culturally responsive teaching and technology

Teachers will also, “Employ authentic and modern technology usage inspiring digital literacy through an equity lens.” Once again, these are just a handful of the many examples in which ISBE’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning Standards prioritize progressive ideologies over substantive instructional strategies for new teachers. While there are many specific strategies and resources that are targeted to increasing language acquisition and encourage academic success in specific subject areas, it is incumbent upon every educator to employ a general approach that can … Hagan click aquí para leer las STEM Teaching Tools (STT) que han sido traducidas. As a result, it is crucial for the school and the classroom culture to reflect, acknowledge, and celebrate diversity. Now I am looking for more ways to incorporate collaborative work time into our e-learning environment, including using Zoom’s break outs feature for smaller groups. Learners examine methods of consulting and collaborating with teachers, agencies, support personnel, and other professionals to provide effective special educational services. These culturally responsive teaching strategies will help you to promote diversity in the classroom. Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” is a great one. Estamos traduciendo al Español nuestra colección de herramientas para la educación de ciencias. It also uses an array of strategies to reach students of different ethnicities and learning styles while validating the importance of different cultures whenever possible in the classroom. Run Problem-Based Learning Scenarios The flexibility of problem-based learning lends itself to culturally-responsive teaching. This reinforces the idea not only that they belong but that the way they show up at school every day, with all of their outside experiences in tow, has value. Give them context and don’t be afraid to talk about the tough subjects that may not be addressed in your school. 3. Answering questions like these might be hard, but in order to create change, you have to identify and unearth the roots of your teaching practice. I hope I put to bed some of their fears and anxieties in the process. With these culturally responsive teaching strategies in mind, it’s important to remind ourselves why diversity and cultural awareness is so crucial in the classroom and the benefits it can have on students now and in the long-term. Culturally competent teaching and learning involves accommodating individual learners. Learner-centered lessons are collaborative and allow students to redirect learning to topics that are culturally and socially relevant to them. Muhammad's Historically Responsive Literacy Framework is essential for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices. I plan to use the polling feature to collect student responses, and I have also been trying to implement the chat function as a relay race where students take turns answering questions. Has your past interaction with a particular race of people impacted your ability to communicate with parents? One strategy for fostering a student-centered environment is having students create a classroom agreement that answers the question: “How will we be together?” Allowing students to answer this question will give you a window into how their cultures dictate the ways in which they want to feel respected, heard, safe, and included in the classroom and in their interactions with one another and with you. As Maribel Valdez Gonzalez pointed out in A Healthy Reminder to Educators During School Closings, now is the time to focus on student well-being, not to prioritize academic compliance. 2. You have taken the time to reflect and really look into your own biases that may have been getting in your way. For the students in our class to whom their teacher is everything, even the most engaging worksheets, videos, projects and animated websites are nothing. Seminal studies of culturally responsive teaching, conducted over the course of the past 30–40 years have provided the evidence base for many of the innovative practices developed by Geneva Gay, Sonia Nieto, and Gloria Ladson-Billings. ... She is the founder and CEO of Lessonbee, an educational technology company that provides online health education for kids and teens, and principal of Reva Digital Media, LLC, an … When teachers act more as facilitators than lecturers, Gloria Ladson-Billings explains, students from marginalized groups are more likely to participate and succeed. For example, if the students heard a simile or metaphor, I asked them to give me a thumbs up, but if they heard me read a personification, I asked them to give me a thumbs down. But one critical piece was missing: the personal connection with me, their teacher. Are you operating from a place of critical care within your classroom—a place that marries high expectations with empathy and compassion? Finally, put some thought into your lesson planning. This reciprocity helped to create a high-trust environment. You have revamped your classroom environment to reflect your students’ voices, their various cultural needs, and their choice. The 7 principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching - Model by Gary R. Howard: One day we did a show and tell by sharing and discussing items from our homes. We talked about which topics are important to them. The fact that they were seeing me in my home helped show them I was willing to share and trust them, too. To continue, log into your Learning for Justice account. What books are students reading? Here’s how I’m building on what I learned to ensure I’m meeting the needs of marginalized students even as we shift to a new learning environment. These unintentional, unconscious attitudes impact how we relate to our students and their parents, and how we choose curriculum, assess learning, and plan lessons. I, too, sought out tasks online, excited for my students to drive their own learning. Culturally responsive methods such as inter-cultural communication stimulate respect for the needs of all learners and allow every voice to be heard. These aspects of culture are among the most misunderstood in the teacher-student dynamic and are often the things that cause students to get into the most trouble in the school discipline system. The next day we tried a scavenger hunt, where I named things: a pet, a sibling or a roll of toilet paper, for example, and students brought them to the camera to show off. The most important part of this work is a willingness to do something different to get different results, with the goal of increasing academic achievement. We spent the first 20 minutes of our meeting just chatting, reconnecting and discussing our needs. Students need to understand the system that is working around them in schools. Since I work in a district that provides one-to-one technology for our second through 12th graders, I knew I was lucky enough to be able to use the turn to online