally Responsive Teaching important?

Freire Continued….

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world…”

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“Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them’, for the more oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated.”

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“The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves.”

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-p. 56

Let’s point to the Ed Week Statement Again

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• Facilitating Brain Processing
• Linked to what we already know
• Motivating & Engaging Students
• Personally meaningful, engaging, and effective
• Importance of demonstrating the value of school learning in student’s everyday lives
• Cultivating Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving Skills
• Awareness of social justice issues
• Strengthening Student’s Racial & Ethnic Identities
• Connection between sense of belonging & school engagement
• Racial & Ethnic Pride
• Both linked to student engagement & better grades
• Promoting a Sense of Safety & Belonging

-newamerica.org

• Different Learning Styles
• UDL vs Culturally Responsive Teaching
• Concepts overlap such as using multiple modalities of reinforcing information
• Multiple formats in assignment submissions�
• High Context vs Low Context Learners
• How people relate, communicate, treat space, time, and how they learn-Escala
• Context of Cultures: High and Low�
• AIA Pedagogy Group Site

AIA Website

Culturally Responsive Teaching

AIA Pedagogy Group

Let’s Talk Cultural Competence, is There Really Such a Thing?

Competence-

• having the capacity to function effectively. -nccc.georgetown.edu�
• the quality of possessing the necessary skill or knowledge to handle a particular situation or task. -dictionary.com

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Cultural Competence

• Cultural competence is defined as a set of values, behaviors, attitudes, and practices within a system, organization, program or among individuals and which enables them to work effectively cross culturally. Further, it refers to the ability to honor and respect the beliefs, language, interpersonal styles and behaviors of individuals and families receiving services, as well as staff who are providing such services. Striving to achieve cultural competence is a dynamic, ongoing, developmental process that requires a long-term commitment.

-Denboba, MCHB, 1993 as cited nccc.georgetown.edu

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• -Loosely defined as the ability to understand, appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one's own -apa.org�
• - especially through a knowledge and appreciation of cultural differences. -dictionary.com

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Cultural Competence Continuum

What are we doing in the classroom?

Jen

• Training: Escala, UDL, CODL
• Assignments
• Practical Changes; then build; One assignment, one area of courses; one commitment
• Outreach
• Building community & Rapport through personal connections to students and one another; assignments (also individual outreach/student information gathering)
• Using readings & articles focused on specific demographics
• Enhancing organization
• Data analysis
• Using Rubrics on everything
• Unlimited attempts on assignments
• Multiple extra credit opportunities
• Surveys; formal & informal
• Spanish Instruction/assistance
• Connecting students to services
• Ground Rules
• Infusing across courses
• Adjusting activities to match the content if needed
• Research Based

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• Self-reflection projects: allows students to apply course context to their lives
• Incorporating articles embedded in culture in which students can compare similarities and differences to gain better understanding of others
• Bilingual courses: Instruction in both English and Spanish with context focusing on the Latino culture (students see themselves in the topics)
• Letting students know we are in this learning process together...I am not the expert.
• Defining for students and discussing uncomfortable topics such as privilege, racism, social justice in a way that they can relate/understand

Yezenia

Share out!

Please share ways you have demonstrated Culturally responsive teaching in your classroom

Putting this into practice…

What can you do?

• Checking your biases at the door!
• Be aware of Power Dynamics; work on this
• Top down vs. Parallel�
• Create a space where students can share about themselves and what is important to them.�
• Incorporate articles, literature, topics where students can see themselves reflected in the material�
• Use ALLY in your online courses so that students can translate documents �
• Attend trainings on/off campus to continue your journey through the Cultural Competence Continuum
• COP, PD w/CODL
• Join an ERG to gain better perspective and join in efforts/ become an ALLY

• Most importantly…let your students know they matter!
• Outreach, accessibility, working in tandem
• Creating a Culturally Inclusive Classroom

Escala 2020 Curriculum Booklet Quote

“CRI is not a checklist of behaviors or strategies. Instead, CRI means having an equity-mindset-that teaching is always informed & shaped by students needs. Being culturally responsive requires professors to be continuously reflective of whether or not their instruction is leading a student learning, and abadonding strategies that are not working for students rather than blaming students for not learning. To do this, educators must use multiple cultural frames of reference, communication methods, and ways of knowing to help students access and comprehend information (Gay, 2018).

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-P. 18

Assignment Examples & Student Work

• Graphic submissions; graphic organizers/cognitive compressions
• Examples
• Formal/informal surveys
• Continue to build on culturally relevant content
• Graphic syllabi
• Using multimedia for submission such as video recordings & Flipgrid for assignment submissions
• Use Ally, encourage use to help students translate and/or download different formats
• Use OER’s

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Paulo Freire; Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as a process of inquiry (p. 54).”

Cultural Competency in Relation to Culturally Responsive Teaching

• Develop a level of competence first (Relevant)(Wade)
• Growth, Knowledge, Understanding
• Training, PD, Education (Escala)�
• Respond to what you’ve learned by putting things into practice (Responsive)(Swim)�
• Develop practices and implement changes that are permanent and sustainable (Sustaining)(Dive)

• Steps
• Wade (Relevant)
• Swim (Responsive)
• Dive (Sustaining)

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Let Us Close with this quote from Freire to reflect on:

“To resolve the teacher-student contradiction, to exchange the role of depositor, prescriber, domesticator, for the role of student among students would be to undermine the power of oppression and serve the cause of liberation.”

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p.57

Reflection

What is one thing you are willing to change to move toward culturally responsive teaching?

References

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/culturally-responsive-teaching-culturally-responsive-pedagogy/2022/04

https://www.mass.edu/strategic/equity.asp

https://www.livescience.com/21478-what-is-culture-definition-of-culture.html

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/responsive

https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-teaching/

https://physicscatalyst.com/graduation/teaching-definition/

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/5-ways-culturally-responsive-teaching-benefits-learners/

https://nccc.georgetown.edu/curricula/culturalcompetence.html

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/03/cultural-competence

https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspire/2020/10/05/creating-a-culturally-inclusive-online-classroom/

https://www2.pacific.edu/sis/culture/pub/context_cultures_high_and_lo.htm

https://mathsnoproblem.com/blog/teaching-practice/paulo-freire-pioneer-of-critical-pedagogy/

https://iep.utm.edu/freire/#:~:text=Paulo%20Freire%20(1921%E2%80%941997)&text=Paulo%20Freire%20was%20one%20of,his%20practice%20of%20critical%20pedagogy.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire