What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?
“I define culturally responsive teaching simply as…An educator’s ability to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making and respond positively and constructively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in a relationship and having a social-emotional connection to the student in order to create a safe space for learning.” – Zaretta Hammond
Why?
Culturally responsive practices recognize the diverse cultural backgrounds of all students, which promotes meaningful relationship building between the educator and student, and the educator and family/guardians. They create inclusive environments that make instructional messaging compatible for all students, as the educator builds on students’ prior knowledge to introduce and explain new or complex topics. Because of this, the educator is required to learn and evolve every day.
How to Become More Culturally Responsive
→Understand your own culture and how it affects how you relate to students
As an educator, you have the opportunity to be a cultural bridge builder for your students. This begins with an awareness of your own cultural identity and that of your students. Consider this: every lesson you teach is influenced by your cultural perspective. In each lesson or unit you design, challenge yourself to create connections that resonate with your students’ diverse cultural backgrounds.
Do Now: Take a moment to think about your own social/cultural upbringing. How does this impact how you see the world? How might it differ from some of the students with whom you work? How does your cultural identity come through in your instruction or work with students?
→Become aware of your own unconscious or implicit biases.
Implicit or unconscious biases are the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. Implicit biases can influence our actions, reactions, perceptions, and judgements, and result in unfavorable treatment of students or others; no one is immune; however, when we are aware of our implicit biases, we can implement behavior changes that can help to combat these biases.
Do now: Take one of Harvard’s Implicit Associations Tests. This resource from Learning for Justice provides more information on unconscious biases and will direct you to Harvard’s assessments. (See links below)
Do now: From Support Ed, this Cultural Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills Self-Assessment asks you to reflect on your areas of strength and an area upon which you can improve. It will enable you to set goals in moving forward in your own cultural awareness and implicit biases. (See links below)
→Create an Inclusive Teaching and Learning Environment
- Celebrate cultural traditions, holidays, and celebrations by incorporating them into lessons. Discuss the significance and how they relate to the subject matter.
- Provide opportunities for students to share their own cultural stories, experiences, and perspectives.
- Offer a mix of visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and collaborative activities to cater to diverse learning needs.
- Address cultural stereotypes or biases that arise in conversations or in materials.
- Connect lessons to current global events.
- Seek feedback from students to understand student engagement and understanding of content. A great example of this is demonstrated in this ReadWriteThink Cultural Relevance Rubric, which could be adapted for other content areas or assignments. (See links below)
- Provide opportunities for independent and group learning experiences
LINKS
Do now: Take one of Harvard’s Implicit Associations Tests. This resources from Learning for Justice provides more information on unconscious biases and will direct you the Harvard’s assessments. Test Yourself for Hidden Bias | Learning for Justice
Do now: From Support Ed, this Cultural Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills Self-Assessment asks you to reflect on your areas of strength and an area upon which you can improve. It will enable you to set goals in moving forward are your own cultural awareness and implicit biases. Cultural-Awareness-Knowledge-and-Skills-Self-Assessment.pdf
A great example of this is demonstrated in this ReadWriteThink Cultural Relevance Rubric, which could be adapted for other content areas or assignments. Cultural Relevance Rubric
Systemic Change – Want to work with a grade-level group or larger committee in your school to assess the extent to which your school is culturally responsive? Use SupportEd’s Culturally Resposive School Checklist and Goal Setting Form: Culturally-Responsive-School-Checklist_SupportEd.pdf
