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Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School by Mica Pollock (Editor)

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Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School by Mica Pollock (Editor)

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This "thought-provoking" book offers practical strategies for educators to address and counteract racism in the classroom, fostering an inclusive and equitable learning environment.

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everyday antiracism: getting real about race in school

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anti-racism; diversity; education; educator resources; social justice; race politics; professional growth; k-12; college classroom; theories and applications; equity; pedagogy; dominant culture; poc; racism; teacher resources

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education / administration / school superintendents & principals

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education / educational policy & reform / general

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education/student life & student affairs

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educational equalization - united states

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education / administration / school superintendents & principals

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education / educational policy & reform / general

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education/student life & student affairs

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Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School

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Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School [Pollock, Mica] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School

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The Dreamkeepers (3rd Edition): Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings 

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The Dreamkeepers (3rd Edition): Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings 

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This influential book delves into effective teaching practices that support and inspire African American students, emphasizing the value of culturally relevant pedagogy.

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In the newly revised Third Edition of The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, distinguished professor Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings delivers an encouraging exploration of the future of education for African American students. She describes eight exemplary teachers, all of whom differ in their personal style and methods, who share an approach to teaching that affirms and strengthens cultural identity.

In this mixture of scholarship and storytelling, you'll learn how to create intellectually rigorous and culturally relevant classrooms that have the power to improve the lives of all children. This important book teaches: what successful teachers do, don't do, and what we can learn from them; why it's so important for teachers to work with the unique strengths each student brings to the classroom; and how to improve educational outcomes for African American children across the country. Perfect for teachers, parents, school leaders, and administrators, The Dreamkeepers will also earn a place in the libraries of school boards, professors of education, and urban sociologists, as well as anyone with an interest in issues of race and education.

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The Dreamkeepers (3rd Edition): Successful Teachers of African American Children

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Amazon.com: The Dreamkeepers (3rd Edition): Successful Teachers of African American Children (Audible Audio Edition): Gloria Ladson-Billings, Sanya Simmons, Tantor Audio: Books

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"How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms" by Carol Ann Tomlinson 

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"How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms" by Carol Ann Tomlinson 

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This book provides useful advice and techniques for personalizing teaching to improve student results. Carol Ann Tomlinson's groundbreaking work, now in its third edition, is presented as a hands-on manual for educators. It explains the fundamentals of differentiation and incorporates fresh recommendations and innovative approaches for putting it into practice.

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First published in 1995 as How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, this new edition reflects evolving best practices, practitioners' experience, and Tomlinson's ongoing thinking about how to help all students access high-quality curriculum; engage in meaningful learning experiences; and feel safe and valued in their school.

Written as a practical guide for teachers, this expanded 3rd edition of Carol Ann Tomlinson's groundbreaking work covers the fundamentals of differentiation and provides additional guidelines and new strategies for how to go about it. You'll learn

What differentiation is and why it's essential

How to set up the flexible and supportive learning environment that promotes success

How to manage a differentiated classroom

How to plan lessons differentiated by readiness, interest, and learning profile

How to differentiate content, process, and products

How to prepare students, parents, and yourself for the challenge of differentiation

We differentiate instruction to honor the reality of the students we teach. They are energetic and outgoing. They are quiet and curious. They are confident and self-doubting. They are interested in a thousand things and deeply immersed in a particular topic. They are academically advanced and "kids in the middle" and struggling due to cognitive, emotional, economic, or sociological challenges. More of them than ever speak a different language at home. They learn at different rates and in different ways. And they all come together in our academically diverse classrooms.

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How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms

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How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms [Tomlinson, Carol Ann] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms

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Differentiated Instruction is a teaching approach where educators tailor their instructions to meet the diverse needs of students. Begin understanding this method through this comprehensive guide.

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Key Strategies for Differentiated Instruction

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Key Strategies for Differentiated Instruction

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Effective strategies include flexible grouping, tiered assignments, and learning centers. This article dives deep into these methods.

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When I wrote my article "Why We Need Differentiation Now More Than Ever" for an ASCD newsletter in May of last year (Westman, 2020), remote learning was new. It was just weeks after the initial school closures due to COVID-19, and everyone's emotions were raw. As our school systems (and many of us) were in survival mode, remote learning had become our lifeline, but certainly not our lifestyle. At the time, one question I kept getting asked was, "How do I differentiate for students virtually?" My advice at that time was for teachers in all grade levels and content areas to make their essential question to students, "How do you feel?" and use their responses as a form of formative assessment for figuring out what they needed most.

Now, with a year under our belts of some combination of remote, hybrid, or in-person learning with social distancing restrictions-and (hopefully) a bit of time this summer to relax and restore-we are ready to take on the 2021-2022 school year. This time the question on everyone's mind is, "What will our students need?" And, once again, the idea of differentiation is taking center stage.

Many are looking to differentiating instruction as a means to undo "learning loss." In fact, a Google search of the terms "learning loss and differentiation" returns over 55 million results. Schools are grateful for additional funds to address learning loss, quickly amp up professional learning, focus on assessing where students are, and firm up differentiation practices and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). But differentiating is not a new approach or program-in fact, MTSS and differentiation are hot topics almost every school year, whether we're in a pandemic or not. Veteran educators have likely heard about this approach many times in their careers, though they might still be confused as to how to do it, and novice teachers have likely read about it in their studies but not had any practical experience implementing the approach successfully.

As a consultant who works with school systems internationally on differentiation, I frequently hear comments like, "Oh, we tried differentiation a few years ago. It didn't work." Or "I used to differentiate for my students, but I just don't have time for that now."

Sadly, this is the case for many educators. And even more disheartening is that fact that we often throw in the towel because we hold a flawed view of what differentiation is and what it is not. We assume that differentiation must have this or must have that, when really differentiation only needs to include one thing: a clear focus on students' academic and social-emotional needs. When we are responsive to our students' needs, any action we take to meet those needs is differentiation.

The tricky piece here is adequately answering the question, "What do our students really need?" Surely, each student will need different things. And teachers need effective and sustainable strategies to meet these needs. So, where do we start?

1. Focus on growth instead of loss

Educators have been anticipating "learning loss" for the past 18 months. But focusing on "loss" assumes something was "had" in the first place. If students "lost" their learning, did they ever really have it? Instead of focusing on "loss," let's focus on determining whether or not students have met learning targets. The way we do this is through instructional clarity: having clear goalposts of what learning looks like and centering your planning process around success criteria and formative assessment. Ensure that for every lesson and unit of study:

The focus standard is clearly identified.

Learning intentions are clearly defined (these are the discrete skills and/or concepts derived from the standard).

The success criteria are clearly identified (these are the indicators that the student has mastered the learning intention. Collectively they indicate proficiency in the learning intention).

For the success criterion, there are formative assessments. Evidence from these formative assessments is then regularly used to inform instruction. And with that data we. . . .

2. Offer empathy, not interventions

In the June 2021 issue of Psychology Today, the table of contents includes a teaser for the feature article in the "Treatment" section of the magazine. It says, "[pg.] 34-Addiction: Interventions Don't Work. This might." When you turn to page 34, you find an article by Peg O'Connor (2021) titled "Empathy over Ambush."

While this article is about interventions for people struggling with an addiction and not struggling learners, the same premise holds for our schools.

The antithesis of empathizing with students is shaming them (inadvertently or not). When students feel shame, it renders them incapable of learning and may likely lead to other adverse behaviors. When we pull students from their classes (whether for remediation or extension), we run the high risk of inducing shame in them.

Instead, we can structure our lessons to provide additional instruction and practice to students at their readiness level while simultaneously exposing them to grade-level content and skills if we. . . .

3. Plan instruction that is equitable, not equal

While in college, I worked at a day camp. At the time, I had never heard of the term "differentiation," but what I learned from how the camp ran their swimming program taught me so much about two differentiation mainstays: flexible grouping and student choice and voice. The camp had nine "swim levels," each with very clear criteria. Once a student could meet the criteria, they switched groups to the next level.

However, in the first 15 minutes of swim time, all students were introduced to the day's skill, for example, treading water. Even the students who had not yet demonstrated proficiency to go into the deep end were still exposed to the new skill and then given scaffolds (water wings or floaties) or the option to work on a deep-end skill in the shallow water for this "whole group" part of the lesson. Then, during small-group instruction time, the swimmers were given additional direct instruction and practice of the prerequisite skills they needed.

Pulling a small group to reteach prerequisite skills is an example of a "tier-two" intervention during tier-one instruction time. It allows all students to be exposed to "where they are going" and hone the skills they need to get there with targeted instruction.

This model works in the classroom, too. Pulling a small group to work on phonics skills necessary to decode text while other groups dive into comprehension questions for a text would be one example. How can students comprehend text if they can't decode? During the whole-group portion of this lesson, the "floaties" might be listening to an audio recording of the text or reading a smaller passage of text to demonstrate a specific comprehension skill.

This leads me to another common misconception about differentiation. Often times, educators believe that you cannot have whole-group direct instruction as part of differentiation. You surely can-the differentiation can and should be embedded in this context. In addition, educators often believe they need to see all small groups of students every day for the same number of minutes. This is equality. Equity is when you see students in small groups based on needs (academic and social-emotional), so that students with the greatest needs are seen more frequently and/or for a greater number of minutes than students who have less needs. All students receive the amount of small-group instruction appropriate for them, with zero minutes being suitable for no one.

4. Assume positive intent

As educators, we are obliged to be responsive to the children and young adults in front of us. We have a choice to respond to students in punitive and judgmental ways or in compassionate ways that give them the benefit of the doubt.

Take cheating, for instance. Cheating was a hot topic of conversation during remote learning since teachers had less oversight and control over how students were completing work. Even strategies that allowed teachers greater oversight were doubted in the face of the freedom students had during remote learning.

For example, a teacher I worked with last year used Google Slides in a super creative way to mimic, in a virtual way, walking around the classroom and looking at your students' work (you can see every student in real time when you view Slides in "grid" view). I loved this teacher's idea so much that I shared it with another team of teachers. This team, however, was concerned that since the students could see each other's answers, they would "cheat."

I said, "Well, the great thing about this format is you can see if any of your students are looking at slides other than their own. If you see a student on another student's slide, what would you do?"

One teacher said, "I would give them a zero."

I countered: "What if you assume positive intent?" I went on to ask that teacher to assume the student isn't looking at another student's work to "cheat," but instead because he or she is confused. Instead of failing the student, make a note of students who look at other students' slides and use that as one piece of formative assessment evidence that those students may require additional instruction. Then pull those students as a small group and check their understanding. This mindset is critical to differentiated instruction and will be particularly helpful as students return to schools this year.

