INTEGRATING CULTURALLY RELEVANT TEACHING STRATEGIES

INTEGRATING CULTURALLY RELEVANT TEACHING STRATEGIES:

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM TEACHERS

by

Anne Taylor

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Hamline University

Saint Paul, MN

August 2020

Capstone Project Facilitator: Jana Lo Bello Miller Capstone Expert: Jami Ronholm

Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies

Building cultural competence and improving educational outcomes for English learners!

Trimester 1 - September, 2020

Welcome

Agen

da fo

r to

day 1. CRT and the Brain

2. Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies

➢ Implementation Framework

3. High Academic Expectations: 3 Strategies

➢ Communicate High Expectations

➢ Model and Scaffold Challenging Curriculum

➢ Creating and Nurturing Cooperative Classrooms

4. Support

➢ PLC Resource

➢ Pineapple Chart

How many of you could write a 1000 word article on CRT and the Brain?

Get together, pool questions, issues, concerns.

One person volunteer to report.

Where do we go from here?

“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness

to try.”

Atul Gawande, author of the Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.


My goal is to provide you with resources that can be used to

integrate culturally responsive teaching strategies into your

classroom practice.

How?

CRT Implementation Framework

High Academic Expectations Trimester 1

Cultural Competence Trimester 2

Critical Consciousness Trimester 3

Step 1:

“Same Page”Training

Today is the introductory

workshop that will allow us to

get on the same page with the

first component in the CRT

framework:

HIGH ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS

Step 2:

Support for Achieving

Proficiency

After today, how will you be supported in becoming skilled at implementing these strategies?

1. Strategy Implementation: Once you get back to the classroom you will have the opportunity to try the support strategies, reflect on how it went and how it could be done better.

2. PLC Resource: I will providing an additional resource that will be available to you and your PLCs as you work to implement the new CRT strategies each trimester.

Step 3: PLC Support

andCollaboration

1. Reflection and Feedback: Work with your PLC team to co-design and plan, observe and provide feedback to support implementation.

2. “Pineapple” Collaboration: A Pineapple Chart is a system that allows teachers to invite one another into their classrooms for informal observation.

Goals and Objectives

1. Provide practical ways to integrate culturally responsive teaching strategies into our classrooms

2. Improve educational outcomes for our culturally and linguistically diverse learners.

3. Continue our journey towards cultural competence.

Operationalizing CRT may seem overwhelming, but start with something small but high leverage and grow your

comfort and skill level.

Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain.

Trimester 1:

High AcademicExpectations

High Academic Expectations

Academic Success for all

Students

Researchers suggest that culturally relevant teachers demonstrate high expectations for student achievement through the use of challenging curricula.

Yet simply providing challenging curricula does not ensure culturally relevant pedagogy is occurring.

Culturally relevant teachers understand that offering a rigorous curriculum, rarely results in student achievement if students are not supported throughout the process of learning.

3 Implementation Strategies that support High Academic Expectations:

1. Communicate High Expectations2. Model and Scaffold Challenging Curriculum3. Create and Nurture Cooperative Classrooms

Implementation Strategy 1: Communicate High Expectations Expectations play a critical role in student achievement.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The dreamkeepers: successful teachers of African American children (2nd ed.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.

High Expectations

Communicating High Expectations in the Classroom:

1. Teacher Behavior2. High Behavioral Expectations

High Expectations: Communicate in the Classroom

“Teacher behavior is the language of relationships.

Students ‘listen’ to every behavior made by the teacher

as a statement of the type of relationship the teacher

desires, even when the teacher’s actions have no such

intent.”

(Marzano, 2007)

Teacher Behaviors Focus: Teacher behaviors provide equitable response opportunities, effective feedback and help develop caring relationships.

○ Teachers sometimes unconsciously exhibit more favorable body language toward students that remind them of themselves.

○ For students who have felt marginalized because of their cultural

backgrounds, positive, nonverbal communication can have an important effect on engagement.

High Expectations: Communication in the Classroom - Teacher Behaviors

Why are teacher behaviors important?

Over the past decades research has indicated a relationship between teacher expectations and teacher actions toward students . Teachers appear to create a warmer socioemotional climate for students they perceive as brighter.

Though teachers do not intend to communicate low expectations, there is well-documented evidence that they can have a tangible, negative effect on the performance and achievement of culturally or linguistically diverse students.

“As human beings we cannot be expected to have a natural affinity for every student in class. However, we can be expected to behave in a way that communicates care and concern equally for every student” (Marzano, 2007)


How can teacher behaviors impact achievement?

At the beginning of the school year, teachers may form opinions about students academic capability.

As a result of these opinions, teachers may begin to differentiate their own behaviors between high and low achieving students.

Students interpret these messages as signals about how they are expected to behave in class.

When students follow these

teacher cues and behave accordingly, the prophecy is fulfilled.


Ideas for Teacher Behavior in the Classroom:

Body Language: Students “listen” to teacher behaviors as a statement of the type of relationship the teacher wants.

Ensure all students receive

verbal and nonverbal indications that they are valued and respected.

Eye contact with high and low achieving students equitably: Be sensitive to the cultural norms and interpretations of even such simple behaviors as making eye contact and the messages this gesture sends about teacher expectations.

Using proximity with high and low achieving students equitably: Although it has

been observed that teachers

unconsciously favor those

students perceived to be most

like themselves in race, class

and values, CRT means

consciously working to

develop commonalities with

all students.

High Expectations: Communicate in the Classroom - Teacher Behaviors

High Behavioral ExpectationsFocus: Definitions and expectations of appropriate behavior are culturally influenced. Sometimes misunderstandings occur when teachers and students come from different cultural backgrounds.

○ The goal of classroom management is not to achieve compliance or control but to provide all students with equitable opportunities for learning.

