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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Engaging with your families and community gives your students a support system which is a big goal in education. Every student should feel heard, and we must attempt to give every student a fair shot at success. IEP meetings, parent teacher conferences, and administrative meetings all seek the same goal of supporting the students needs. Stay open minded and calm when attending these meetings as sometimes things do get heated but you must keep in mind its tough being a parent on many levels and helping raise children. This engagement is pivotal to a student feeling supported by their teacher and watching a relationship develop between teacher and family covering inside and outside the school.

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Top Benefits of Family and Community Engagement

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Find out why K-12 family and community engagement play a key role in promoting student academic achievement, and how to increase these school

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Being apart of a family and community means engaging and participating. As an educator you might see yourself petitioning, attending or facilitating PTA/PTO meetings, meeting with your local and national branches to bring up the needs and various aspects of the job. It's up to you to fight for your students education because certain ways might not work or you might be keen on making a different way work. Participation is part of the ethics we bring to our society and community. Stay engaged and informed in your students lives and your community base.

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Community partners and groups help us run our schools from our funding, to our participation. Many organizations back schools so they have the ability to give students opportunities. We must be aware in our community, and pick up our role in community. As teachers we must be leaders in our society and playing a role in how to participate in our community.

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Engagement With Families And Communities

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Family and community has been a big subject for this project and many on the subject of ethics within schools. We must keep our families informed but if were going the extra mile we must stay in contact with our families updates on the students, as well as an outlet for them to inform us more about their children. Ask questions, learn about the families culture, and always keep and open mind when talking to any family about subjects that involve culture or ethics. Never be afraid to ask, but always keep in mind how you approach the subject.

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Fostering A Multicultural Classroom Enviornment

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Fostering A Multicultural Classroom Enviornment

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There are many things to keep in mind about fostering a diverse classroom, but one of the most important is that it's a big responsibility for a teacher to respond to. Its okay to seek help, in fact many teacher might approach the situation by seeking professional trainings within their schools on the subject which is always a win in personal development. Good teachers try to see their students for who they can be and that includes getting better at understanding them through constructive criticism of their own.

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Fostering A Multicultural Classroom Environment

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Fostering A Multicultural Classroom Environment

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Fostering a diverse class often means meeting a student at their needs. To do this you must get to know your students and how to better serve them. In many situations meeting a students needs might be adhering to certain laws and protocols that guide these needs, or advocating for the rights of a student. This takes a strong respectable educator but it just goes to show that some needs are met up front and others you must fight for what you know is right.

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Fosterting A Multicultural Classroom Environment

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Fosterting A Multicultural Classroom Environment

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A lot of creating diverse classrooms comes down to the teaching style and responsibilities in general. Present your curriculum in a way that approaches each students diverse background, get to know the parents/guardians/and families of your students, look to always cover your students needs in creating a safe engaging environment. Always ask yourself as an educator "Am I doing everything I can be doing to understand my students and who they are."

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The field of special education has undergone many transformations in the past 30 years. Historically, students with disabilities were underserved by public schools and segregated from general education peers. Disability rights activists successfully fought for laws to address the inequities and opportunity gap between special education and mainstream students.

Today, many schools are restructuring their programs and moving toward an inclusive classroom model, wherein general education and special education educators co-teach all students in the same class. Join us as we explore several evidence-based strategies and practices for creating an inclusive classroom environment and managing student behavior.

5 Ways educators can create an inclusive learning environment

There are many steps you can take to make sure your classroom is welcoming and supportive of all students. Learn from veteran teacher trainers Dr. Anne Spillane, associate dean of special education and professor at UMass Global, and Rick Dahlgren, president and CEO of Time to Teach, as they share five actionable ways teachers can be more inclusive.

1. Craft your curriculum using UDL

One of the first steps to ensuring your classroom meets the needs of all students is to plan your lessons using the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Students face a variety of emotional, behavioral, neurological and cultural barriers that can impact their ability to fully engage in class.

According to Dr. Spillane, incorporating UDL principles benefits all learners, not just those with disabilities. She explains,

When students can truly come as they are and feel supported, they are able to fully participate in their community. This leads to increased understanding, tolerance, empathy and cooperation skills.