The same premise applies to our personal professional practice. There will be some strategies that we try that will work. There will be others that are lackluster. This is simply formative assessment evidence for us to reflect on and hone our practices. If you find yourself saying things like, "I tried it, it didn't work," think about extending empathy and assuming positive intent for yourself as well as your students. In the words of meditation teacher and author Jack Kornfield, "If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete" (Kornfield, 2018, p. 28.) When it comes to differentiation (and all instruction), please be compassionate to yourself, your students, and each other. Remember that both you and your students can always take something you learned today and refine it tomorrow-it's a marathon, not a sprint.

As we adjust to teaching and learning in this post-pandemic world, a genuine understanding of what differentiation is (anything we do to meet the needs of our students so they continue to learn and grow academically and socially) will certainly redirect our focus from fear of the loss to celebration of the gains.

Reflect & Discuss

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What Differentiated Instruction Really Means - ASCD

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When I wrote my article "Why We Need Differentiation Now More Than Ever" for an ASCD newsletter in May of last year (Westman, 2020), remote learning was new. It was just weeks after the initial school closures due to COVID-19, and everyone's emotions were raw.

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Examples of Differentiated Instruction in the Classroom

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Examples of Differentiated Instruction in the Classroom

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Practical examples can help you visualize how to implement differentiated instruction. Check out these classroom success stories.

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What is Differentiated Instruction?

The differentiated instruction definition is simply put as teachers tailoring instruction to meet a learner's needs. With a variety of needs filling our classrooms, it is important to use a variety of instructional techniques. An easy way to describe this is by saying it how it was always taught to me: "There is no one size fits all approach for instruction."

According to Carol Ann Tomlinson, you can differentiate four classroom elements according to the student's readiness, interest, and learning profiles. These elements are:

Content refers to what the student needs to learn and how that information will be accessed. Process is the activities that the students engage in to learn and eventually master the content. Products are the projects that students use to apply and extend learning that took place within the unit of study. The learning environment is the way that the classroom works and feels.

Examples of Differentiated Instruction

Here is a differentiation instruction strategies list full of numerous examples:

Content

Students are placed in groups and rotate around the room to different instruction stations. In my math classrooms, I like to use a teacher station to remediate or challenge learners working on the daily lesson or specific skill, a technology rotation where a program such as Map Skills Accelerator or Moby Max is used consistently, and a hands-on station where students use manipulatives or math games to extend learning.

This is a similar way to differentiating instruction through content where you can re-teach skills to struggling learners or extend the thinking and challenge the advanced learners. Keeping the groups flexible allows you to group in various ways such as by learning style, ability, and in ways to create social-emotional support.

Learning Styles

There are a variety of learning styles that fill your classroom walls, and it is important to meet the needs of the visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners that make up your class. For example, get your kinesthetic learners moving by having students act of the scene/chapter of a story. Using manipulatives to help develop a deeper conceptual understanding of math skills is also a great way to target different learners.

For example, having second-grade students practice counting money with real coins (or even the fake ones from math kits) is a great way to increase understanding of money in a tactile manner. Presenting written and verbal directions meets the needs of your auditory and visual learners.

There are many other ways to incorporate content differentiation in your classroom such as using leveled readers, leveled spelling lists, and using leveled math worksheets. Self-directed learning can also be utilized in having the student's set personal goals and have them monitor their progress in achieving them.

Process

Time Modifications

Time modifications can be used to support the struggling learner and encourage the advanced learner. You do not want any of your students to reach levels of frustration; this is an easy way to avoid that. For example, you can give struggling learners extended time to complete a project, and for advanced learners, you can add an extension activity to be completed in the same time frame.

Scaffolding/Tiered Instruction

Scaffolding/tiered instruction has your learners work on the same skill and content with different levels of support and complexity. Struggling learners may work through the process of solving a multi-digit multiplication problem multiple times until the students gain confidence.

You might use a variety of different strategies to solve the problems such as the traditional algorithm, area models, and partial products until you find the way the student best understands. For your higher-level learners, you may challenge them with more word problems and open-ended questions to best meet their needs.

Task lists can be utilized to meet the needs of individual learners. I am a big fan of using task lists in my classroom. This would include "must do" activities which are tasks that need to be completed and "may do" activities such as working on a long-term assignment (project), extension activities, or math games on the computer.

You can simply write the list on the whiteboard and identify the tasks to be completed and then what can be worked on after those tasks are complete. Another option for Google Classroom is to have a Google Slide with the same information if you have learners at home.

Product

These are a must! Students must understand how they are being scored on a project, writing piece, or assignment before they begin. Creating multiple rubrics for the learners in your room can be a great way to differentiate instruction. You can challenge your advanced learners and make appropriate modifications for struggling students or those with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

Provide students with a choice on how to complete a project. For example, I always loved the "Wanted" project that was assigned to students. This was a project that students had to make a number (in the billions) wanted for a math crime.

They needed to include all the elements that the rubric required but were able to choose how to complete the project. I received Google Slidehows, Scratch game shows, posters, three-dimensional models, YouTube videos, skits, and more. Watching the students embrace their creativity made this one of the most fun projects to watch being presented!

Learning Environment

Learning environment is essential. Some students prefer working in a quiet setting while others embrace a bit of noise. It is important to have multiple places in your classroom (or right outside the door) that promote quiet, independent work and a place to collaborate. Routines are important within the classroom to keep it running smoothly and effectively.

Students need to understand steps to take if they need the teachers help, but the teacher is not available at that exact moment. When students interrupt me while working with another student, it disrupts the learning process for the student-at-work, and I lose my train of thought. It sets us back to square one and can be frustrating for all involved.

Differentiated instruction in the classroom is one of the keys to success. As Albert Einsten once said, "If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it is stupid." We must meet the needs of our learners to ensure confidence, success, and learning by all.
Have a passion for differentiated instruction? Check out our available differentiated instruction graduate programs and get started today!

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Examples of Differentiated Instruction - Graduate Programs for Educators

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Looking for some examples of differentiated instruction to implement this school year? Find everything from content to learning environments.

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Learn the basics of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) and how it benefits students from diverse backgrounds.

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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.

This explainer unpacks what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher, how all these research terms are related, and where other academic concepts such as critical race theory tie in-or not.

What is the definition of culturally responsive teaching?

Culturally responsive teaching means using students' customs, characteristics, experience, and perspectives as tools for better classroom instruction.

The term was coined by researcher Geneva Gay in 2000, who wrote that "when academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference for students, they are more personally meaningful, have higher interest appeal, and are learned more easily and thoroughly."

It's the kind of teaching that helps students of color see themselves and their communities as belonging in schools and other academic spaces, leading to more engagement and success.

What is culture, and why is it relevant to student learning?

Culture refers to the customs, languages, values, beliefs, and achievements of a group of people. Students' culture and lived experiences that influence how they understand and make sense of the world or themselves are an integral part of who they are as learners. As Emily Style, the former founding co-director of the National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity), once wrote, "Half the curriculum walks in the door with the students."

While more than half of public school students are students of color, most schools are organized around the mainstream culture of white Americans. The culture that many students experience at home and in their communities is not always represented at school-or is represented in a stereotypical way.

Also, 80 percent of teachers are white. Research has found that teachers are just as likely to have racial biases as non-teachers, and those biases tend to influence the expectations they have for their students and their ways of managing their classrooms. For example, past research has found that white teachers have lower expectations for Black students than they do for white students, and those can turn into "self-fulfilling prophecies" when students internalize them or when teachers change their approach to students as a result of their mindsets.

One study found that white teachers were more likely to praise a poorly written essay if they thought it was written by a student of color than if they thought the essay was by a white student. Teachers' racial biases can also result in decreased access to advanced coursework and higher rates of suspensions.

When did culturally responsive teaching start?

Culturally responsive teaching stems from the framework of culturally relevant pedagogy, which was introduced by scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings in the 1990s. Ladson-Billings was tired of the commonly held narrative that Black children were deficient and deviant, and that there was something wrong with them. Instead, she wanted to find out what was right with Black children, their families, and their communities. To do so, she researched the practices of effective teachers of Black students.

For about two years, Ladson-Billings observed teachers who were identified by both principals and Black parents as being excellent. The teachers had different ways of teaching, but they all had high expectations for their students and fostered academic success. They also all valued and integrated themselves in the community from which their students came.

Ladson-Billings distilled the commonalities in those teachers' beliefs and practices into the framework of culturally relevant pedagogy, which she defined as a model that "not only addresses student achievement but also helps students to accept and affirm their cultural identity while developing critical perspectives that challenge inequities that schools (and other institutions) perpetuate."

There are three components of culturally relevant pedagogy:

student learning-prioritizing students' intellectual growth, including their ability to problem-solve;

cultural competence-creating an environment where students affirm and appreciate their culture of origin while also developing fluency in at least one other culture; and

critical consciousness-teaching students how to identify, analyze, and solve real-world problems, especially those that result in societal inequities against marginalized groups.

So, what are the characteristics of culturally responsive teaching?

Gay's research shows five essential components of culturally responsive teaching:

A strong knowledge base about cultural diversity. Teachers should understand different racial and ethnic groups' cultural values, traditions, and contributions to society, and incorporate that knowledge into their instruction.

Culturally relevant curricula. Teachers should include multiple perspectives in their instruction and make sure the images displayed in classrooms-such as on bulletin boards-represent a wide range of diversity. Teachers should also contextualize issues within race, class, ethnicity, and gender.

High expectations for all students. Teachers should help students achieve academic success while still validating their cultural identities.

An appreciation for different communication styles. Teachers should understand different communication styles and modify classroom interactions accordingly. For example, many communities of color have an active, participatory style of communication. A teacher who doesn't understand this cultural context might think a student is being rude and tell the student to be quiet. The student may then shut down.

The use of multicultural instructional examples. Teachers should connect students' prior knowledge and cultural experiences with new knowledge.

Doesn't that require teachers to reinforce stereotypes about students of color and even discriminate against white children?

In short, no. While the academic framework of culturally responsive teaching and other asset-based pedagogies emerged from how to best support students of color, it evolved into a teaching approach that serves all students, regardless of their racial background.

Sharroky Hollie, the director of the nonprofit Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning, works with teachers to practice what he calls cultural and linguistic responsiveness. In his work, he talks about the rings of culture, meaning the various aspects of students' identities that can impact how they interact with the world around them.

To Hollie, it's not just about thinking of ways to validate and incorporate a student's racial background into the classroom. It's not about thinking of students in a one-dimensional, stereotypical way. Culturally responsive teachers must also consider the student's gender, age, socio-economic status, whether they live in the suburbs or a rural area, and more.