○ Connect with students in ways that convey respect and caring.

High Expectations: Communicate in the Classroom - Behavioral Expectations

Why are behavioral expectations important?

All students should receive the consistent message that they are expected to attain high standards in their schoolwork.

If high expectations are to be met, the classroom needs to be focused on learning.

Understand students’ behavior in light of the norms of the communities in which they have grown.

Create an environment in which students behave appropriately from a sense of personal responsibility not from a fear of punishment or reward.

High Expectations: Communication in the Classroom - Behavioral Expectations

Ideas for High Behavioral Expectations In the Classroom:

Explicitly teach rules and expected behaviors within a culture of care.

Clear communication of expectations of student behavior and structured routines so students know what to expect.

Engage students in discussions about class norms.

Model the behavior and provide opportunities for students to practice.

Think about ways the environment can be used to communicate respect for diversity, to reaffirm connectedness and community, and to avoid marginalizing and disparaging students.

High Expectations: Communication in the Classroom - Behavioral Expectations

Pause and Reflect

Implementation Strategy 2:Modeling and Scaffolding

Teachers offer intensive modeling, scaffolding, and clarification of the challenging curriculum.

High Expectations: Modeling/Scaffolding

Modeling and Scaffolding in the Classroom: 1. Instructional Conversations2. Collaboration

High Expectations: Modeling/Scaffolding

Instructional ConversationsFocus: Extended dialogue between teachers and students in areas that have educational value as well as relevance for students.

● Despite all we have learned about teaching and learning in the last century,

education in the United States remains very teacher-focused (Dalton &

Gallimore, 1991).

● Instructional conversations provide English language learners with

opportunities to link and reinforce speaking and listening, as well as reading and

writing skills

High Expectations: Modeling/Scaffolding - Instructional Conversations

Why are instructional conversations important?

When teachers ask students to elaborate on responses, they promote students’ deeper thinking and meaningful language acquisition (Short & Echevarria, 2004).

The practice of instructional

conversation gives students

opportunities for extended

dialogue, addresses the need

for a cognitively challenging

curriculum, and moves

teachers and students away

from the typical patterns of

teacher-directed instruction

(Tellez & Waxman, 2006).

Students are able to talk about a selected activity, text, or experience from their point of view, that is, based on their knowledge from home, community, or school.


Implementing Instructional Conversations:

Instructional Goal: Instruction conversations require a clear instructional goal. While the goal remains firm, the route to the goal is responsive to students’ participation and developing understanding.

Authentic Assessment: When students share their experience and prior knowledge, they provide samples of language, which teachers use to assess their oral language proficiency which guides further instruction.

Build Complexity: When teacher/student dialogue builds from individual experience to text analysis, students can comprehend the text’s complex meanings.


Ideas for Instructional ConversationsIn the Classroom:

Comprehension: Select points in the read aloud where you will stop reading and ask a question.

Choose the questions you will ask: write them on a Post-it note and insert into the text. Focus on questions that require analysis and higher order thinking skills and encourage student participation..

Vocabulary: Choose three or four vocabulary words that are interesting and useful (Tier 2 words). Link to student friendly definitions and extended examples. Allow for student participation and input.


CollaborationFocus: Explicitly include collaboration as one important element of literacy pedagogy for culturally and linguistically diverse children.

● Many Latino children, as well as those from other, non-European backgrounds, experience literacy practices at home that are collaborative (Stuart & Volk, 2002).

● Plan for and facilitate collaboration with students and among students on learning activities through a variety of groupings and joint products

High Expectations: Modeling/Scaffolding - Collaboration

Why Collaboration?

Collaboration is the joint activity

of participants that has an

impact on the learning that

occurs. Collaboration means

working together in ways that

exchange mutual help.

When experts and novices work

together toward a common

product or goal and have

opportunities to converse about

the activity , learning is a likely

outcome ( Tharp & Gallimore,

1988)

Research on cooperative

learning shows that students of

color who participate

cross-racially increase their

academic achieve-

ment, motivation, self-esteem,

and empathic development

(August & Hakuta, 1997)


Implementing Collaboration:

Design instructional activities requiring student collaboration to accomplish a joint project.

Organize students in a variety of groupings, such as by friendship, mixed academic ability, language, project, or interests, to promote interaction.

Plan with students how to work in groups and move from one activity to another,such as from large group introduction to small group activity, for clean-up, dismissal, and the like.


Ideas for Collaborationin the Classroom:

Discussion:

● Brainstorming before reading

● Predicting during reading

● Retelling after reading● Comparing versions of

a story

Reading:

● Choral Reading● Read aloud as a group -

take turns● Paired reading

Writing:

● Group book● Charting story sequence● Mapping story elements● Journal writing


Pause and Reflect

Implementation Strategy 3:Create Nurturing and Cooperative Environments

High Expectations: Nurturing/Cooperative Environments

In culturally responsive teaching, the teacher redesigns teaching and learning so that students work with each other and with their teacher as partners to improve their achievement.

Creating Nurturing and Cooperative Environments in the classroom

1. Peer Support2. Teacher Caring and Community Building

High Expectations: Nurturing/Cooperative Environments

Peer SupportFocus: Create psychologically-safe environments where students feel motivated to work to their utmost.

● In culturally responsive teaching, the teacher redesigns teaching and learning so that students work with each other and with their teacher as partners to improve their achievement.

● Research underscores the powerful effect the peer relationships can have on academic achievement. (Sheets, 1995)

High Expectations: Nurturing/Cooperative Environments - Peer Support

Why Peer Support?

English learners receive support from their classmates not only in the form of friendship but also in ways that facilitate learning

Many of our ELs are used to caring for other children at home. They have a foundation for cooperative learning and peer teaching and can succeed with these strategies when given the opportunity to use them and with the support of the teacher.