UDL helps guide teachers who may need direction when it comes to integrating accommodations and resources for diverse learning styles and abilities into the curriculum.

2. Stay calm and model appropriate reactions

One of the most critical - and challenging - skills for a teacher to master is the art of keeping cool even while being confronted with challenging behavior. As Dahlgren likes to say, "Silence is powerful, and calm is contagious."

Teachers have significant influence in the lives of their students and play critical roles in their social-emotional development. Dahlgren explains that in his experience, kids don't actually want to be disruptive - a lot of times they simply don't know how to behave.

"The older kids become, the less educators think they need to teach behaviors, but that's not true. You need to model constantly because they are always learning from you and your reactions." He believes that classroom norms and expectations should be taught like any other subject, such as math or reading: with explicit instructions, practice and repetition.

3. Strive for proactive classroom management

Many educators naturally excel at creating and sharing lesson plans but find classroom management to be more challenging. According to a study by EAB, teachers lose an average of 144 minutes per week - or 14.5 days per year - of instructional time due to disruptive behaviors.

Effectively managing these behaviors is a crucial component of nurturing an inclusive classroom environment. Many disruptions can be prevented with proactive strategies that encourage students to self-correct and learn to regulate their emotions. This results in overall less friction, conflict and interruptions during class.

The following strategies can help educators prevent and diffuse disruptive behavior in the classroom:

Use non-threatening voice and body language

Avoid power struggles

Allow students some time away from the source of the behavior

Minimize the amount of attention the student is receiving for disruptive behaviors

Give reinforcement or praise for approximations of desired behavior

If the student is highly escalated, do not attempt logical discussion until after the behavior has subsided and the student is closer to baseline

Ensure the disruptive student and the other students are safe at all times

4. Understand each student's needs

Getting to know your students as unique individuals and building personal relationships is essential. Showing genuine interest in kids' lives and giving them positive reinforcement for the things they are doing well makes a huge difference.

It's especially important to collaborate closely with special education teachers and providers to make sure you understand each child's Individualized Education Program (IEP). Most autistic children and students with disabilities in PreK-12 public schools will have an IEP that outlines what they need in order to succeed.

This typically includes special education instruction, support and services such as:

Assistive technologies

Additional time on exams and assignments

Speech and language therapy

Counseling services

Occupational therapy

Physical therapy

Adapted physical education

Nursing services

Behavioral support

Guidance from an instructional aide or paraprofessional

5. Manage transitions between spaces and activities

Children thrive when they have a structured routine. This is especially true of some students with disabilities, who may become overwhelmed in unfamiliar places and situations. Many teachers note students tend to act out when moving between physical spaces - walking from the classroom to the cafeteria, for example - or when switching to a new activity.

Try implementing the following measures to make transitions more seamless for students:

Ensure students know expectations for each activity and transition

Keep transition time precise

Have a visual or auditory cue for transitions between activities

Make sure all materials needed for the project are readily available

Ensure students know what to do when finished with work or while waiting between tasks

Establish visual cues to ask or wait for assistance

Make a difference through inclusive teaching

The most universally known role of a teacher is to educate young learners. But this task goes far beyond simply delivering lesson plans and facilitating tests. As an educator, it's your responsibility to ensure all students feel safe, welcome and empowered when they enter your classroom. This can be accomplished by implementing some of the strategies above to help foster an inclusive learning environment.

Looking for more information on creating an inclusive classroom environment? Explore our library of DEI online courses for educators. Plus check out our free on-demand webinar: Managing Disruptive Behaviors: The Key Component of An Inclusive Classroom.

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How to foster an inclusive classroom environment: Advice for educators - UMass Global

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The field of special education has undergone many transformations in the past 30 years. Historically, students with disabilities were underserved by public schools and segregated from general education peers. Disability rights activists successfully fought for laws to address the inequities and opportunity gap between special education and mainstream students.