"It's not as simplistic as we're trying to value our students of color," he said. "We're actually trying to value the rings of culture that they bring to our schools, regardless of their racial background."

For instance, in predominately white school districts, there are white students who, due to where they live or their family's socio-economic status, are underserved by their school district and could benefit from a culturally responsive approach to education, Hollie said.

What is culturally sustaining pedagogy, and how is it different than culturally relevant teaching?

Schools are still places where white norms are considered the default standard in the curricula, behavioral expectations, linguistic practices, and more. Culturally sustaining pedagogy says that students of color should not be expected to adhere to white middle-class norms, but their own cultural ways of being should be explored, honored, and nurtured by educators.

The framework builds on the work of Ladson-Billing and others but offers a "loving critique" that cultural relevance in the curriculum is not enough for students in today's world, given demographic shifts toward a more diverse society. Paris and Alim also argue that asset-based pedagogies, like culturally relevant teaching, traditionally haven't paid enough attention to young people's more fluid relationships with their identities.

Ladson-Billings has embraced the evolution of her foundational pedagogy, writing in 2014 that "culturally sustaining pedagogy uses culturally relevant pedagogy as the place where the beat drops." She also told Education Week that she is now paying close attention to how teenagers shape culture, an aspect that wasn't present in her original work.

It's important to remember that these asset-based pedagogies-culturally responsive, culturally relevant, and culturally sustainable, among others-are not in conflict with each other. While their frameworks vary, they all have the same goal of dismantling a deficit approach to educating students of color and focusing instead on their strengths, assets, and communities in the classroom.

What does the research say about the effectiveness of these teaching frameworks?

A 2016 synthesis of decades of research on culturally responsive teaching and related frameworks found that engaging in culturally affirming practices across subject matters, including mathematics and science, led to positive increases in students' understanding and engagement with academic skills and concepts.  For instance, students in high school math class could learn about statistics by assessing the probabilities of racial profiling cases in various neighborhoods or using other datasets applicable to their communities that bring up questions about justice and injustice.

Culturally responsive teaching and similar approaches to teaching also increased students' motivation, interest in content, and the perception of themselves as capable students, among other benefits, the study found. Brittany Aronson, an associate professor in educational leadership at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a co-author of the study, said, whenever teachers drew direct connections between classroom lessons and students' experiences outside of school, students could see greater value in the academic content as it applies to the real world. Such work helps students see themselves as knowledge producers and researchers.

Overall, teaching that makes school relevant to students helps them succeed both in terms of quantitative measures such as high test scores, and more qualitative measures such as becoming life-long learners able to ask critical questions about the world around them, both in and out of school, Aronson said.

What are some examples of culturally responsive teaching?

Teachers who practice culturally responsive teaching have a classroom full of books featuring characters and images that represent a variety of ages, genders, ethnicities, and other types of diversity. They share the achievements and expertise of people from different ethnic groups in every subject area. They include multiple perspectives when discussing historical and contemporary events, including those from oppressed groups who are often left out of the narrative. And they encourage students to draw on their prior knowledge and cultural experiences to make connections to the academic content.

Culturally responsive teaching also must have an element of critical consciousness, where students are empowered to critique and analyze societal inequities. For example, Teddi Beam-Conroy, an associate teaching professor at the University of Washington, was teaching the Declaration of Independence to a class of 5th graders. When they got to the line that said, "All men are created equal," Beam-Conroy asked her students, "Who were the men who were considered equal at that point?" To illustrate the point, she asked everyone to stand up-and then told them to sit down if they didn't identify as male, if they didn't identify as white, or if their parents rented instead of owned a home.

That exercise opened the door to a conversation about how Americans weren't all equal in the late 18th century. Beam-Conroy's students discussed when women and African Americans got the right to vote-and what implications that has had on the composition of U.S. Congress or the Supreme Court. The critical consciousness piece is "examining how historically, power has been distributed and guarded among particular folks who make the laws," Beam-Conroy said. "Fifth graders can understand that."

Culturally responsive teaching can also involve a deeper reimagining of classroom codes of conduct. For instance, in some students' culture, talking while someone else talks shows how invested and engaged they are in the conversation, said Hollie with the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning. Culturally responsive teachers find ways to incorporate that verbal overlap into their lesson rather than seeing it as rude or worthy of discipline.

What isn't culturally responsive teaching?

Researchers note that some educators say they're practicing culturally responsive teaching, but it's an overly simplified version. For example, for some teachers, a multicultural school potluck meal or adding diverse books to their classroom library sufficiently counts as affirming students' culture in education. But culturally responsive teaching is deeper, more critical work.

"There's a tendency to truncate culturally responsive teaching to be about a whole myriad of things-it's about relationships, it's about anti-racist education, it's about diverse books," said Zaretta Hammond, the author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. "It's like that old parable of the king who asks nine blind men to describe an elephant. Each one grabs a different part of the elephant. 'Oh, it's flat and wide'-he's got the ear. 'No, it's like a rope'-he's got the tail. No one has the whole picture."

Too often, she said, white progressive educators view culturally responsive teaching as an add-on to their regular instruction instead of a fundamental shift in their pedagogy. For example, a teacher might think students of color just need to see themselves in order to feel motivated and do the work, so she'll incorporate diverse books into her classroom or syllabus-but not change anything to the content or her way of instruction.

Another common misconception is that culturally responsive teaching is a way of addressing student trauma, which is a deficit-based ideology that assumes the universal experience of people of color is one of trauma, Hammond said.

How widespread is culturally responsive teaching?

Most teacher-preparation programs have also incorporated culturally responsive teaching into their courses. And some school districts, including New York City and Baltimore City, have adopted a culturally responsive and/or sustaining approach to education.

Still, experts say it's difficult to pinpoint exactly how many teachers have adopted these asset-based pedagogies because some may use only certain tenets. For instance, helping students develop a critical consciousness is often ignored.

What does all of this have to do with critical race theory?

Critical race theory, broadly speaking, is an academic concept with the core idea that race is a social construct, and racism is not only the product of individual bias or prejudice but is also embedded in policies and systems, such as a legal system-or as some scholars such as Ladson-Billings propose, an educational system.

Aspiring K-12 teachers in graduate level courses may study aspects of critical race theory to better understand how school systems are designed in ways that don't serve the needs of students of color. But critical race theory is not taught as a guide for classroom instruction, nor is it typically used as a culturally relevant or culturally responsive lesson plan for kids and teens, said Aronson with Miami University.

Asset-based pedagogies, like culturally relevant or culturally responsive teaching, are not the same thing as critical race theory. They have different theoretical bases and different goals. However, there might be some commonalities-for example, the questions students are encouraged to ask about social systems, including education, may ring close to the consciousness critical race theory is meant to evoke.

In an interview with Education Week, Ladson-Billings stressed that culturally relevant teaching, as she defined it, has nothing to do with critical race theory. But opponents to critical race theory have glossed over those nuances, she said, adding that deliberative public debate is hard when people don't know what they're talking about.

"The attack on anything that allows more participation and moves us toward equity is going full force," she said.

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Here's what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher and where critical race theory ties in-or not.

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Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) aims to affirm students' cultural identities while developing their academic skills. Learn the foundational principles here.

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Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is a philosophical outlook towards one's approach to teaching that informs the what, the how, and the why. CRP focuses on the academic and personal success of students as individuals and as a collective. It ensures students engage in academically rigorous curriculum and learning, feel affirmed in their identities and experiences, and develop the knowledge and skills to engage the world and others critically.

CRP, a pedagogical framework coined by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings in the early '90s, rests on three fundamental pillars-academic achievement, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. These three pillars work in tandem with one another-in other words, a culturally relevant teacher cannot focus on one pillar without also inherently focusing on the others.
Academic Achievement (Student Learning and Academic rigor)
Academic achievement, the first pillar, acknowledges that the primary function of a teacher's role is to cultivate the minds of their students. Culturally relevant teachers hold high and transparent academic expectations and meet students where they are. They know the content, they know the learner, and they know how to teach the content to the learner. They think deeply about what they teach, why they are teaching it, and how they are going to teach it based on who their students are as people and as learners.
Cultural Competence
Cultural competence requires that teachers understand culture and its role in education, that they take responsibility for learning about their students' culture and community and that they interrogate their own identity, culture, biases, and privilege to critically assess and strengthen their instructional practice. When cultural competence is playing out as it should, the classroom can be described as full of mirrors and windows- students see themselves reflected in the classroom (mirrors) and have opportunities to learn more about and see into the lived experiences of others (windows). The teacher uses their students' culture as the basis for learning, helps students recognize and honor their own cultural beliefs and practices while accessing and learning about the wider world.
Sociopolitical Consciousness
Sociopolitical consciousness requires that teachers actively educate themselves and their students on the personal and sociopolitical issues that impact their students, their students' communities, and the world-and, that they incorporate this into their teaching. This also inherently means that teachers encourage students to think about and consistently question why things are the way they are and encourage students to see themselves as agents of social change and transformation. Students are therefore empowered to think and act in ways that challenge the inequitable status quo among people, within communities, and in society at large.
So, How Do I Do it?
As Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings states, a common misconception when engaging with CRP is believing that successful teaching is primarily about what to do. The truth is that successful teaching is primarily about how we think-about our students, their communities and broader social contexts and about our curriculum, our instruction, and our role as teachers.

In life, our beliefs drive our actions, and the same is true in teaching. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is more of a way of being or way of thinking that then manifests into ways of doing. CRP is not something that we incorporate or add-on to our teaching-it is the foundation that grounds and informs every aspect of our instructional practice; it is the lens through which we approach our work. Therefore, CRP cannot be boiled down to a set of specific strategies, a checklist for lesson planning, or specific curriculum because all of these must be directly connected to and informed by a teacher's specific set of students- who they are as people and as learners, their communities, their history, and their context.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy equips us as teachers to provide our students with the type of education they not only deserve but are entitled to. An education that recognizes and celebrates their identities, lived experiences and culture. An education that nurtures their inherent brilliance and infinite potential. An education that doesn't set them up to "fit into," accept or replicate an inequitable system, but one that equips them with the tools to transform it. An education that cultivates strong trunks, beautiful branches, colorful leaves, and deep roots.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Texts & Sources
Interested in learning more? Please check out the following articles and sources we've used throughout this article.