When students perceive that they are emotionally supported by their teacher and classmates, they tend to engage more actively and make a greater effort in their academic work


Peer Support in the Classroom is:

Communal: Students form supportive learning communities.

Students are held accountable for one another’s learning, as well as their own.

Reciprocal: Students contribute to each other’s learning.

Interdependent: Students perceive learning goals are met when the other students learning goals are met.


Ideas for Peer Support in the Classroom:

Model and Role-Play: When planning a peer learning exercise, begin with modeling. Practice giving compliments, suggesting and correcting.

Reciprocal Teaching: Allow students to take turns teaching. Pair mixed ability students or same ability students. Students are able to progress through the content together.

Think Pair Share Activities and Jigsaw activities. Focus on active learning that relies on communication and collaboration between students.

Cross Age and Peer Tutoring


Teacher Caring and Community Building:

Focus: Creating equitable classroom climates that are equally conducive to learning for all students.

● Students are more likely to success if they feel connected to school and have a positive, respectful relationship with teachers who help create such an environment.

● Create a social-emotional climate that is conducive to developing a sense of solidarity and intimacy among group members.

High Expectations: Nurturing/Cooperative Environments - Caring/Community Building

Why teacher caring and community building?

Academic success for English learners and other diverse students is built on a base of cultural validation and strength.

Many of our students grow up in cultural environments where the welfare of the whole takes precedence over the individual. Individuals are taught to pool resources to solve problems.

Students tend to want to participate and do their best when a teacher is nurturing and caring.


Ideas for Building Community and Teacher Caring in the Classroom:

Build trust and rapport with each student individually, getting to know your students as individuals. Ensure they feel respected, valued, and seen for who they are.

Student sharing: Providing opportunities for students to

share about themselves and

learn about each other helps

builds a positive classroom

community, which is

foundational for building

positive cultural connections

and understanding.

Arrange the classroom to accommodate discussion to maximize meaningful learning experiences. Foster a classroom climate of connection and collaboration.


PLC Resource - HyperdocThe purpose of the PLC resource is to

provide you with additional tools and

resources that can be used to help

support effective implementation of

CRT strategies in your classrooms.

It can also be used in your PLCs to

collaborate, provide feedback and

deepen

Pineapple Chart:What is it?

A pineapple is a symbol of welcome.

Our Pineapple Chart is a way for us to put out a “welcome mat” inviting other teachers into our classrooms.

It is a quick, easy, free and informal way to see how others might be implementing the CRT strategies and to learn from each other.

Our Pineapple Chart will represent one week of school. Along the top, five columns are labeled Monday through Friday. Along the side, rows will be assigned each period of our daily schedule.

Teachers will ‘advertise’ culturally responsive strategies they are using in their classrooms and other teachers can choose to attend.

Visiting teachers can stay for five minutes or the whole class time. The important idea is that this is an informal way get in each other’s classrooms and learn from each other.

How does it work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_klN6-2e9wo

Wrap Up

Before you go share one idea you gained from our workshop today that you will act on in the coming days.


Trimester 1: High Academic Expectations

❖ Welcome:

❖ Where have we been? Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain ❖ Implementation Framework

❖ High Expectations:

➢ Strategy 1: Communicate High Expectations:

○ Teacher Behaviors: Teacher behaviors provide equitable

response opportunities, effective feedback and help develop caring relationships.

○ High Behavioral Expectations: Definitions and expectations of appropriate behavior are culturally influenced. Sometimes misunderstandings occur when teachers and students come from different cultural backgrounds.

➢ Strategy 2: Modeling and Scaffolding:

○ Instructional Conversation: Extended dialogue between teachers and students for the purpose of developing students’ language and thinking skills and to guide the learning process.

○ Collaboration: Explicitly include collaboration as one important element of literacy pedagogy for culturally and linguistically diverse children.

➢ Strategy 3: Creating Cooperative and Nurturing Environments

○ Peer Support: In culturally responsive teaching, the teacher

redesigns teaching and learning so that students work with each other and with their teacher as partners to improve their achievement

○ Community Building: Create a social-emotional climate that is conducive to developing a sense of solidarity and intimacy among group members.

❖ PLC Resource

❖ Pineapple Chart

Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies Tri 1: High Academic Expectations

PLC Resource

Engage

What is Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT)? ➢Watch here as Geneva Gay explains

Explain

Why is Culturally Responsive Teaching important for our district? ➢ Our district data is available here on the MDE website ➢ Our EL population is targeted for % of ELs not meeting or

exceeding Reading and Math standards as shown on MCAs ➢ ELs are also targeted for lack of progress in Reading as shown on

MCAs.

Explore

HIGH ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS: Additional Tools and Resources ➢ Here is the link to the google slides from the training today

➢ Communicate High Expectations:

○ Teacher Behaviors: Video clip ○ High Behavioral Expectations:

→ This is a great article on Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Strategies

➢ Modeling and Scaffolding: ○ Instructional Conversations: article ○ Collaboration:

→WIDA resource → Cooperative Learning Strategies for ELs

➢ Creating Cooperative and Nurturing Environments:

○ Peer Support → Think Pair Share Lesson → Differentiated Instruction/Group Learning Ideas → PALS video

○ Community Building: → Video clip: Classroom Environment

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RoI_nKY2uVTLyy840WLfs5snwEFIHeM9WocRFXrQoI4/edit#slide=id.p11

https://rc.education.mn.gov/#northStarELP/orgId--12859030000__year--2019__nscomparisonline--FOC_NONE__p--3

