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Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Reflection Guide

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Reflection Guide

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: 4 Misconceptions

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: 4 Misconceptions

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: 4 Misconceptions | Cult of Pedagogy

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In some cases, teachers think they’re practicing culturally responsive teaching, when in fact, they’re kind of not. Zaretta Hammond helps clear things up.

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Teaching Strategies, Lessons, and Resources

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Teaching Strategies, Lessons, and Resources

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Humanizing Practices in the ELA Classroom

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Humanizing Practices in the ELA Classroom

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But That's Just Good Teaching: The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (1995)

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But That's Just Good Teaching: The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (1995)

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SCIENCE GENIUS AMBASSADORS

The Science Genius program provides participating schools with #HipHopEd trained educators, also known as Science Genius Ambassadors. These Science Genius Ambassadors work directly with science educators to provide them with the guidance and support needed to implement the Science Genius curriculum. In addition, Science Genius Ambassadors visit schools to co-teach with science educators, and work directly with students as they craft their science based rhymes.

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SCIENCE GENIUS AMBASSADORS The Science Genius program provides participating schools with #HipHopEd trained educators, also known as Science Genius Ambassadors. These Science Genius Ambassadors work directly with science educators to provide them with the guidance and support needed to implement the Science Genius curriculum.

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Why Culturally Relevant Science Teaching is Vital in Our Classrooms

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Why Culturally Relevant Science Teaching is Vital in Our Classrooms

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Why Culturally Relevant Science Teaching is Vital in Our Classrooms

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When asked about being a “culturally responsive teacher,” some science teachers may comment that they involve their science students in one of the following scenarios, hence they are, in fact, culturally responsive teachers:

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5 Ways to Make Your Science Classroom More Culturally Responsive

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5 Ways to Make Your Science Classroom More Culturally Responsive

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

Scientific discovery can have a deeper impact on students when they see how it is relevant to their lives.

Whether I'm facilitating preservice teacher education or working with a group of experienced educators, when the professional development topic is culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy, I find that teachers understand the why. They understand that creating inclusive, respectful classrooms that are responsive to students' intersectional identities fosters a learning environment that supports all learners' academic success. However, the part that teachers grapple with is the how.

To make the professional learning relevant and meaningful, I try to include many tangible, practical examples to give teachers a place to start. I understand that teachers are at various points in their learning journey, and any resources or tools I can share will support and encourage them to continue on their path.

There are many ways to ensure that our science classrooms are culturally responsive and relevant, and this starts with a deep knowledge of our students-their cultural backgrounds, lived experiences, and interests. Consider implementing the following five ideas.

1. Encourage students to explore their own cultural identities

When investigating topics in evolution, I've asked students to think about their own cultural heritage and how their ancestors might have adapted to changing environmental conditions. This promotes conversations about structural and behavioral adaptations.

In my classroom, students have investigated human adaptations to hot or cold climates, such as metabolic rate or sweat production, and made connections to cultural adaptations such as clothing design and technology development. My students from tropical climates were very interested to learn about the ways in which their ancestors had adapted to the warm, humid climates, which made the learning relevant and meaningful to them.

Another way I've had students explore their own cultural identities is through food. Cultures around the world have their own unique culinary traditions that are based on scientific principles. In my classroom, food chemistry is an interesting entry point to chemical reactions. My students interviewed family members, relatives, or friends to learn about procedures used for food preservation, fermentation, and other cooking methods. Students did additional research to explain the chemical processes that took place and the efficacy of the specific food preparation techniques.

2. Incorporate diverse perspectives and experiences into learning

During lessons about sustainable ecosystems, the perspectives of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities are incorporated in an authentic way. We've invited community leaders or elders to share the ways in which their traditional knowledge and practices have helped them to understand and adapt to changing environmental conditions.

I share the Two-Eyed Seeing approach with my students: to see from one eye the Indigenous ways of knowing and to see Western knowledge from the other eye, and then using both of the eyes together in harmony, a concept introduced by Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall. We look at case studies, such as the monitoring projects in the Avon River watershed, to understand how this approach allows us to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the environment.

When we are learning about human body systems, I invite my students to investigate traditional healing practices and remedies from various cultures (such as Chinese traditional medicine or Ayurvedic medicine). This leads to a rich discussion about how various cultural beliefs and practices have influenced our understanding of anatomy and physiology. Moving away from Eurocentric science education means that we acknowledge and appreciate the global historic contributions to our present understanding of science.