From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt by Gloria Ladson-Billings

The Dream Keepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children" by Gloria Ladson-Billings

Yes, But How Do We Do It? Practicing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy" by Gloria Ladson-Billings

Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice by Geneva Gay

The Art of Critical Pedagogy by Jeff Duncan-Andrade

Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete by Jeff Duncan-Andrade

All together now: Academic Rigor and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy by Jeff Duncan-Andrade

Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers by Ana Maria Villegas and Tamara Lucas

Reality Pedagogy by Christopher Emdin

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim

Whose Culture Has Capital? by Tara J. Yosso

Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms by Norma Gonzalez, Luis C. Moll, and Cathy Amanti

"This is How We Do It: Helping teachers understand culturally relevant pedagogy in diverse classrooms," by Adrienne D. Dixson and Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner

Reading Between the Lines and the Pages: A Culturally Relevant Approach to Literacy Teaching by Gloria Ladson-Billings

Self-guided professional development for anti-bias education: https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/self-guided-learning

Being Culturally Responsive: https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/being-culturally-responsive

Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors by Rudine Sims Bishop

About the Author
Bárbara Escudero currently serves on Teach For America's Teacher Leadership Development team and leads the national work TFA does around Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and supporting Linguistically Diverse students. She is a proud first-generation Latina, born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx. Bárbara completed her undergraduate degree at Cornell University and received her Master's degree in Bilingual/Bicultural Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She proudly served as a classroom teacher for 12 years.

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How to Practice Culturally Relevant Pedagogy | Teach For America

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A mindset more than a set of practices, culturally relevant pedagogy aims to celebrates the unique culture within each of us.

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CRP in Practice: Strategies for Educators

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CRP in Practice: Strategies for Educators

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Explore strategies to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy into your teaching routines.

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Practical tips and strategies for integrating CRT within your classroom lesson plans.

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Know

What do you think of when you hear the word 'culture'? How do you define it? You may think of several things, including the culture of a group of people (an office or neighborhood), or you may think of the culture that you associate with your family, race, and ethnicity. Culture can be defined in many ways, but at the heart of it, you will find a shared set of values, beliefs, habits, customs, and practices. Researcher, Donna Y, Ford defines culture in this way:

Culture is the accumulation of beliefs, attitudes, values, habits, customs, and traditions shared by a group of people. These beliefs, attitudes, habits, etc., are learned and acquired. Culture serves as a frame of reference through which individuals and groups view, interpret, and respond to the world. No one is born with a culture. Culture is learned/acquired.

Culturally responsive teaching is a term that was created by researcher, Geneva Gay. The term evolved from culturally relevant teaching, which is a philosophy and way of teaching focused on three main components: student learning, cultural competence; and critical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Culturally responsive teaching is centered on several different components, including:

A strong understanding of cultural diversity.

A culturally relevant curriculum.

High expectations for every child, especially students of color.

An appreciation for different styles of communication.

The use of multicultural instruction - teaching styles and pedagogy.

Donna Y. Ford encourages educators to consider culturally responsive education to be grounded in equity. She also asks you to think about the term 'responsive', which means to address a need. Therefore, culturally responsive teaching uses the knowledge, customs, perspectives, and experiences of racially and ethnically diverse students to create better instructional opportunities. As Gay (2018) reminds us "virtually every student can do something well" (p. 1). Therefore, teachers are encouraged to learn to identify, celebrate, and connect students' potential and skills with their teaching strategies. Think about how difficult it might be to teach or care for a child that you don't know. While this may sound like a strange concept, too often this exact scenario happens when educators limit their knowledge about a child to who they are in the context of their program, ignoring all the other parts of the child's identity and experiences. While Ladson-Billings's and Gay's models include different components, their ideas are similar. Instead of looking at children of color from a deficit perspective, both models seek to focus on the assets that children of color possess, and then incorporate their knowledge and experiences into instructional practices and curriculum development and materials (e.g., books, videos, crayons, dolls, toys, and so on).

Components of Culturally Responsive Teaching

Below, you will find descriptions for the five key components included in culturally responsive teaching:

1. A strong understanding of cultural diversity that recognizes the different cultural values and customs of various races and ethnicities, their traditions and impact on society, and then connects that knowledge to the support and instruction provided by the teacher.

2. Curriculum that is culturally relevant. Teachers should provide multiple perspectives instead of only one perspective. Materials, including images displayed on walls and bulletin boards, should reflect a wide range of diversity. Issues involving race, gender, ethnicity and class should be placed in context for children and youth. Topics and materials are of interest to minoritized children, such as multicultural literature,

3. Expectations are high to support the success of every child while still respecting and validating their cultural identities. This component is a reminder that every child deserves to succeed and should be supported to reach their full potential. As educators, we cannot allow some children to succeed, while allowing other children to fail, and remain OK with these outcomes.

4. An appreciation for different styles of communication with the understanding that different cultures interact in different ways. For example, many communities of color have an active style of communication where an individual may begin speaking before someone else is finished. This may feel more conversational and less formal in these cultures but to someone outside of this community this manner of communication may appear rude or inappropriate and a child may be told to be quiet or wait until the other person is finished before talking. This could cause the child to stop engaging in the discussion due to the mismatch between their culture and the expectation of an educator.

5. The use of multicultural curricular and instructional examples can be used by staff members to connect prior knowledge and cultural experiences to new information.

It's important to note that while culturally responsive teaching is meant to make learning more relevant and effective for ethnically diverse students (Gay, 2018), all children benefit from culturally responsive teaching. Educational opportunities are often designed with middle class, White children in mind even though the populations of many programs do not fit this profile. White children from lower socioeconomic classes often have very different experiences than their wealthier White peers despite being from the same racial group. It is also important to remember that all White children do not have the same ethnic background or experiences. Culturally responsive teaching can incorporate ethnicity into the curriculum to help children recognize the diversity that exists within their own race and appreciate and celebrate the diversity found among other races and ethnicities. Culturally responsive teachers should look beyond racial identity and consider the other aspects of culture children and youth carry with them, including age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, social class, and the geographic location of their home (rural, urban or suburban). Educators can find ways to affirm all of these aspects of a child's identity by connecting them to the activities and experiences in the classroom.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice

Certain aspects of culturally responsive teaching will sound familiar since it includes elements of anti-bias and anti-racist teaching. Programs that practice culturally responsive teaching include a wide array of books that feature images and characters that represent various ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. A culturally responsive program will include a variety of books about diversity and will not be limited to one type of diversity, such as gender, race or ethnicity, since all aspects of diversity are important and must be affirmed in culturally responsive teaching.

Culturally responsive teaching shares multiple perspectives of historical and current information rather than a single story of a group of people. For example, when discussing the enslavement of African Americans, narratives told from the perspective of those who were enslaved should be shared, and narratives about the ways that the enslaved resisted and found ways to survive should also be included to provide a better understanding of that period. When children and youth learn about Indigenous people, they should learn that many of the struggles that existed for them in the past are still present, including the fight for their land and the fight for their human rights. Children and youth should also learn about the rich and beautiful culture of the Indigenous people. While some individuals still believe that children are too young to talk about race, culturally responsive teaching would provide insight into the critical role that young children played in the Civil Rights Movement and the important role that women played in the movement in terms of organizing, strategizing and leading groups of people to demand their civil rights. Too often, these narratives are left out of the larger story, but culturally responsive teaching seeks to correct these wrongs by shining a light on voices that are often overlooked or purposefully omitted.

In culturally responsive teaching, children are encouraged and given opportunities to draw from their prior knowledge and experiences and connect it to what they are learning. This validates the knowledge that children and youth may learn at home or outside of schools and programs and it allows them to make connections between their learning. Another important aspect of culturally responsive teaching is critical consciousness. Critically conscious children are given the tools to examine, critique, and analyze inequities in society. For example, rather than having youth simply read historical documents like the Pledge of Allegiance or the Declaration of Independence, culturally responsive teaching encourages them to carefully decipher the meaning behind the text and question whether the liberties that these documents talk about were truly meant for everyone and to consider what these historical texts mean in today's context. Donna Y. Ford often shares the story of a teacher who was reading the inscription of the Statue of Liberty to third-grade children. One child whose family were undocumented immigrants was troubled and confused. "Teacher," he asked, "why do some people want my family to go back to Mexico and build a fence'? She was unprepared for this question; had never considered how her students might feel based on their experiences and social media. How would you respond to this question? Would you have anticipated this child's legitimate question and concern? Would you have already addressed it in your lesson plan?

Culturally responsive teaching considers how the routines and expectations of a program may not be supportive of all children and youth and works to change/remove inequities. For example, many programs may have rules around communication and encourage children to wait their turn before speaking. Culturally responsive teaching, instead, looks for ways to incorporate the cultural practices found in many communities of color where an overlap in communication is supported. This is known as 'call and response'. With this awareness, children would not be seen as rude or inappropriate for talking at the same time as someone else. While this may seem like a small adjustment, oftentimes, children of color may be disciplined for a communication style that feels normal to them but is considered inappropriate or wrong in their school or program. This more accurately reflects the ways that schools and programs often do not match the cultural norms that children and youth are accustomed to at home.

It is important to note that most classrooms and programs reflect the culture, language, experiences, and norms of White children overall, but especially those who are higher income. What is often described as "best practice" and "developmentally appropriate" typically aligns with cultural frameworks derived from Eurocentric perspectives (Iruka et al., 2020, p. 60). As a result, many programs do not recognize or acknowledge the cultural clashes that occur between home and school. For example, some cultures focus on the collaborative effort and achievement of the group, as opposed to the effort and achievement of one person/students, which, to repeat, is primarily the focus in programs and schools. These two examples and many others can be difficult concepts and behaviors for students to navigate, especially younger children, and can lead to challenging behaviors and frustration. This is important to keep in mind when working with children from racial and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

The Opposite of Culturally Responsive Teaching

Some educators believe that they are practicing culturally responsive teaching when they are not. If programs are engaging in "Culture Week," "Culture Month," or hosting potlucks to get a glimpse into various cultures, they are not truly practicing culturally responsive teaching. Many refer to this practice as 'tourism'. James A. Banks, the founder of a multicultural curricular infusion model, calls this the 'contributions approach', which is the lowest level of integrating multicultural content into the program and often promotes and reinforces stereotypes about people of color. Quick and shallow attempts to engage in culturally responsive teaching are not effective and do not represent the correct and desired way to teach. Adding a few diverse books to a bookshelf does not represent culturally responsive teaching, which Banks labels as the 'additive approach/level". It is temporary and disconnected from other aspects of what is explored in the overall curriculum. The various elements of culturally responsive teaching require more than a surface level effort to affirm the rich identities and heritage of children and youth.

Equally important, programs that ignore societal inequities or discuss them from a single perspective are not teaching in a culturally responsive manner. Programs that talk about culturally responsive teaching but continue to look at children of color as problems to be solved, individuals who need saving, or troublemakers that they must tolerate, are not teaching in a culturally responsive manner. Ford considers this to be 'culturally assaultive' and others refer to it as 'curricular violence'. Therefore, the development of a critical awareness is so important and essential in this work because it will allow educators, children, and youth to connect current inequities to historical information and see how all the "deficits" that children of color supposedly have were created to marginalize them indefinitely. These deficit-oriented perspectives are intentional and allow the myth of a racial hierarchy to remain in place.