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/development/resources/ecp/media/ECP%204%20-%20Uses%20body%20language,%20gestures,%20and%20expressions/player.html

https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/005/121/Culturally%20Responsive%20Classroom%20Mgmt%20Strat2.pdf

https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/005/121/Culturally%20Responsive%20Classroom%20Mgmt%20Strat2.pdf

https://pdo.ascd.org/lmscourses/PD13OC002/media/ELL_CC_M5_Reading_EngagingELLsThroughInstructionalConversation.pdf

https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/Brief-CollaborativeLearningforELLs.pdf

https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/cooperative-learning-strategies

http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/using-think-pair-share-30626.html

https://prodprodigy.wpengine.com/differentiated-instruction-strategies-examples-download/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhey6ZRIo9Q

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/development/resources/ecp/media/ECP%205%20-%20Arranges%20the%20classroom%20to%20accommodate%20discussion/player.html

Apply

How can you apply the High Expectation strategies in your classroom? ➢What were some of the key ideas that stood out for you today? ➢Write a goal statement and share with your team

○ This year I will work on ... ○ I want to improve on … ○ One goal I have for this trimester is ...

Share

Discuss with your PLC. ➢ Are we able to implement the strategies? ➢ How can we hold each other accountable? ➢What do we need? ➢What does our student data say? ➢What worked? What didn’t work?

Reflect

Pineapple Chart! ➢We have some of the very best PD available under our own roof.

Now teachers have the opportunity to get into each other’s classrooms and learn from one another!

➢ How to use the Pineapple Chart watch here

Extend

How will we know if we are successful? ➢ Quantitative Data:

○ Student data (Pre vs Post) ○ Academic gains for ELs? Reading levels/Writing Rubrics ○ Increase in number of CRT strategies we use in our

classrooms ➢ Qualitative Data:

○ Have my practices changed? ○ Student interviews ○ Anecdotal records

Our Trimester 2 PD will focus on CRT Implementation Framework 2 which is Cultural Competence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlWhFtYvREQ



Trimester 2 - January, 2020

Welcome

Agen

da

1. Highs and Lows

2. Implementation Framework➢ High Expectations➢ Cultural Competence➢ Critical Consciousness

3. Cultural Competence: 3 Strategies➢ Reshape the Curriculum in the Classroom➢ Build on Funds of Knowledge➢ Encourage Relationships between School and Community

4. Wrap Up

Reflection:Highs and Lows

High AcademicExpectations

How did implementation go in Trimester 1?

What were some highs and lows?

➢ Communicating High Expectations ○ Teacher Behavior/High Behavioral

Expectations

➢ Modeling and Scaffolding○ Instructional Conversations/Collaboration

➢ Creating Nurturing and Cooperative

Environments○ Peer Support/Teacher Caring and Community

Building


1. Provide practical ways to integrate culturally responsive teaching strategies into our classrooms.




High Expectations Trimester 1



1. Same Page Training

2. Strategy Implementation

and Support

3. PLCCollaborationand Feedback

CulturalCompetence

Trimester 2:

CulturalCompetence

Cultural competence is having an awareness of one’s own

cultural identity and views about difference, and the ability to

learn and build on the varying cultural and community norms of

students and their families

Cultural Competence

CRT works to develop in

students a sense of cultural

competence, a “dynamic

relationship between

home/community culture and

school culture”.

(Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 467)

3 Implementation Strategies that support Cultural Competence:

1. Reshape Prescribed Curriculum2. Build on Students’ Funds of Knowledge3. Encourage School-Family Connections

Implementation Strategy 1:Reshaping Curriculum

Integrating non-mainstream content into our traditional curriculum in order to make learning connected and relevant for all

students.

Cultural Competence: Reshape Curriculum

Reshaping the curriculum in the classroom:

1. Use additional resources.2. Develop learning activities that are more reflective of

student backgrounds.

Cultural Competence: Reshape Curriculum

Additional resources: Focus: Integrate non-mainstream content into traditional, Eurocentric curriculum. School learning must be connected to all students’ identities in order to make learning relevant.

○ Use examples, data and information from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts, principles, generalizations and theories.

○ Build bridges of meaning between home and school experiences, and between curriculum and social reality.

Cultural Competence: Reshape Curriculum - Additional Resources

Why additional resources?

Culturally responsive resources provide authentic, child-centered materials that are connected to the child’s real life. It uses materials from the child’s culture and history to illustrate principles and concepts.

The curriculum should be integrated, interdisciplinary, meaningful, and student-centered. It should include issues and topics related to the students' background and culture. (Villegas, 1991)

Using the students’ home cultural experiences as a foundation upon which to develop knowledge and skills facilitates the transfer of what is learned in school to real life situations. (Padron, Waxman, & Rivera, 2002)


Ideas for ImplementingAdditional Resources in the Classroom:

Art: Offer students different historical representations of historical events from different perspectives. Ask which particular perspective resonates with their experiences.

Music: Share music, discuss meaning connect it to content. Use music from other languages and ask the student to translate and discuss the meaning.

Literature: Select texts and supplementary materials that incorporate the perspectives, historical events, illustrations of the range of racial and ethnic groups that make up U.S. society.


More ...

Have students research aspects of a topic within their own community.

Encourage students to interview members of their community who have knowledge of the topic they are studying.

Provide information to the students on alternative viewpoints or beliefs of a topic.


Learning activities that reflect student backgrounds.Focus: Incorporate and integrate diverse ways of knowing, understanding, and representing information.

● The aspects of culture that influence classroom life most powerfully are those that affect the social organization of learning and social expectations concerning communication (Au, 1980).

● By acknowledging students’ cultural norms and expectations concerning communication and social interaction, teachers can appropriately guide student participation in instructional activities.

Cultural Competence: Reshape Curriculum - Adjust learning activities

Why adjust learning activities?

Children from homes in which the language and culture do not closely correspond to that of school may be at a disadvantage in the learning process.