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Fostering A Multicultural Classroom Environment

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Fostering A Multicultural Classroom Environment

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When we talk about fostering a diverse classroom we talk about personal value, what that means to us as educators and how students felt period. Ethics lead in practice and facilitation of fostering a multicultural classroom. Think about how you'd like to be treated and always look to better yourself when it comes to cultural awareness.

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It's important as educators to stay informed of your environment. Know the community you work in, get to know the youth you teach, and challenge yourself to become an even better teacher through self improvement methods. Culturally responsive teaching is the basis of the community you outreach too.

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Teaching in a culturally responsive way means the teacher must know their students, and continue building your teacher student relationships. Sometimes building these relationships take time and is more of a gradual process rather than a straight shot approach which is more than fine but take strategy and the correct approach.

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Over the past few decades, students, their experiences, upbringings, and backgrounds have changed. Classrooms now reflect families of varying races, cultures, and socioeconomic statuses. As a result, the way teachers educate these students must change, too, says Cherese Childers-McKee, assistant teaching professor in Northeastern University's College of Professional Studies. One of these shifting approaches to education is known as culturally responsive teaching.

Below, we explore the concept of culturally responsive teaching, compare it against traditional teaching models, and offer a number of strategies that you can use to incorporate the approach into your own methods.

Download Our Free Guide to Earning Your EdD

Learn how an EdD can give you the skills to enact organizational change in any industry.

What is culturally responsive teaching?

Culturally responsive teaching, also called culturally relevant teaching, is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural references in all aspects of learning. Traditional teaching strategies emphasize the teacher-student dynamic: The teacher is the expert and adheres strictly to the curriculum that supports standardized tests while the student receives the knowledge. This teaching method is outdated, Childers-McKee says.

"Teachers have more diverse classrooms today. We don't have students sitting in front of us with the same background or experience, so instruction has to be different," she says. "It needs to build on individual and cultural experiences and their prior knowledge. It needs to be justice-oriented and reflect the social context we're in now. That's what we mean when we talk about culturally responsive teaching."

Culturally Responsive vs. Traditional Teaching Methods

Culturally responsive teaching can manifest in a number of ways. Using traditional teaching methods, educators may default to teaching literature by widely accepted classic authors: William Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger, and Charles Dickens, for example, adhering to widely accepted interpretations of the text.

Culturally responsive teaching, on the other hand, acknowledges that there's nothing wrong with traditional texts, Childers-McKee says, but strives to include literature from other cultures, parts of the world, and by diverse authors. It also focuses on finding a "hook and anchor" to help draw students into the content using their past experiences.

"This way, students can see themselves in some of what they're reading and not just the white, western world. The learning is more experimental, more hands-on," she says. "Instead, you're showing them a worldwide, multicultural community and looking for different interpretations while relating it to what it means for society today."

Why is culturally responsive teaching important?

Culturally responsive teaching is especially pertinent today because the traditional education path from school to college to a career and life in the suburbs isn't a reality-or desire-for everyone, Childers-McKee says. Educators' approaches to teaching need to reflect these differences.

"That typical, mainstream education is not addressing the realities of today's students. Culturally responsive teaching isn't just for those students who don't come from white, middle-class, English-speaking families-it's an important teaching strategy for everyone. When done the right way, it can be transformative."

When integrated into classroom instruction, culturally responsive strategies can have important benefits such as:

Strengthening students' sense of identity

Promoting equity and inclusivity in the classroom

Engaging students in the course material

Supporting critical thinking

Here's a look at five culturally responsive teaching strategies all educators can employ in their classrooms.

5 Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies for Educators

1. Activate students' prior knowledge.

Students are not blank slates, Childers-McKee says; they enter the classroom with diverse experiences. Teachers should encourage students to draw on their prior knowledge in order to contribute to group discussions, which provides an anchor to learning. Taking a different approach to the literature that's taught in classrooms is one example of this.

2. Make learning contextual.

Tie lessons from the curriculum to the students' social communities to make it more contextual and relevant, Childers-McKee advises. "If you're reading a chapter in history class, for example, discuss why it matters today, in your school, or in your community," she says. "Take the concept you're learning about and create a project that enables them to draw parallels."