Culturally responsive teaching, like anti-bias teaching, must not appear in your curriculum for a part of the year and then disappear. Some identities should not make a guest appearance in your program, while other identities have a starring role during the year. Culturally responsive teaching is about affirming the lived experiences and prior knowledge of children and youth, and it allows them to draw from their customs and culture to make connections to their learning. Research has shown that when teachers and educators teach in culturally responsive ways, children and youth are more engaged and feel validated. This seems logical since it allows their experiences to be affirmed and it recognizes their knowledge. Rather than always being positioned as the learner trying to make connections to distant worlds, facts, and identities that do not resemble your own or anyone that you know, culturally responsive teaching makes it clear that children of color have experiences that must be included in curricula and in how it is taught. Again, culturally responsive teaching should not be an add-on to your lessons or something that appears as an afterthought in your planning. It should be central to your lessons and centered in your planning to achieve the goal of affirming the experiences, knowledge, and customs of children and youth of color. Gay reminds us, "The highest-quality educational programs and practices can never be accomplished if some ethnic groups and their contributions to the development of U.S. history, life, and culture are ignored or demeaned" (Gay, 2018, p. 21).

Creating Culturally Relevant Activities

When something is relevant, it has meaning, significance, and a purpose in your life or context. Before you begin the work of designing or adapting activities to be culturally responsive, you should first look at your current practices, content, and materials. You can do this in several ways. One way to get a better understanding of your current practice is to have the Training & Curriculum Specialist observe you several times throughout the week and provide you with feedback on how your practices align with the components of culturally responsive teaching. You can also record yourself engaging in several planned activities to see what practices you have in place that may align with culturally responsive teaching and what you can improve upon or eliminate. While reviewing your video recordings, keep the components of culturally responsive teaching nearby, so you can see which aspects are already in place and which ones you need to add to future activities and experiences. In time, this work will not require as much thinking and effort, as you will begin to find that it becomes more natural for you to center these elements in your practice. However, in the beginning, you will need to be very intentional about your planning and engage in careful reviews to see where the evidence of culturally responsive teaching exists or is missing. Be mindful of the degree to which your learning environment is equitable and inviting (Ford, 2015a, 2015b).

To ensure that you are not overlooking critical information as you review the recordings, it is important to have a colleague, coach, or someone who is familiar with the cultures in your program review the recordings as well. While reviewing, look to see how often you interact with children representing different genders, ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and income levels and social classes. Notice if your interactions with each group look the same or different and examine the reasons behind your choices. Also pay close attention to how you interpret nonverbal communication. Do you pay attention to this type of communication, or is it ignored, and why? As you begin to design more culturally responsive activities, remember that children can provide (in)valuable insight to help with your planning. Partnering with families can also provide insight into topics to adopt and explore. While you may not have all of the answers early on, it's important to remember that answers are not as important as the questions that the children and youth will ask about you, their peers, and the world around them. Let their questions and observations encourage and guide you.

One example of a culturally responsive activity that could be included in your curriculum plans is an "All About Me" activity. This activity typically includes information about a child, such as their name, birthday, family members, favorite color, favorite food, songs or type of music they like, things they enjoy doing at the program and things they enjoy doing at home or outside of your program. "All About Me" projects can be a great way to build community and allow children to show pride in themselves. Just like a neighborhood study can be explored through culturally responsive teaching, a culturally responsive "All About Me" project could include information about the story behind a child's name, or an opportunity for families to share how their child's name was chosen. Families can be given an option to send a video or audio recording to share this information or they can write the information down so you can make "All About Me" books for each child. An "All About Me" project can also include information about the child's race and ethnicity, languages they speak at home, family traditions, special foods and what makes them special and other information that is important to the child and family. It is important to note that all families may not have access to some or all of this information. For example, if a child in your program has been adopted, the child's parents may not be able to provide some or all of this information. Educators can have a conversation with their program directors and colleagues to brainstorm ideas to adjust their "All About Me" activity to ensure that it is inclusive for all of the children in the program.

Another project that could be designed with culturally responsive teaching in mind is a neighborhood study. Similar to an "All About Me" project, this would need to be adapted based on the age of the children so that it is developmentally appropriate. Neighborhood studies often center on community helpers such as the roles of firefighters and police officers (and school resource officers). While it is true that these individuals are community helpers, it's important to recognize that not all communities see police officers as people/professionals they trust and would turn to for help with a problem or when in a crisis. While the majority of White, middle- and upper-class families may not have to think twice about calling the police for help, many racially and ethnically marginalized communities must weigh the consequences of calling the police. For them, a routine call for assistance could turn and has turned deadly. For many communities of color, when interactions with the police turn deadly, they are forced to endure additional harm when the legacy of their loved one is misrepresented and/or demonized in the media. Before the public has a chance to know anything meaningful about an individual, a media campaign is often orchestrated to erase signs of their humanity which can lead to recurring trauma for families as they are grieving the loss of their loved one. All of these factors, and others, impact the decisions of people of color when calling the police.

In some Black and Latine communities where individuals have a lower socioeconomic status, in addition to some immigrant communities, many people would not call the police for help due to the brutality and surveillance that many communities of color find themselves in. That can also extend to school resource officers. Large spotlights that shine bright lights into housing projects, common practices of stopping and frisking children, teenagers, and adults because they look "suspicious," and continual images on television and online of police officers killing unarmed Black people has created deep tensions between these communities and the police. A culturally responsive lesson would consider these tensions and think of different helpers to highlight or find a way to include police officers in the study, but also include lessons that examine the long history of tensions between minoritized communities and police officers. The important historical context that provides insight into how we have arrived at the point where we find ourselves should not be discounted or ignored. As educators, we want to protect rather than further traumatize children of color.

See

It is important that child and youth professionals understand how culturally responsive teaching can lead to better learning outcomes for all children. Listen Iheoma U. Iruka, Research Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Founding Director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, and other experts in the field discuss how to embed these practices in authentic and meaningful ways.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice Video not available

Experts discuss ways to ensure culturally responsive practices are a central part of your program.

A culturally responsive program should include a variety of books about diversity. When choosing materials and activities for your program, consider how diversity is represented within them. Listen as a literacy specialist shares ways to ensure the books you provide are supportive of all children and families.

Culturally Responsive Materials Video not available

Reflect on the ways diversity is represented in books and other materials.

Do

As you reflect on both culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching, is there evidence of them in the curriculum of your program and how are they evident - in some, most, or all lesson plans and materials? Regardless of your response, it is possible for all content areas to be taught in culturally relevant and responsive ways. Math, language arts, science, music, art, literacy, physical education, and history can all be taught using a cultural lens. Additionally, developmental skills such as social-emotional, cognitive, and linguistic skills can be supported in a similar way. Below are steps to take as you create and/or review culturally responsive experiences and activities. Remember to work in collaboration with staff members and other individuals from minoritized backgrounds and refer to the components of culturally responsive teaching when planning lessons.

Examine your curriculum and identify which cultures are present and which ones are missing.

Examine your program to determine which cultures are present and which cultures you might want to include in your curriculum to expose children and youth to different groups of people.

Review the expectations of your program, including communication styles and how children are nurtured to succeed. How inviting is your classroom and program?

Analyze the perspectives shared in your program. Are you unintentionally creating stereotypes of groups of people by sharing a narrow and one-dimensional view of who they are as culturally different individuals and groups?

Examine who you position as experts. Who are the people that children and youth are learning about from books, materials, videos, or visits? Why have they been selected? Does this provide a full understanding of a group of people, or does this limit the view that your children and youth are forming under your care?

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Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice

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What do you think of when you hear the word 'culture'? How do you define it? You may think of several things, including the culture of a group of people (an office or neighborhood), or you may think of the culture that you associate with your family, race, and ethnicity.

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Discover research studies that highlight the effectiveness of CRP in improving educational outcomes.

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Ask A REL Question:

What is the research on the effectiveness or impact of culturally responsive teaching practices on student outcomes?

Response:

Thank you for the question you submitted to our REL Reference Desk regarding the effectiveness or impact of culturally responsive teaching practices on student outcomes. We have prepared the following memo with research references to help answer your question. For each reference, we provide an abstract, excerpt, or summary written by the study's author or publisher. The references are selected from the most commonly used research resources and may not be comprehensive. References are listed in alphabetical order, not necessarily in order of relevance. Other relevant studies may exist. We have not evaluated the quality of these references, but provide them for your information only.

Research References

1. Byrd, C. M. (2016). Does culturally relevant teaching work? An examination from student perspectives. SAGE Open, 6(3), 1-10.
Retrieved from:https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1198295 Full text available at
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244016660744
From the abstract: "Culturally relevant teaching is proposed as a powerful method for increasing student achievement and engagement and for reducing achievement gaps. Nevertheless, the research demonstrating its effectiveness consists primarily of case studies of exemplary classrooms. In addition, most of the research fails to take student perspectives into account. The current study asks whether culturally relevant teaching works by considering student perceptions of classrooms that vary in the amount of culturally relevant practices. The sample was 315 sixth- through 12th-grade students sampled from across the United States (62% female, 25% White, 25% Latino, 25% African American, and 25% Asian) who completed surveys of their experiences of culturally relevant teaching, cultural socialization, opportunities to learn about other cultures, and opportunities to learn about racism. Elements of culturally relevant teaching were significantly associated with academic outcomes and ethnic-racial identity development. The findings provide support for the effectiveness of culturally relevant teaching in everyday classrooms."

2. Larson, K. E., Pas, E. T., Bradshaw, C. P., Rosenberg, M. S., & Day-Vines, N. L. (2018). Examining how proactive management and culturally responsive teaching relate to student behavior: Implications for measurement and practice. School Psychology Review, 47(2), 153-166
Retrieved from:https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1182041
From the abstract: "The discipline gap between White students and African American students has increased demand for teacher training in culturally responsive and behavior management practices. Extant research, however, is inconclusive about how culturally responsive teaching practices relate to student behavior or how to assess using such practices in the classroom. Identifying proactive behavior management and culturally responsive teaching practices that are associated with positive student behavior may inform teacher training and bolster efforts to reduce disparities in behavioral and academic performance. The current study examined the association between student behaviors and the observed use of and teacher self-reported efficacy in using culturally responsive teaching and proactive behavior management practices. Data were collected from 274 teachers in 18 schools. Structural equation modeling indicated a statistically significant association between observations of culturally responsive teaching and proactive behavior management practices, with observed positive student behaviors in classrooms. Implications for measurement and practice are discussed."