To maximize learning opportunities, teachers should gain knowledge of the cultures represented in their classrooms and adapt lessons so they reflect ways of communicating that are familiar to the students.

People from different cultures learn in different ways and their expectations for learning may be different.


Ideas for adjusting learning activities in the classroom:

Vary teaching strategies:

○ Use cooperative learning for new material

○ Assign independent work after students are familiar with the concept

○ Assign students research projects that focus on issues that apply to their community

○ Use collaboration and peer support whenever possible

○ Provide various options for completing an assignment


A few more:

Bridge cultural differences through effective communication:

Teach and talk to students about differences between individuals.

Show how differences among the students makes for better learning.

Attend community events of the students and discuss the events with the students.


Pause and Reflect

Implementation Strategy 2: Building on Students “Funds of Knowledge”

The notion that school learning must be connected to children’s prior knowledge and experiences is paramount in the literature on culturally relevant pedagogy.

Cultural Competence: Funds of Knowledge

Luis Moll explains:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWS0YBpGkkE

Building on funds of knowledge in the classroom

1. Identify funds of knowledge

2. Connect funds of knowledge to learning


Identify Funds of KnowledgeFocus: Learn about elements of students’ culture through your own research and by developing personal relationships with students.

○ Funds of knowledge suggests that all students have authentic experiences that are assets and can be used by teachers for learning in the classroom.

○ Students bring with them funds of knowledge from their homes and communities that can be used for concept and skill development.

Why identify funds of knowledge?

Seeking out funds of knowledge creates a bridge between home and school, with the teacher as the common connection.

Culturally relevant teachers take actions to connect children’s cultural experiences to the content and practices of the classroom (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1994)

"Linking to students' personal life

experiences is beneficial for a

number of reasons. It can help

students find meaning in content

learning, and linking to an

experience can provide clarity and

promote retention of the learning.

Relating content to students'

personal lives and experiences also

serves the purpose of validating

students' lives, culture and

experiences." (Gay, 2010)

Cultural Competence: Funds of Knowledge - Identify

Ideas to Identify Funds of KnowledgeIn the Classroom:

Gather information about your students lived experiences.

Many teachers apply these strategies that can be done in class:

Have students write essays about their backgrounds.

Students can do presentations about their interests or create projects that represent their families and family heritage

Create a collage of hobbies/pastimes

Take note of specific experiences students have had or different home or community practices in which our students are involved.

Art, music, storytelling


Identify Funds of Knowledge Outside the Classroom.

Much more can be learned about students by engaging with them and their families outside the classroom.

Connect with families during home or community visits.

Interview students/students’ families.

Invite guest speakers from the community.

Attend public events in the community.

Conduct home visits.


Recording students’ funds of knowledge

Connect Funds of Knowledge to Learning

Focus: Integrating students’ out of school experiences and cultural backgrounds into the academic realm.

○ Build bridges between funds of knowledge and the curriculum.

○ Gaining a better understanding of a students’ funds of knowledge can enhance classroom practices for both teachers and students.

Cultural Competence: Funds of Knowledge - Connect to learning

Why connect funds of knowledge to learning?

All students have authentic experiences that are assets and can be used by teachers for learning in the classroom.

Developing curricular content around the personal contexts, skills and experiences of students helps scaffold their understanding of academic material.

By integrating patterns of learning, knowing and doing that are familiar to diverse students, academic content becomes easier to connect to their lives and understand at a deeper level.


Ideas to Connect Funds of Knowledge to Learning in the Classroom:

Art: Offer students different historical representations of historical events from different perspectives. Ask which particular perspective resonates with their experiences.

Music: Share music, discuss meaning connect it to content. Use music from other languages and ask the student to translate and discuss the meaning.

Literature: Use stories and folktales from other cultures as a way of encouraging students to connect what the are reading to their own experiences.

Use storytelling in the classroom.


More ideas:

Semantic webbing:

At the beginning of learning a new topic, ask students what they know about that topic; the simplest way to do this is to brainstorm associations with the topic.

As a next step, the class can discuss (and connect with lines) all the related aspects of "culture," making a web of relationships on the board.

This work can be expanded by categorizing the subtopics. The teacher also can ask students what they want to know about the topic at hand.

Pause and Reflect

PLC ResourceThe purpose of the PLC resource is to

provide you with additional tools and

resources that can be used to help

support effective implementation of

CRT strategies in your classrooms.

It can also be used in your PLCs to

collaborate, provide feedback and

deepen

Pineapple Chart!

Once again we will be using the pineapple chart as a way to collaborate and learn from each other as we implement these new strategies.

Wrap Up

Before you go share one idea you gained from our workshop

today that you will act on in the coming days.


Trimester 2: Cultural Competence

❖ Welcome:

❖ Where have we been? Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain ❖ Implementation Framework

❖ High Expectations:

➢ Communicate High Expectations:

○ Teacher Behaviors: Teacher behaviors provide equitable

response opportunities, effective feedback and help develop caring relationships.

○ High Behavioral Expectations: Definitions and expectations of appropriate behavior are culturally influenced. Sometimes misunderstandings occur when teachers and students come from different cultural backgrounds.

➢ Modeling and Scaffolding:

○ Instructional Conversation: Extended dialogue between teachers and students for the purpose of developing students’ language and thinking skills and to guide the learning process.

○ Collaboration: Explicitly include collaboration as one important element of literacy pedagogy for culturally and linguistically diverse children.

➢ Creating Cooperative and Nurturing Environments

○ Peer Support: In culturally responsive teaching, the teacher

redesigns teaching and learning so that students work with each other and with their teacher as partners to improve their achievement

○ Community Building: Create a social-emotional climate that is conducive to developing a sense of solidarity and intimacy among group members.