3. Facilitate student-led inquiry and experiential learning

When students have opportunities to design and conduct their own experiments and investigations, they have the freedom to explore their own interests and passions, which makes the learning relevant and meaningful.

For example, in physics, my students explored concepts in sound and energy through learning about musical instruments in various cultures, and how they employ the principles of sound to create music. Students engaged in the engineering design process to craft and test their own musical instruments.

In their experiments, they investigated how manipulating certain aspects of the instrument's design (the length of a woodwind instrument, the tension on strings, the material of a drum) impacted the sound it created and why. This is a low-floor, high-ceiling task that can be used in elementary-level science and can be adapted to align with high school physics standards.

4. Select culturally responsive and relevant materials

I've found that read-alouds are an effective way for students to learn about diverse perspectives. For example, when learning about the water cycle, I shared Carole Lindstrom's work We Are Water Protectors, which highlights the experiences and perspectives of a young Ojibwe girl. We've also explored cultural beliefs and practices related to water conservation and management in various communities around the world.

When learning about sustainable ecosystems, we read The Boy Who Grew a Forest, by Sophia Gholz. This is a true story about Jadav Payeng, a boy who built a forest from the ground up when he saw the destructive effects of erosion and deforestation on his island home in India's Brahmaputra River. The story inspired meaningful conversations about the impact of deforestation and the ways in which communities from around the world are responding to this reality, and how we can learn from their understanding and knowledge of the land to adopt sustainable practices.

5. Providing positive role models for students

When we share the lesser-known stories of science-whether those of Indigenous inventor Olivia Poole or of Chinese American physicist Chien-Shiung Wu -we actively counter stereotypes in science and give students the opportunity to see that the quest to understand the world around us is a human endeavor. While these historical figures are undoubtedly important role models for our students, allowing them to see present-day scientists and hear their lived experiences is especially powerful.

In my science classes, I've invited members of the community from diverse cultural backgrounds to discuss their careers and experiences. In the past, we've done a "STEM Talks" monthly series, in which people in STEM-related fields came in to speak with my students about their day-to-day work, their academic experiences, their challenges and victories. When students see themselves, their identities, and their lived experiences represented in the role models whom they can talk to in real life, it fosters a sense of belonging. If they can see it, they can be it.

Making our classrooms culturally responsive and relevant doesn't end with posters of diverse scientists on our classroom walls. It's a commitment to ensure that every child feels seen and represented in the curriculum that they are learning. These are just a few examples of how teachers can make science learning culturally responsive and relevant, but it's just a drop in the bucket of possibilities that can be adapted to the specific needs and interests of the students in front of you.

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5 Ways to Make Your Science Classroom More Culturally Responsive

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Scientific discovery can have a deeper impact on students when they see how it is relevant to their lives.

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Culturally Relevant Science

We are working to make K-12 STEM curriculum inclusive of all students, especially those from underrepresented communities.

How we make stem
culturally relevant

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Our America: In the Black

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WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

OMG!!! You guys are AMAZING!!! I was dying laughing at the lab safety video. You truly know our students and the video was so culturally relevant to SCIENCE.

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I homeschool my boys and I have trouble with the hard stuff like Physics. They found these videos and we love them. Please keep up the great work.

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Culturally Relevant Science offers innovative, affordable, and inclusive STEM education.

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AMAZE - Age appropriate puberty and sex education videos

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AMAZE takes the awkward out of sex ed and growing up. Real info in fun, animated sex education videos that give you the answers you actually want to know.

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Educator Advice: Making Math More Culturally Responsive

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Educator Advice: Making Math More Culturally Responsive

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Twelve Ways to Make Math More Culturally Responsive (Opinion)

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Four educators share ideas for using culturally responsive teaching in math class, including by helping students make community connections.

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5 Tips for Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Math Classroom

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Teachers can help all students feel like they belong in math classes by creating connections between course material and students’ lives.

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Using Math to Fight Homelessness

(From Arches, a magazine published by Regents School of Austin)
AP Statistics student Vanessa Aguirre shares how their class harnessed the power of surveying, statistics and service to help the Mobile Fishes and Bread ministry in their efforts to combat homelessness in Austin.
On a rainy Tuesday morning, the thirty-six AP Statistics students walked through the Community First! Village of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a local Austin non-profit focusing on the needs and betterment of the homeless community. The community village this organization founded is a beautiful, solitary sanctuary, with mini-homes right out of a housekeeping magazine and gardens dotting the landscape. Weaving through the clusters of houses and RVs, the high school students knocked on doors and waited with baited breaths, holding copies of a survey they helped design for the residents of the village.