3. Mackay, H. & Strickland, M. J. (2018). Exploring culturally responsive teaching and student-created videos in an at-risk middle school classroom. Middle Grades Review, 4(1), 1-15.
Retrieved from:https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1175683
From the abstract: "As the United States public school classrooms encounter notable shifts in student demographics and increased access to technology, teachers face the dual challenges of cultural and digital differences as they attempt to build relationships with students and develop responsive and relevant instruction. Framed by culturally responsive teaching (CRT), this qualitative study explored how one middle school teacher and his students in two summer school English classes interacted with and responded to novel technology-based instructional approach that sought to connect the students' lives outside of school to the classroom. The findings suggest that involving the students within this culturally responsive teaching approach using student-created videos informs the contribution of both the teacher and the students for connecting home and school contexts with a CRT framework."

4. Piazza, S. V., Rao, S., & Protacio, M. S. (2015). Converging recommendations for culturally responsive literacy practices: Students with learning disabilities, English language learners, and socioculturally diverse learners. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 17(3), 1-20.
Retrieved from:https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1104910
From the abstract: "This study examines culturally responsive pedagogy across the fields of special education, multicultural literacy education, and teaching English language learners. A systematic review of recommendations identified culturally responsive practices in five key areas: dialogue, collaboration, visual representation, explicit instruction, and inquiry. Educators are encouraged to adopt a critical and responsive stance that incorporates students' cultural knowledge and lived experiences when implementing these recommendations. Creating classrooms that promote culturally responsive and effective instruction is grounded in the definition of literacy as a social practice and leads to more equitable learning opportunities in all areas."

Additional Organizations to Consult

The Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CCRTL): https://www.culturallyresponsive.org/
From the website: "The Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CCRTL) exists for making cultural responsiveness a meaningful aspect of everyday life (mission). Being culturally responsive is an approach to living life in a way that practices the validation and affirmation of different cultures for the purposes of moving beyond race and moving below the superficial focus on culture. Cultural responsiveness is for everyone (our vision). The number one objective is to sway school communities, professional communities, and the general public to becoming culturally responsive."

National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt): https://www.nccrest.org/
From the website: "Financed and supervised by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt) is an educational initiative that was started to provide technical support and facilitate professional development of students in schools. The project was designed to eliminate the achievement gap between students with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and their peers, and this way decreasing the need for special education. The project dealt with ways to improve culturally responsive practices, early intervention, literacy, and positive behavioral supports."

Methods:
Search Strings. Culturally responsive teaching OR culturally responsive practices OR culturally responsive influence on students OR culturally responsive student practices OR student response to culturally responsive teaching OR culturally responsive classrooms OR culturally responsive teaching and student achievement OR culturally responsive teaching outcomes OR culturally relevant teaching

Searched Databases and Resources.

ERIC

Academic Databases (e.g., EBSCO databases, JSTOR database, ProQuest, Google Scholar)

Commercial search engines (e.g., Google)

Institute of Education Sciences Resources

Reference Search and Selection Criteria. The following factors are considered when selecting references:

Date of Publication: Priority is given to references published in the past 10 years.

Search Priorities of Reference Sources: ERIC, other academic databases, Institute of Education Sciences Resources, and other resources including general internet searches

Methodology: Priority is given to the most rigorous study types, such as randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs, as well as to correlational designs, descriptive analyses, mixed methods and literature reviews. Other considerations include the target population and sample, including their relevance to the question, generalizability, and general quality.

REL Mid-Atlantic serves the education needs of Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

This Ask A REL was prepared under Contract ED-IES-17-C-0006 by Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic administered by Mathematica Policy Research. The content does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IES or the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

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educational improvement; excellence in education; educational research; statistics; statistical data; statistical surveys; regional educational laboratory program; rel; rigorous studies; fast response projects; no child left behind

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What is the research on the effectiveness or impact of culturally responsive teaching practices on student outcomes?

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The Regional Educational Laboratory Program (REL) consists of a network of ten laboratories that serve the educational needs of a designated region by providing access to high quality scientifically valid education research through applied research and development projects, studies, and other related technical assistance activities.

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Understanding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the context of education and why it matters.

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DEI in Education: Challenges & Strategies | Diversio

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Dive into the transformative role of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in education. Understand the challenges, discover the benefits, and learn actionable strategies to foster inclusive learning environments for all students.

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Steps and considerations for developing an effective DEI policy within your institution.

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By Dr Linn Friedrichs, Deputy Head of College and Reid Pierce, Anti-Discrimination Officer at Mahindra United World College of India

As we return to school filled with ideas, goals, and hopes for the new year, we must also be deeply cognizant of the complex changes that many educational institutions and learning communities have gone through these past years.

This complexity includes crisis and trauma but also a deeper sense of connectedness and innovation, manifesting differently in the lived experience of different groups on campus. Whether we are working to heal and reunite a community, decolonize our curricula, democratize decision-making, or unlearn our biases-we often know exactly what we want.

Still, we might feel overwhelmed and disheartened by the complexity of the problem or the inertia of the overall institutional structures and culture or simply not know where to start.

Campus-wide initiatives to deepen diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can empower our communities to address some of these challenges and practice our core values right from the start.

With new beginnings comes new energy. We invite you to use this new energy to reflect on the lessons of the past year and courageously reimagine what the future for your school could look like.

In writing this piece, we hope to share our own lessons learned and support our shared agenda for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion with concrete, practical recommendations.

We hope that it can help get you started on either a new initiative or support you in taking your DEI work to the next level.

1. The why, who and how of gathering more intentionally

As a new academic year begins, we enter what often feels like a marathon of gatherings: faculty and student orientations, team, committee, and working group meetings, welcome dinners, goal-setting sessions, and college assemblies.

We know from experience how easy it is to slip into last year's routines, especially when working on complex challenges and multiple construction sites. But these gatherings at the beginning of a new academic year or term set the tone for the next weeks and months.

Therefore, it matters which perspectives and experiences we include in a room, whether we have a clear purpose for a meeting, and how we design the gathering experience.

So, how will you get people to connect in meaningful, relevant, and accessible ways?
Why
The first question to ask yourself is why you gather.

Are you seeking to rebuild trust and confidence after several leadership transitions or a traumatizing incident? Is your goal to initiate a deeper culture shift around mental health and well-being? Or are you trying to support a diverse cohort of new students in forming a community? Identify the specific, unique purpose for each gathering you host.
Who
Who do you need to invite to achieve this purpose? For example, can you create, debate, or adopt a policy that impacts students or your support staff without their presence and input?

What kind of affinity groups can create safer spaces for particular salient identities? How might nurturing spaces like these interact with "coalition spaces" (Bernice Johnson Reagon) and do justice to the intersectionality of both discrimination and solidarity?
How
Next, reflect on how the gathering experience will help you achieve your purpose.

We feel most engaged in gatherings that challenge us to step beyond our comfort zone, help us better understand ourselves and those around us and invite us to co-create.

Can you imagine turning a central space in your building into a "past, present, future wall" that brings together challenges, learnings, and successes from the past year, creates a shared pool of meaning in the present, and assembles your community's agenda for the next year?

Will you start your first school assembly with a wish gifting ritual and end it with a community dance?

As you design your gatherings, think about the rules that will support your purpose and how you will establish them.

If setting rules seems counterintuitive in the context of transformative gathering, remember how community agreements have helped you create an inclusive classroom climate or proactively address microaggressions.

Rules work because they document a community consensus and make explicit expectations and boundaries where implied etiquette or creative chaos might disempower new or less experienced community members to step forward and claim space.

Some questions to ponder: How will the group manage speaking time? Which rules ensure speaker privacy? How should disagreement and conflict be handled?

Take inspiration from your syllabi narratives and best mixtapes: Consider that it is as important how you open a gathering as how you decide to close it.

2. Set your goals, set your tone

You cannot go anywhere without a road map, so take the time to plan what you would like to do for the year. Be realistic, though, and start small. Perhaps find 2-3 goals and create timelines to accomplish these.

While addressing complex issues, we cannot let fear lead to inaction. Change must be done intentionally, and we must be mindful of the environment in which we are seeking change.

A more incremental approach may be in order on one campus whereas another may be more open to large sweeping change. Your goals should thus reflect the reality of your situation.

Begin by assembling a team and designating a point person who is responsible for driving this initiative. Perhaps this is an Anti-Discrimination Officer or a comparable role.

Regardless, it is good to form a small group of senior leaders and faculty who can begin to set DEI-informed goals for the year.

Involve students early in the process
It will be important toinvolve students early in the process, but if you do not currently have any DEI structure in place, it may be better to have some initial goal-setting discussions without them.

This way, those in teacher and mentor roles can invest in their own learning and unlearning and build trusting relationships, which will allow them to give consistent guidance and co-create an inclusive climate for those in their care.

Perhaps your goal is to write a policy. Another goal may be to create a designated DEI role or committee. From here, other ideas like the creation of affinity groups or designated DEI spaces to foster conversation might emerge.

Whatever your goals may be, use the beginning of the year to discuss them openly with your entire community.

In addition to goal setting, as a senior leader, you should focus on tone-setting.

You can begin this by addressing the importance of DEI in your orientation and hosting student brainstorming sessions in a community setting to introduce the concept of DEI and demonstrate your commitment to this area.

Setting the tone is just as important as setting goals as it signals to others what to expect for the year. This will be important as you begin to work on your goals as DEI is, in reality, about changing culture.

3. Policy creation or review

Creating a bespoke DEI policy is an important early step as it creates awareness and a shared pool of meaning. It also sets clear priorities, and thus community members have a clear framework within which they can seek justice, give feedback, and hold one another accountable.

If you already have a DEI policy, review it with your entire community to reflect if you actually practice the core values articulated in the policy text and if any changes need to be made.

At Mahindra United World College of India (MUWCI), We formalized existing, informal best practices into a policy that functions as a community agreement and holds all community members accountable. We brought together students and faculty to co-write parts of the policy (See this article: DEI: Tools, strategies and approaches for school communities).

A policy should not be a boilerplate document that is borrowed from other schools.

Instead, it should be written specifically for your institution, taking into account the different groups in your learning community. However, the policies other schools and learning communities have created can provide helpful starting points and inspiration. If you are interested in the MUWCI policy, we are happy to share it and grateful for your feedback.

A DEI policy should be accessible and understandable by everyone in your school. A glossary could be helpful for non-English speaking students and the prose should be as simple as possible. We relied on focus groups to help us ensure that the policy was easy to understand.

Keeping it as a living, breathing document is also essential as DEI is an evolving field of research and practice.