❖ Hyperdoc

❖ Pineapple Chart

Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies Trimester 2: Cultural Competence

PLC Resource

Engage

What is culture and how does it impact our teaching? Watch here.

Explain

-What are some ways we can understand the ‘intangible’ culture of our students and how it impacts their learning? -How can teachers take students every day, lived cultural experiences and connect them to learning?

Explore

CULTURAL COMPETENCE: Additional Tools and Resources ➢ Here is a link to the google slides from the training today ➢ PD Survey ➢ Reshaping the Curriculum

○ Additional Resources: → Short summary on the approaches of Curriculum Reform → Diverse Literature Resources:

○ Diverse Book choices for all grade levels → More diverse teaching resources here.

○ Learning Activities that reflect student backgrounds → Cooperative Learning Quick Ref. Guide

➢ Building on Student’s Funds of Knowledge ○ Identify Funds of Knowledge:

→ Accessing Background Knowledge in the classroom → Funds of Knowledge Matrix → Video: The Iceberg Model of Culture

○ Connect Funds of Knowledge to Learning → Lesson planning ideas

➢ Encourage Relationships between School and Community ○ Coming in March!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8&feature=youtu.be

https://intime.uni.edu/four-approaches-multicultural-curriculum-reform

https://www.edutopia.org/article/22-diverse-book-choices-all-grade-levels

https://www.zinnedproject.org/

https://sirblois.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/cooperative-learning-activities.pdf

https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/accessing-students-background-knowledge-ell-classroom#h-2-look-for-resources-that-go-beyond-the-textbook-

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pzmyodc6JcNppb8KtzxxbF0Lu38wvrOt/view?usp=sharing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woP0v-2nJCU

https://www.aps.edu/language-and-cultural-equity/newsletters/december2004.pdf

Apply

How can you apply the Cultural Competence strategies in your classroom? ➢What were some of the key ideas that stood out for you today? ➢Write a goal statement and share with your team

○ I will work on ... ○ I want to improve on … ○ One goal I have for this trimester is ...

Share


Reflect




Extend


○ Student data (Pre vs Post) ○ Academic gains for ELs? Reading levels/Writing Rubrics ○ Increase in the number of CRT strategies we use in our

classrooms? ➢ Qualitative Data:


Our Trimester 3 PD will focus on CRT Implementation Framework 3 which is Critical Consciousness.




Trimester 3 - March, 2021

Welcome

Agen

da 1. Highs and Lows2. Implementation Framework

➢ High Expectations➢ Cultural Competence

○ School-Family Connection➢ Critical Consciousness

3. Critical Consciousness:

4. Wrap Up

Reflection:Highs and Lows

CulturalCompetence

How did implementation go in Trimester 2?

What were some highs and lows?

➢ Reshaping Curriculum○ Use resources in addition to textbooks○ Learning activities that reflect student

backgrounds

➢ Building on Funds of Knowledge○ Identify Funds of Knowledge○ Connect Funds of knowledge to Learning


1. To provide practical ways to integrate culturally responsive teaching strategies into our classrooms.



1. Same Page Training

2. Strategy Implementation

and Support

3. PLCCollaborationand Feedback

CriticalConsciousness





3 Implementation Strategies that support Cultural Competence:

1. Reshape Prescribed Curriculum2. Build on Students’ Funds of Knowledge3. Encourage School-Family Connections

Implementation Strategy 3:School-Family Connection Communication with parents is an important aspect of a child’s educational progress. Involving parents and families in their child’s educational process results in better scholastic achievement (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992)

Cultural Competence: School-Family Connection.

"Whether it’s an informal chat as the parent brings the child to school, or in phone conversation or home visits, or through newsletters sent home, teachers can begin a dialogue with family members that can result in learning about each of the families through genuine communication." -- Sonia Nieto

Nieto, S. (1996). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education (2nd ed.) White Plains, NY: Longman

School-Family Connection in the Classroom:1. Parents and Families as Partners2. Family Involvement


Parents and Families as Partners: Focus: Parents are the child's’ first teacher and are critically

important partners to students and teachers.

○ To help parents become aware of how they can be effective partners in the education process, teachers should engage in dialogue with parents as early as possible about their aspirations for their child, their sense of what the child needs, and suggestions about ways teachers can help.

○ Teachers explain their own limitations and invite parents to participate in their child’s education in specific ways.


Why parents and families as partners?

When parents share their ‘funds of knowledge’ with the school community, teachers get a better idea of their students’ background knowledge, abilities and how they learn best. (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992).

Parent involvement need not be just how parents participate in school functions. It also includes how parents communicate high expectations, pride and interest in their child’s academic life. (Nieto, 1996)

Building a partnership

based on mutual respect empowers parents to contribute their talents and experience to their children’s education. .


Ideas for Parent and Family Partnership in the Classroom:

Seek to understand parents’ hopes, concerns and suggestions.

Conduct a Needs Survey of what parents expect from our school community.

Keep parents updated with services offered by our school and district.

Send weekly/monthly newsletters in home language informing parents of school activities.

Provide all families with timely, equitable access to information regardless of their primary language.

Create an environment that welcomes family members to visit our school and classrooms any time.


Family Involvement:Focus: Families engage in their children’s development and education in a variety of ways. Recognizing and respecting the many ways that families support the learning and development of their children, both at home and at school, is critical to the success of school-based family engagement practices.

○ While there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to family engagement, ensuring families have a voice in the process is critical. (Lopez & Caspe, 2014)


Family Involvement

WIDA defines family engagement as a relationship

between families and educators that is ongoing, mutual,

built on trust and respect and focused on student

learning and achievement.

WIDA: ABCs of Family Engagement: Key Considerations for Building Relationships with Families

Why family involvement?