"I was pretty nervous," senior Lydia Strickland said.

Over the course of the morning, the students went from door to door, talking to the residents and sharing their stories, working to fill the survey as their school project that would help Mobile Loaves and Fishes (also known as MLF) in its aim to fight homelessness. The math students worked in tandem with MLF to, ultimately, answer the question: Does a lack of community cause homelessness? The high school students used ideas and concepts learned throughout the year to edit, carry out, and analyze a survey given to the residents living in the community village the non-profit has made.

This question is largely based on Bruce K. Alexander's "Rat Park" study, where Alexander and other scientists set up a study administering drugs to rats not in isolated cages, but in communities with a positive environment, and found that the drug intake of rats went down dramatically. This shows that environment and community play a significant role in drug use-and leads others to wonder if more than just drug use can be improved. The AP statistics and MLF worked together to explore this train of thought, and to reaffirm MLF's community-based program.

Homelessness is, after all, a very real problem. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there were 564,708 homeless people in the United States in January of 2015, 15% of which were considered chronically homeless. More pragmatically, each homeless person costs taxpayers around $14,480 a year. When you do the math, that amounts to homelessness costing more than eight billion annually.

Not only does homelessness affect those directly involved, but it impacts society as well. Efforts to curb homelessness will have a positive impact on everyone. As a large and established homeless outreach ministry based in Austin, Mobile Loaves and Fishes attempts to do just that-curb, and ideally eventually end, homelessness and the factors behind it. In partnering with the AP Statistics students of Regents School of Austin, MLF hoped to gain more data on the effectiveness of their Community First! Village and the philosophy that poor environment and lack of community are the root problems of homelessness.

"We believe what we're seeing anecdotally on the property is being verified through the statistical analysis, so we love this [the AP Statistics project,]" Alan Graham, Mobile Loaves and Fishes co-founder and director, said. "It confirms our model at Community First, that the only model that's going to move the needle in a significant way is a kingdom-based model that's all about community. So we need that data."

Not only has the AP Stats project helped as a service, but it's also helped as learning tool for the students, giving them a deeper appreciation of the concepts they learned in class.

"I liked the real-world application," junior Emily Raeder said. "That was great."

This service-learning model is meant to lead students into developing higher-order critical thinking, in a real-world environment, where service to the community (such as alleviating homelessness) is presented as crucial to the course objectives and larger applications of education. Dr. Wilkerson, the Regents AP Statistics and Calculus teacher, sees service-learning as a valuable tool in math education.

"I think it helps because you get to use statistics in a real-life situation that's meaningful in an immediate context," he said. "Students realize that what you learn in math class aren't things you would just have to do down the road, in the distant foggy future. Students learn the connection between helping people and using statistics, and they learn it on a deeper level."

The project showed that math and making a difference in the world can go hand in hand. In order to help Mobile Loaves and Fishes and its residents, the AP Statistics students at Regents had to learn exploratory data analysis, data collection, probability, and statistical inference. On top of all this, students also got to practice their speaking skills. Students presented the results to representatives from MLF, the culmination of the class's hard work.

The high schoolers also got a better appreciation of how even the little things can affect the world around them.

"I talked to this one man who talked about what a difference people who give out bags with goodies at stoplights made, that it made his day," one junior said. "He said those things made a big difference. But we don't put much thought into it."

These math students may just be proof that math really can accomplish anything.

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Resources and guidance to support Black, LatinX, and Multilingual students to thrive in grades 6-8 A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction is an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students in grades 6-8, addresses barriers to math equity, and aligns instruction to grade-level priority standards.

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Culturally Responsive Instruction in Social Studies

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Culturally Responsive Education (CRE) is the educational movement of the moment.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Zaretta Hammond's 'Levels of Culture Tree'

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Zaretta Hammond's 'Levels of Culture Tree'

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From her book 'Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain'

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Cultural Proficiency in Our Taught and Implicit Curriculum

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: Language Acquisiton

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: Language Acquisiton

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: Language and Literature

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: Language and Literature

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: Humanities

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: Humanities

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Cultural Proficiency in Action: SS Subject Areas