4. Convene labs to activate three essential DEI change-making ingredients!

Research on complexity and innovation suggests that when it comes to change-making, there are three key ingredients: diversity, trust, and a particular kind of experimentation.
Diverse teams are often the most innovative.
They can combine their perspectives to a 360-degree assessment, avoid various biases, think outside the cultural, generational, or disciplinary box, and bring a wealth of resources.

Think about what diversity means to you as you assemble your teams. Who is affected by the complex problem you are trying to tackle? Do you recruit from all stakeholder groups and across generations, disciplines, and power levels? How will you activate team diversity by building trust, psychological safety, and conflict resilience among its members?

For a diverse, trusting team, effective problem-solving often takes the form of a particular kind of strategic experimentation: "prototyping."
Constructive failure
When faced with a complex challenge, the team brainstorms multiple approaches and then tests them one by one, trial and error, to chart what works and does not work in practice.

This has multiple advantages: We begin creating a culture of "constructive failure" that treats mistake-making as part of how we learn. It also shifts an institutional mindset that tends to focus too much time and resources on long planning processes toward continuous practice and concrete action.
Are curricular diversification and decolonization your priority?
As we strengthen our own change-making muscles at MUWCI, we are exploring lab formats to move more effectively from critical inquiry to action in the interrelated areas of professional development and DEI work.

Try convening a lab for syllabus innovation or an inclusive teaching and learning lab.

For example, you might invite a speaker on anti-racist teaching methodologies and then workshop with faculty and students on how you can adapt them for your syllabi, assessments, experiential learning activities, and student-led community engagements.

As you convene labs for specific challenges, think about who should be included, how often a lab should meet and how much time is needed to brainstorm, implement, and evaluate in shorter cycles.

Finally, it is important to consider how you can document your work for your professional portfolios, the collective reflection process of your learning community, and external assessments.

We hope that ...

... the four steps we've shared will help you center DEI as you embark on a new school year journey: Remember to set your goals and your tone and begin to examine how you intentionally gather as a community.

Writing a policy and co-creating DEI labs will help your community take concrete steps towards the goals you set for the year ahead. In fact, you might find that our four steps amplify one another's impact and, because they are really practices - not one-time events, will shift the culture beyond your school's orientation weeks.
Related content:
In our own commitment to a "growth mindset," we invite your own best practices in the comments below or via email to us.

DEI is truly a collaborative effort, and it is through sharing our own experiences and entering often challenging conversations that we can come together and realize our potential as a community of educators and learners.

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Four ways to start the school year centering on DEI

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Dr Linn Friedrichs and Reid Pierce invite you to use the energy of a new school year to reflect on lessons learned and courageously reimagine what the future for your school could look like through a DEI lens.

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A compilation of resources to help educators enhance their DEI practices.

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Resources for Educators

We continue to navigate a world that has been both fundamentally changed by a pandemic and is now making a more intentional effort to end systemic racism, social injustice, and inequity. We've curated these resources to help you create the inclusive learning environments students need to study, discuss, and tackle these challenges.

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Resources for Educators We continue to navigate a world that has been both fundamentally changed by a pandemic and is now making a more intentional effort to end systemic racism, social injustice, and inequity. We've curated these resources to help you create the inclusive learning environments students need to study, discuss, and tackle these challenges.

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"The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners" by Carol Ann Tomlinson

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"The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners" by Carol Ann Tomlinson

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This book presents a wide range of effective strategies for implementing differentiated instruction tailored to meet the diverse needs of students.

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Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same, and the need for it has only increased.

Today's classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever before. And it's led by teachers under enormous pressure to help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets.

In this audiobook of the second edition of her best-selling classic work, Carol Ann Tomlinson offers these teachers a powerful and practical way to meet a challenge that is both very modern and completely timeless: how to divide their time, resources, and efforts to effectively instruct so many students of various backgrounds, readiness, skill levels, and interests.

With a perspective informed by advances in research and deepened by more than 15 years of implementation feedback in all types of schools, Tomlinson explains the theoretical basis of differentiated instruction, explores the variables of curriculum and learning environment, shares dozens of instructional strategies, and then goes inside elementary and secondary classrooms in nearly all subject areas to illustrate how real teachers are applying differentiation principles and strategies to respond to the needs of all learners.

This audiobook's insightful guidance on what to differentiate, how to differentiate, and why to lay the groundwork for bringing differentiated instruction into your own classroom or refining the work you already do will help each of your wonderfully unique learners move toward greater knowledge, more advanced skills, and expanded understanding.

Today, more than ever, The Differentiated Classroom is a must-have staple for every teacher's collection and every school's professional development library.

Produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

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The Differentiated Classroom, 2nd Edition

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Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same, and the need for it has only increased. Today's classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever be...

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Read about schools that have successfully implemented CRT and the positive outcomes that followed.

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An established body of research affirms what educators have long known: a culturally responsive and racially inclusive education benefits all students - and is the most effective pedagogical approach.

These studies show that students who participate in ethnic studies and a curriculum that is culturally responsive and racially inclusive are more academically engaged, perform better academically, and graduate at higher rates. This pedagogical approach also facilitates many of the core goals of public education: promoting democracy by preparing children for citizenship and voting, teaching cultural literacy, developing citizens' capacities for critical thinking and self-directed learning, and cultivating a workforce that can compete in the global marketplace.

Teaching ethnic studies and a culturally responsive and racially inclusive curriculum is also consistent with federal and state law. Moreover, prohibiting culturally responsive and racially inclusive education harms students and likely violates federal law. Nevertheless, law and policymakers across the country are attempting to prohibit honest curricula, chill classroom instruction, stoke discrimination, and undermine faith in public education and our nation's educators. But as politicians mischaracterize and stoke fears about what is taught in schools, educators are holding firm in their support for a proven, research-based, and culturally responsive and racially inclusive education for all students.

This joint report with the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance is a reflection of the National Education Association's longstanding belief that no matter their color, background, or zip code, all children deserve an education that imparts honesty about who we are, integrity in how we treat others, and courage to do what's right. We hope this report generates new advocacy strategies and ideas about how to pushback against attempts to inhibit with teachers' ability to do their jobs and students' ability to learn and grow.
Read the press release Download the report

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National Education Association and the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance

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The Legal and Pedagogical Case for Culturally Responsive and Racially Inclusive Public Education for All Students | NEA

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Laws that censor, punish educators, and deny students a full and honest education are harmful and unlawful

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Comments, Feedback, and Questions Are Warmly Welcomed! 

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Comments, Feedback, and Questions Are Warmly Welcomed! 

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Welcome to the Teacher's Hub Visitor Board! This is a public space for educators to connect and communicate. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me improve our Padlet updates and overall communication. Feel free to leave comments or suggestions or start a conversation. Let's collaborate and grow together! :)

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Edutopia offers a comprehensive collection of resources on differentiated instruction, including strategies for tailoring content, process, and product to meet students' diverse needs. The site also provides articles on integrating technology and project-based learning to enhance differentiation.

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George Lucas Educational Foundation

The benefits of movement in the classroom aren't limited to younger students. Pairing new words and concepts with gestures or dance moves locks in understanding-and active brain breaks prime students to learn even more.

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A free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education.

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Resilient Educator: Differentiated Instruction Examples and Strategies

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Resilient Educator: Differentiated Instruction Examples and Strategies

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Resilient Educator offers detailed examples of differentiated instruction for core subjects like math, science, and reading. The site includes strategies for using choice boards, mini-lessons, manipulatives, and tiered assignments.

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Resilient Educator: Differentiated Instruction Examples and Strategies

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Every teacher has her or his own style of teaching. And as traditional teaching styles evolve with the advent of differentiated instruction, more and more teachers are adjusting their approach depending on their students' learning needs.

But there are a few fundamental teaching styles most educators tend to use. Which one is yours?

You've Got Style

These teaching styles highlight the five main strategies teachers use in the classroom, as well as the benefits and potential pitfalls of each.

The Authority, or lecture style

The authority model is teacher-centered and frequently entails lengthy lecture sessions or one-way presentations. Students are expected to take notes or absorb information.

Pros: This style is acceptable for certain higher-education disciplines and auditorium settings with large groups of students. The pure lecture style is most suitable for subjects like history, which necessitate memorization of key facts, dates, names, etc.

Cons: It's a questionable model for teaching children because there is little or no interaction with the teacher. Plus it can get a little snooze-y. That's why it's a better approach for older, more mature students.

The Demonstrator, or coach style

The demonstrator retains the formal authority role by showing students what they need to know. The demonstrator is a lot like the lecturer, but their lessons include multimedia presentations, activities, and demonstrations. (Think: Math. Science. Music.)

Pros: This style gives teachers opportunities to incorporate a variety of formats including lectures and multimedia presentations.

Cons: Although it's well-suited for teaching mathematics, music, physical education, or arts and crafts, it is difficult to accommodate students' individual needs in larger classrooms.

The Facilitator, or activity style

Facilitators promote self-learning and help students develop critical thinking skills and retain knowledge that leads to self-actualization.

Pros: This style trains students to ask questions and helps develop skills to find answers and solutions through exploration; it is ideal for teaching science and similar subjects.

Cons: Challenges teacher to interact with students and prompt them toward discovery rather than lecturing facts and testing knowledge through memorization. So it's a bit harder to measure success in tangible terms.

The Delegator, or group style

The delegator style is best suited for curricula that require lab activities, such as chemistry and biology, or subjects that warrant peer feedback, like debate and creative writing.

Pros: Guided discovery and inquiry-based learning place the teacher in an observer role that inspires students by working in tandem toward common goals.

Cons: Considered a modern style of teaching, it is sometimes criticized as eroding teacher authority. As a delegator, the teacher acts more as a consultant rather than the traditional authority figure.

The Hybrid, or blended style

Hybrid, or blended style, follows an integrated approach to teaching that blends the teacher's personality and interests with students' needs and curriculum-appropriate methods.

Pros: Inclusive! And it enables teachers to tailor their styles to student needs and appropriate subject matter.

Cons: Hybrid style runs the risk of trying to be too many things to all students, prompting teachers to spread themselves too thin and dilute learning.

Because teachers have styles that reflect their distinct personalities and curriculum-from math and science to English and history-it's crucial that they remain focused on their teaching objectives and avoid trying to be all things to all students.

What you need to know about your teaching style

Although it is not the teacher's job to entertain students, it is vital to engage them in the learning process. Selecting a style that addresses the needs of diverse students at different learning levels begins with a personal inventory-a self-evaluation-of the teacher's strengths and weaknesses. As they develop their teaching styles and integrate them with effective classroom management skills, teachers will learn what works best for their personalities and curriculum.

Our guide encapsulates today's different teaching styles and helps teachers identify the style that's right for them and their students. Browse through the article or use these links to jump to your desired destination.