courses as a way to connect with my students and support them through this crisis. I read aloud, and we discussed the reading. As teachers, we provide so much more than the lessons we share. Use current songs that students might love to analyze the use of literary techniques and imagery in music videos. Each day since that initial meeting, I changed the location in my home where I met online with students. But students who are communal learners can struggle with traditional distance learning. Researchers including Geneva Gay, Sonia Nieto and Gloria Ladson-Billings all stress its importance. We hope this message—and these resources—offer some help. An instructional coach experiencing long-term school closures in Washington state shares some encouraging words for fellow educators who are grappling with the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and their own emotions. Now, I use our interactive classroom time to let students share questions, comments and concerns and to connect with and motivate them. When COVID-19 hit our society, a wave of teachers was thrown into distance learning with little preparation. 14. Understanding students’ lives can help teachers foster a sense of belonging and ensure that all students feel respected and challenged. To better engage communal learners in the classroom, Hammond suggests making lessons more social and utilizing gamified teaching. Hammond clarifies a distinction between individual learners and communal learners: Our cultural values, she says, can shape whether we learn best by exploring on our own or collaborating with others to build understanding. Culturally responsive pedagogy starts with the premise that race and class matter, and that some schools fail to send … Teachers using this method encourage each student to relate course content to his or her cultural context. Culturally responsive teachers also have to be aware of the sociopolitical context schools operate in and dare to go against that status quo. A project of the Southern Poverty Law Center ©1991-2021. Building trusting learning relationships is a cornerstone of culturally responsive instruction. While reading a selected text, I asked students questions and had them respond with some of the features on Zoom: thumbs up, “raise your hand” or emojis. ... Technology Product Manager. The outcome is a student body that loves learning, excels academically, and has teachers who respond to their needs. These culturally responsive teaching strategies will help you to promote diversity in the classroom. And I asked for feedback on the types of learning they enjoyed most: projects, games, flip grids or others. 3. Empowering students to take ownership of not just their learning but the environment itself is another critical component of CRT. In effect, taking 20 minutes to talk to students about their lives at the beginning of our meeting built deeper connections with my students, helping us to strengthen our relationships. During our initial class meeting, I began by presenting all of the topics that we were planning to cover and asking students what they were motivated to learn about first. For many of our students, we provide a guided path to successfully navigating those lessons, to security and to reassurance. Harvard University’s Project Implicit has an online test you can take to examine your implicit bias. Culturally responsive methods such as inter-cultural communication stimulate respect for the needs of all learners and allow every voice to be heard. We asked educators what they need, and we listened. Now that you have conducted an internal self-audit, your curriculum will need one as well. Would you like to print the images in this article? “What has impressed me the most about the use of emerging digital technologies in teaching and learning is the community of people open to collaboration and dialogue at Duke. We close each Zoom classroom meeting with a sharing or team building activity giving us an additional opportunity to connect with one another. Culturally responsive teaching is one step in the right direction. Identify those places in your instructional planning where you might have allowed your implicit biases to prevent you from pushing your students to achieve at optimal levels. Our work has evolved in the last 30 years, from reducing prejudice to tackling systemic injustice. Spread the loveSchool climate and school culture directly affect how successful your students will be. With these culturally responsive teaching strategies in mind, it’s important to remind ourselves why diversity and cultural awareness is so crucial in the classroom and the benefits it can have on students now and in the long-term. is a fifth grade teacher and equity ambassador in a large school district outside of Chicago. Respect for the learner is a critical component of effective teaching. • by Rosana G. Rodríguez, Ph.D., Rogelio López del Bosque, Ed.D., and Abelardo Villarreal, Ph.D. • IDRA Newsletter • November – December 2008 • Creating an atmosphere for purposeful parent engagement and partnership that is culturally responsive and that permeates throughout a school district begins with … For more on supporting students through distance learning, visit TT’s resource collection “Supporting Students Through Coronavirus.”. Suburban Republican lawmakers are critical of a rule change proposed by the Illinois State Board of Education called "culturally responsive teaching … So we’ve chosen a new name that better reflects that evolution: Learning for Justice. The connection to culturally-responsive teaching is the same as peer learning: Cooperative base groups encourage students to make sense of concepts you’ve taught by using their own words and thoughts. Culturally responsive teaching is a shift in mindset that motivates how we plan for every aspect of learning and overall classroom experiences. I have learned so much from others who have implemented online or digital learning in their teaching.” Current practices of assigning distance learning packets and independent online projects skew toward independent learners. Culturally responsive pedagogy starts with the premise that race and class matter, and that some schools fail to send diverse students signals that they belong. Click here to read the STEM Teaching Tools that have been translated. Here’s what one educator is trying with her fifth grade students. This alone makes being culturally responsive one of the most important things you can learn at this moment. For your audit, take some time to ask yourself hard questions and reflect on past and current practices. Being culturally responsive encourages students to feel a sense of belonging and helps create a safe space where they feel safe, respected, heard, and challenged. After our Zoom, I realized that our meeting included several of the hallmarks of culturally responsive teaching: building trusting learning relationships, creating opportunities for student-centered discourse and meeting the cognitive needs of communal learners.