3. Encourage students to leverage their cultural capital.

Because not all students come from the same background, it's important to encourage those who don't to have a voice. Say, for example, you teach an English class that contains ESL students. It's important to find ways to activate the experiences they do have-their cultural capital, Childers-McKee says.

The teacher may choose a book for the class to read in which the ESL students could relate and feel like they could be the expert, for instance. As a teacher, Childers-Mckee's once chose a book that told the story of a child of migrant workers because some of her students came from an agricultural background.

"When you have a mixed classroom, you want those in the minority to feel like they are an expert. You want to draw from their experiences," she says. "I do caution that you don't want to cross a line and make 'Johnny' feel like he needs to speak for all Mexican people by putting them on the spot, for example. That's a line you need to walk."

4. Reconsider your classroom setup.

Take inventory of the books in your classroom library: Do they include authors of diverse races? Is the LGBTQ community represented? Do the books include urban families or only suburban families? Beyond your classroom library, consider the posters you display on your walls and your bulletin boards, too. "These are all small changes you can make to your classroom more culturally responsive," Childers-McKee says.

5. Build relationships.

Not all students want to learn from all teachers because the teachers may not make them feel like they're valued, Childers-McKee says. Teachers need to work to build relationships with their students to ensure they feel respected, valued, and seen for who they are. Building those relationships helps them build community within the classroom and with each other, which is extremely important, she says.

"When we think about culture and diversity, people often automatically think about black students, but people need to think broader than that, now," Childers-McKee says. "Some teachers whose students are all white and middle-class struggle with how culturally responsive teaching strategies apply to them. It's equally important for them to teach students about diversity. These aren't just teaching strategies for minorities, they're good teaching strategies for everyone."

Educating for the Future

Educators have the unique power to impact the lives of their learners. Making use of thoughtful, inclusive instruction can have positive effects on students that last far beyond their time in the classroom.

Employing culturally responsive teaching strategies is a small step toward enacting meaningful change in education. If you're interested in leading your organization toward positive change on a larger scale, earning an advanced degree is one way to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.

Pursuing a degree, such as a Doctor of Education , will empower you to address the challenges currently facing education and improve the learning experience. Students of the program work with industry-aligned faculty on real-world organizational issues, allowing them to have an immediate impact on their professional environments.
To learn more about how an EdD can further your career while improving students' educational experiences, explore Northeastern's Doctor of Education program page, or download our free guide below.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: 5 Strategies for Educators

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Culturally responsive teaching values students' cultural references in all aspects of learning. Here are five strategies to bring to the classroom.

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Sometimes teaching about culturally diverse subjects take more out of a teacher than just facilitation; this can include the teacher reaching out to community partners, creating their own lesson plans that involve culture, and taking the time to learn about various customs and cultures yourself. This takes a proactive approach and a teacher that is willing to do more than the bare minimum to ensure that their class has more than the basic learning opportunities.

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Different methods for involving a students culture into your curriculum include interviewing your students, using culturally relevant teaching materials, and integrating real world issues into your reading/writing subjects. There are many methods you can use to include a students culture into everyday learning that include fun expressive activities or events.

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There have been many case studies on the issue of diversity in classrooms and inclusive classrooms. These days we see a bigger push towards education reform which requires data collection, and case studies to partition to the school boards, and politicians on how we can include more inclusiveness for all students in the long run of things.

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Major historical events involving diversity in our classrooms include Brown vs the BOE and the civil rights act of 1964. Many of these movements involved enduring years of hardship and torment for many human beings with these events in history marking advancements in inclusive moments within school systems.

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Opinion; May 17, 1954; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; National Archives. View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View Transcript In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the “separate but equal” principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. On May 17, 1954, U.S.

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Facilitate learning moments that involve different cultures for the students. Read stories from different cultures, bring in food from different places of the earth, and present students art from different countries. Take the time to teach your students about culture in these expressive ways.

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Take the time to understand your students, that will always be the cornerstone of facilitating a multicultural cirriculum across many subjects. Encourage your students when it comes to their culture and who they are. Listen to your students shared experiences, this helps them to feel heard and understood about who they are. All of these tips build a foundation for having a diverse curriculum