Emergence of the teaching style inventory

How have teaching styles evolved? This is a question teachers are asked, and frequently ask themselves, as they embark on their careers, and occasionally pause along the way to reflect on job performance. To understand the differences in teaching styles, it's helpful to know where the modern concept of classifying teaching methods originated.

The late Anthony F. Grasha, a noted professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, is credited with developing the classic five teaching styles. A follower of psychiatrist Carl Jung, Grasha began studying the dynamics of the relationship between teachers and learning in college classrooms. His groundbreaking book, Teaching with Style, was written both as a guide for teachers and as a tool to help colleagues, administrators and students systematically evaluate an instructor's effectiveness in the classroom.

Grasha understood that schools must use a consistent, formal approach in evaluating a teacher's classroom performance. He recognized that any system designed to help teachers improve their instructional skills requires a simple classification system. He developed a teaching style inventory that has since been adopted and modified by followers.

Expert: Similar to a coach, experts share knowledge, demonstrate their expertise, advise students, and provide feedback to improve understanding and promote learning.

Formal authority: Authoritative teachers incorporate the traditional lecture format and share many of the same characteristics as experts, but with less student interaction.

Personal model: Incorporates blended teaching styles that match the best techniques with the appropriate learning scenarios and students in an adaptive format.

Facilitator: Designs participatory learning activities and manages classroom projects while providing information and offering feedback to facilitate critical thinking.

Delegator: Organizes group learning, observes students, provides consultation, and promotes interaction between groups and among individuals to achieve learning objectives.

Although he developed specific teaching styles, Grasha warned against boxing teachers into a single category. Instead, he advocated that teachers play multiple roles in the classroom. He believed most teachers possess some combination of all or most of the classic teaching styles.

How does differentiated instruction affect teaching styles?

Carol Ann Tomlinson, a professor at the University of Virginia, is an early advocate of differentiated instruction and a pioneer in the development of learning-based teaching styles. If Grasha laid the groundwork for 20th-century teachers to adopt styles tailored to match their personalities and strengths, Tomlinson has advanced this theme into the 21st century by focusing on differentiated instruction.

In the simplest terms, differentiated instruction means keeping all students in mind when developing lesson plans and workbook exercises, lectures, and interactive learning. These student-focused differences necessitate instructional styles that embrace diverse classrooms for students at all learning levels and from various backgrounds without compromising the teacher's strengths.

What teaching style is best for today's students?

Whether you're a first-year teacher eager to put into practice all of the pedagogical techniques you learned in college, or a classroom veteran examining differentiated instruction and new learning methodologies, consider that not all students respond well to one particular style. Although teaching styles have been categorized into five groups, today's ideal teaching style is not an either/or proposition but more of a hybrid approach that blends the best of everything a teacher has to offer.

The traditional advice that teachers not overreach with a cluster of all-encompassing teaching styles might seem to conflict with today's emphasis on student-centered classrooms. Theoretically, the more teachers emphasize student-centric learning, the harder it is to develop a well-focused style based on their personal attributes, strengths, and goals.

In short, modern methods of teaching require different types of teachers-from the analyst/organizer to the negotiator/consultant. Here are some other factors to consider as teachers determine the best teaching method for their students.

Empty vessel: Critics of the "sage on the stage" lecture style point to the "empty vessel" theory, which assumes a student's mind is essentially empty and needs to be filled by the "expert" teacher. Critics of this traditional approach to teaching insist this teaching style is outmoded and needs to be updated for the diverse 21st-century classroom.

Active vs. passive: Proponents of the traditional lecture approach believe that an overemphasis on group-oriented participatory teaching styles, like facilitator and delegator, favor gifted and competitive students over passive children with varied learning abilities, thereby exacerbating the challenges of meeting the needs of all learners.

Knowledge vs. information: Knowledge implies a complete understanding, or full comprehension, of a particular subject. A blend of teaching styles that incorporate facilitator, delegator, demonstrator, and lecturer techniques helps the broadest range of students acquire in-depth knowledge and mastery of a given subject. This stands in contrast to passive learning, which typically entails memorizing facts, or information, with the short-term objective of scoring well on tests.

Interactive classrooms: Laptops and tablets, video conferencing, and podcasts in classrooms play a vital role in today's teaching styles. With technology in mind, it is imperative that teachers assess their students' knowledge while they are learning. The alternative is to wait for test results, only to discover knowledge gaps that should have been detected during the active learning phase.

Constructivist teaching methods: Contemporary teaching styles tend to be group-focused and inquiry-driven. Constructivist teaching methods embrace subsets of alternative teaching styles, including modeling, coaching, and test preparation through rubrics scaffolding. All of these are designed to promote student participation and necessitate a hybrid approach to teaching. One criticism of the constructivist approach is that it caters to extroverted, group-oriented students, who tend to dominate and benefit from these teaching methods more than introverts; however, this assumes introverts aren't learning by observing.

Student-centric learning does not have to come at the expense of an instructor's preferred teaching method. However, differentiated instruction demands that teachers finesse their style to accommodate the diverse needs of 21st-century classrooms.

The 'sage on the stage' meets the 'tiger mom'

The objective of blending teaching styles to leverage the teacher's strengths while meeting the demands of diverse students has become increasingly difficult, as parents take a decidedly proactive role in child-learning techniques.

The traditional authoritative/expert, or "sage on the stage" lecture style, has come under attack by some parents-and contemporary educational leaders-who emphasize that a more diverse approach to teaching is necessary to engage students. This is compounded by the rise of "tiger moms," a term made popular by parents devoted to improving the quality of education with laser-precision focus on A-list schools and a highly competitive job market.

Age of the proactive parent

Regardless of what style a teacher adopts, it's important for teachers to develop positive attitudes, set goals, and establish high expectations for students.

"Assume students can excel!" education authors Harry and Rosemary Wong declare. As former teachers with a combined 80-plus years of educational experience, the Wongs emphasize in their best-selling book, The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher and their more recent, The Classroom Management Book that successful teachers share three common characteristics:

effective classroom management skills

lesson mastery

positive expectations

All instructors, when developing their teaching styles, should keep in mind these three goals, as well as the primary objective of education: student learning.

How does classroom diversity influence teachers?

It is abundantly clear that today's teachers are responsible for students with a diverse range of learning abilities. The 21st-century teacher does not have the luxury of "picking the low-hanging fruit" and then leaving the rest of the tree for experts who specialize in children with behavioral issues or learning disorders.

Today's teachers must develop instructional styles that work well in diverse classrooms. Effective teaching methods engage gifted students, as well as slow-learning children and those with attention deficit tendencies. This is where differentiated instruction and a balanced mix of teaching styles can help reach all students in a given classroom-not just the few who respond well to one particular style of teaching.

The wonderment of teaching, what author/educator Dr. Harry Wong refers to as "that a-ha moment" when a child "gets it," is one of the most rewarding and seemingly elusive benefits of becoming a teacher. This transfer of knowledge from expert to student is an art form and a skill. Fortunately, both can be learned and perfected.

Knowing how to engage students begins with selecting the teaching style that's right for you. And remember, even though you may prefer one teaching style over another, you must find the style that works best for your students! Try different styles to meet different objectives, and always challenge yourself to find ways to reach each student.

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Teaching Styles: Different Teaching Methods & Strategies | Resilient Educator

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List of effective teaching styles: Authority, Demonstrator, Facilitator, Developer, Hybrid - examples of the best teaching methods for diverse learners.

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We Are Teachers: Differentiated Instruction Strategies

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We Are Teachers: Differentiated Instruction Strategies

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This site provides over 35 strategies and examples for implementing differentiated instruction in K-12 classrooms. It includes practical tips on using graphic organizers, student-led lessons, and real-life examples to engage students.

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Samantha Cleaver, PhD, Special Education & Reading Intervention

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35+ Differentiated Instruction Strategies Every Teacher Can Use

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Personalize the content, process, product, or learning environment.

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Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University

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Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University

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This resource provides a guide on differentiated assessment practices and instructional strategies, emphasizing the importance of ongoing training and flexible learning environments.

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Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University

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Center for Teaching and Learning

We support evidence-based and inclusive learning and teaching practices, educational programs and training, community building, and strong collaborations and partnerships with schools, departments, and other offices.

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We support evidence-based and inclusive learning and teaching practices, educational programs and training, community building, and strong collaborations and partnerships with schools, departments, and other offices.

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This math lesson employs DI techniques to engage students with various learning styles and connects mathematical concepts to real-life scenarios.

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Understood offers a clear explanation of differentiated instruction, highlighting its key components and benefits for students with diverse learning needs. The site provides practical advice on how to implement DI effectively.

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This lesson on descriptive writing uses DI strategies to support diverse learning needs and integrates CRT by incorporating students' primary languages for better understanding.

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This geometry lesson uses DI to accommodate different learning abilities and embraces CRT by allowing students to use their primary language and cultural experiences to understand mathematical concepts.

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Working with Figures and Shapes (G2, Math)

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Explore a thoughtfully curated collection of resources that integrate Differentiated Instruction (DI), Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), and other valuable educational materials. Connect with me, engage in meaningful communication, share experiences, and access teaching materials to enhance classroom practices. Let's work together to grow and succeed!

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Pixton.com is an excellent tool for creating engaging and interactive comic strips. Use it to bring lessons to life, visualize concepts, and foster creativity in your classroom. A perfect addition to your teaching toolkit!

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Pixton Comic & Storyboard Builder for Education

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Educators! Learn how to use Pixton in the classroom. Set up your classroom and begin teaching any subject in minutes through the super-power of comics.

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Loom.com is a fantastic platform for creating and sharing video messages. Use it to record lessons, provide feedback, and communicate effectively with students and parents. Enhance your teaching with this versatile tool!

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Udio.com offers a range of tools to enhance student engagement and literacy skills. Utilize its resources to create interactive reading experiences and support diverse learning needs in your classroom. A great asset for any educator!

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Pear Deck is an interactive presentation tool that helps you engage every student in your classroom. Use it to create dynamic lessons, promote active participation, and provide real-time feedback. Elevate your teaching with Pear Deck!

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Pear Deck is on a mission to help teachers create powerful learning moments for every student, every day - using the tools you already know and love.

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Nearpod is a versatile platform for creating interactive and engaging lessons. Use it to enhance student participation, assess understanding in real-time, and deliver multimedia content seamlessly. Transform your teaching with Nearpod!

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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Welcome to my culminating project, "Empowering Diverse Learners." This PDF explores how Differentiated Instruction (DI) and Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) can create inclusive and equitable classrooms. Inside, you'll find practical strategies and resources to celebrate cultural heritage and meet diverse learning needs.