All families want their children to succeed, but learning opportunities in the home, the school, and the community are not always equitable among families.

Three kinds of parental involvement at home are consistently associated with higher student achievement: actively organizing and monitoring a child’s time, helping with homework, and discussing school matters

Families make critical contributions to student achievement from preschool through high school. A home environment that encourages learning is more important to student achievement than income, education level, or cultural background.


Ideas for family involvementin learning and in the classroom:

Think outside the box: What

we need to know:

One of the most important

steps in engaging ELL parents

is to realize that they may be

coming from a very different

cultural perspective when it

comes to the educational

system and their role in their

child's education.

Make a list of five things you

hope or expect that "involved"

parents will do at your school.

What do parents need to

know in order to participate in

these events? What

challenges might ELL parents

face in participating in these

events?

Form small focus groups with

ELL parents and an

interpreter. How do they

define their role in their child’s

education? What are their

concerns, priorities and hopes

regarding their child’s

education?

Pause and Reflect





Critical Consciousness

“Not only must teachers encourage academic success and

cultural competence, they must help students recognize,

understand, and critique current social inequities”.

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Ladson-Billings, G (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32 (3), p. 465

2 Implementation Strategies that support CriticalConsciousness:

1. Critical Literacy2. Engaging Students in Social Justice Work

Implementation Strategy 1:Critical Literacy○ Critical literacy is a perspective and way of thinking

about curriculum, literacy and the lived experiences of our students.

○ It is the skill to be able to analyze and evaluate text by thinking about the author/source and considering the bias that source might have.

Critical Consciousness: Critical Literacy

Why critical literacy?

When children practice asking critical questions about the text, they are developing reading and thinking skills that can lead to powerful insights into how texts work, how readers can become more aware of their place in the reading process and where they fit in to the social world around them.


Building Critical Literacy in the Classroom:


1. Critical Literacy through Read Alouds

Critical Literacy Read AloudsFocus: Every read-aloud should include high-quality children’s literature, but not every read-aloud has to feature a critical literacy text. In fact, texts are not critical in and of themselves; it is the conversations that take place around the texts that qualify as critical.○ Teachers initiate critical conversations through the questions

they pose. ○ These conversations move beyond who, what, when, and where

questions to a deeper understanding that goes beyond the print on the page.


Critical Literacy through Read Alouds:Choosing Texts

Choose books that invite conversations about fairness and justice; they encourage children to ask why some groups of people are positioned as “others”.

Explore differences in the characters in the book rather than making them invisible.

Enrich student understandings of history and life by giving voice to those traditionally silenced or marginalized.

Show how people can begin to take action on important social issues.


Critical Literacy Read Alouds:Ideas for the Classroom

Select a book.

Preview the book and identify discussion points.

Develop critical questions to use during the read-aloud and post them in the book.

Do a picture walk to notice differences in characters, facial expressions etc.

Read the story, stopping to discuss the questions.


Implementation Strategy 2:Create a Classroom for Social JusticeSocial justice is recognizing and acting upon the power that we have for making positive change.

Teachers do this every day in many ways. In order to take it to the next level, teachers can include classroom practices that make this dynamic explicit.

Critical Consciousness: Social Justice

Creating a Classroom for Social Justice:

Critical Consciousness: Social Justice in the Classroom

1. Foster a Classroom Community of Conscience.

2. Linking to Real World Problems and Multiple Perspectives.

Foster a Classroom Community of Conscience

Focus: Ensuring that the classroom is a place where students’ voices, opinions and ideas are valued and respected by peers.


Why foster a classroom of conscience?

Classrooms can be places of hope, where students and teachers gain glimpses of the kind of society we could live in and where students learn the academic and critical skills needed to make it a reality

By creating this sort of classroom environment, teachers enable students to build each other up in conversation and action.


The first way to promote social justice in the classroom is to create a community of conscience.

Create opportunities for students’ voices to be heard.

Ideas to foster a classroom communityof conscience:

Teachers establish a community of conscience by creating rules that teach fairness in classroom discussions and behavior.

Productive conversations can be created by teaching students to share their ideas and respond to the ideas of others in a way that allows for disagreement but still values the student perspective.

.

By providing model responses, teachers illustrate to students how a good response helps enrich a conversation whereas some responses can shut discussions down.


More ideas:

Helping students see themselves as co-learners rather than adversaries:

This perspective allows students to understand that while disagreements may occur, they must work together to increase their knowledge.

If students don’t perceive the classroom as competitive, they can approach the learning process as a path to solving problems instead of a mark of achievement only available to a few students.


Link to Real World Problems and Multiple Perspectives :

Focus: Students need to be able to recognize real-world problems and critically engage with these issues.

○ It is important to be pedagogically neutral as you support students’ own journey of learning how to be critical thinkers and form their own opinions.


Why link to real world problems and multiple perspectives?

Once teachers are able to foster a learning environment that enables thoughtful discussions with a variety of opinions and perspectives, they can facilitate conversations about real-world issues that affect students’ everyday lives

Students have the opportunity to see how positive change happens and how they can be both actors and leaders in creating change.

Students need to be able to recognize real-world problems and critically engage with these issues.


Ideas to link real world problems and multiple perspectives in the classroom:

Make what you are teaching relevant to what is going on in the world.

Ask students if they have any questions regarding anything they have been hearing about.

This is an opportunity to teach children high-level thinking skills.

Discerning fact and opinion.

Figuring out your own and other’s point of view.

By helping students feel safe and encouraged, teachers allow students to participate in ways that are purposeful and productive.


Pause and Reflect

Hyperdoc PLC Resource

Again I will be providing you with

additional tools and resources to

implement these strategies in your

classrooms.

These can be found in this PLC

resource. I will send you the link.

Pineapple Chart!

Once again we will be using the pineapple chart as a way to collaborate and learn from each other as we implement these new strategies.

Wrap Up

Before you go share one idea you gained from our workshop

today that you will act on in the coming days.


Trimester 3: Cultural Competence/Critical Consciousness

❖ Welcome:

❖ Reflection: Highs and Lows ❖ Implementation Framework

❖ Cultural Competence:

➢ Strategy 3: Encourage School-Family Connections

○ Parents and Families as Partners: Parents are the child’s first

teacher and are critically important partners to students and teachers.

○ Family Involvement: The relationship between families and

educators that is ongoing, mutual and built on trust and respect and that is focused on student learning and achievement.

❖ Critical Consciousness

➢ Strategy 1: Critical Literacy:

○ Critical Literacy Through Read Alouds: Texts are not critical in

and of themselves; it is the conversations that take place around the texts that qualify as critical.

➢ Strategy 2: Creating a Classroom for Social Justice:

○ Foster a Classroom Community of Conscience: Ensuring that

the classroom is a place where students’ voices, opinions and ideas are valued and respected by peers.

○ Link to Real World Problems and Multiple Perspectives:

Students need to be able to recognize real-world problems and critically engage with these issues.

❖ PLC Resource

❖ Pineapple Chart

Culturally ResponsiveTeaching Strategies Trimester 3: Critical Consciousness

PLC Resource

Engage

Ted Talk: How Teachers can Help Students Find their Voices Podcast: 'Whistling Vivaldi' And Beating Stereotypes White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh

Explain

-Can education be a place to help kids learn how to work for justice? -In your opinion, what does working for social justice look like?

Explore

CULTURAL COMPETENCE: (Cont.)

➢ Here is a link to the google slides from the training today ➢ PD Survey ➢ School and Family Connection:

○ WIDA Focus Bulletin ○ ABCs of Family Engagement ○ Community and Family Toolkit ○ Watch here for a principal’s perspective

CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: ➢ Critical Literacy:

○ Using Critical Literacy in K-3 Classrooms ○ Critical Literacy book list ○ Questions to focus on Critical Literacy

➢ Social Justice in the Classroom: ○ Teaching Tolerance classroom resources ○ More great Social Justice Projects for the classroom ○ DoSomething.org: Incredible opportunities for students to

participate ○ Global Oneness Project: Rich library of multimedia stories and

https://www.ted.com/talks/sydney_chaffee_how_teachers_can_help_kids_find_their_political_voices/transcript?language=en

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125859207

https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf

https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/FocusBulletin-Language-Culture.pdf

https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/ABCs-Family-Engagement.pdf

https://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/tesol-community-and-family-toolkit.pdf?sfvrsn=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL7XTnVeNts&list=PLoU659hwTdDazmojEjyRPBIs3M_napT0N&index=12

https://www.readingrockets.org/article/using-read-alouds-critical-literacy-literature-k-3-classrooms

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/critical-literacy

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1739XdhUU6AozVvATg3Tt5Xma3b0I3m0G

https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/social-justice-projects-in-classroom-michael-hernandez

https://www.dosomething.org/us

https://www.globalonenessproject.org/

lesson plans ○ Anti Racism Resources for all ages

Apply

How can you apply the Critical Consciousness strategies in your classroom? ➢What were some of the key ideas that stood out for you today? ➢Write a goal statement and share with your team

○ I will work on ... ○ I want to improve on … ○ One goal I have for the rest of the year is ...

Share


Reflect




Extend


○ Student data (Pre vs Post) ○ Academic gains for ELs? Reading levels/Writing Rubrics ○ Increase in the number of CRT strategies we use in our

classrooms? ➢ Qualitative Data:


https://padlet.com/nicolethelibrarian/nbasekqoazt336co?fbclid=IwAR3APb7ARPgbihqZlla91q2ytrq5mh88adSI_rZDZoqAYyL22sAuM7NC2XM


Anne Taylor

Project Summary

The goal of this project is to answer the question: How can culturally relevant

teaching strategies be integrated into the development of pedagogy and teaching

practices in mainstream classrooms in order to build cultural competence in teachers

and improve educational outcomes for English learners? The purpose is to provide a

resource for mainstream teachers which describes Culturally Responsive best practices

and outlines ways that educators can more effectively integrate culturally responsive

instructional practices into their daily practice.

Three, one hour professional development sessions were created to support

teachers in the implementation of these culturally responsive teaching strategies. The PD

sessions are meant to be presented once each trimester and were created using Google

Slides. In addition to the three PD sessions, a Professional Learning Community (PLC)

resource is included for each session to provide follow-up support and opportunities for

collaboration between PD sessions. Teachers can use the PLC resources to discuss ways

they have applied the new strategies, browse additional tools and resources, review

student data, and offer each other feedback.

Each of the PD sessions focuses on one of the three fundamental principles within

the culturally responsive framework as described by Geneva Gay (2000): (a) high

expectations, academic success for all students (b) cultural competence, assisting students

in the formation of a positive cultural identity, and (c) critical consciousness, preparing

students for success in the global society. The focus of each training is to build

background knowledge and understanding around one of each of these core principles,

including implementation strategies that can be used to integrate them successfully into

daily teaching practice.

The intended participants for this project are mainstream teachers. Students spend

most of their learning day with these teachers, which makes them ideally positioned to

apply the learning principles and strategies presented in this project. Although the project

is intended for classroom teachers, all staff members who work with English learners and

other diverse students will benefit from the ideas and resources presented in this project.

This includes grade-level teachers, EL teachers, teachers’ assistant or paraprofessionals,

special education teachers and administrators.

Documents

INTEGRATING CULTURALLY RELEVANT TEACHING STRATEGIES