What are OUR Responsibilities as Educators in a Culturally Responsive Classroom? - To Create a POSITIVE Environment in the Classroom where ALL Students have the opportunity to be Successful​ To Cultivate a climate of Respect and Dignity for ALL in the classroom​ To Be an Agent of Change

1. Culturally
Responsive
Teaching
By Dr. Melinda Tompkins
Lewis Clark State College

2. What is Culture?

3. “Culture is the “glue”
that binds a group of
people together”
Douglas-Brown, 1994

4. “Culture is an elusive construct
that shifts constantly over time
and according to who is
perceiving and interpreting it.
Linda Harklau

5. Culture is central to
learning
It plays a role in conveying and receiving
information.
It plays a role in shaping the thinking process.

6. What Does
MULTICULTURAL
Really Mean?

7. Three Levels
of Culture
Concrete: This is the most visible and tangible level of
culture, and includes the most surface-level dimensions
such as clothes, music, food, games, etc. These aspects of
culture are often those which provide the focus for
multicultural "festivals" or "celebrations.”
Behavioral: This level of culture clarifies how we define our
social roles, the language we speak, and our approaches to
nonverbal communication. The Behavioral level REFLECTS
our values. Aspects to be listed in this category include
language, gender roles, family structure, political affiliation,
and other items that situation us organizationally in society.
Symbolic: This level of culture includes our values and
beliefs. It can be abstract, but it is most often the key to
how individuals define themselves. It includes values
systems, customs, spirituality, religion, worldview, beliefs,
mores, etc.
Hidalgo, N. 1993. Multicultural teacher introspection. In Perry, T. and Fraser, J. (Eds.) Freedom's Plow: Teaching in the Multicultural Classroom. New York:
Routledge.

8. How Do YOU
Define Yourself?
Concrete Behavioral Symbolic

9. What is your focus
as you teach
Multiculturally?
Concrete Behavioral
Symbolic

10. How Has Education
Generally Tried to Be
“Multicultural”?
What are the aspects or dimensions of culture that
are often the focus of classrooms trying to be
“multicultural”?

11. Is it consistent with how
we know people want to
be defined?

12. What is Culturally
Responsive Teaching?
Validating – Comprehensive – Multidimensional
Empowering -- Transformative – Emancipatory

13. Culturally
Responsive
Teaching…..
Uses Cultural Knowledge, Prior
Experiences and Performance Styles
of Diverse Students to make learning
more appropriate and effective for
them
It Teaches to the Strengths of
Students

14. Culturally Responsive
Teaching
Acknowledges the legitimacy of
cultural heritages of different
ethnic groups represented in the
classroom and how this affects
student dispositions, attitudes,
and approaches to learning

15. It is…..
Validating
• It builds bridges of meaningfulness
between home and school experiences
developing positive perspectives on
Parents and Families.
• It uses a wide variety of Instructional
Strategies that are connected to
different learning styles – Maintaining
HIGH Expectations for ALL!
• It creates an environment that
encourages and embraces cultural
heritages – teaching students to value
their own and each other’s cultural
heritage.
• It incorporates multicultural
information, resources, and materials
in all the subjects and skills routinely
taught in schools

16. • It teaches to the WHOLE Child
• Student Centered
• Sets High Expectations
• Culturally responsive teachers
realize not only the importance of
academic achievement, but also
the maintaining of cultural identity
and heritage (Gay, 2000).
It Is…..
Comprehensive

17. It is…..
Multidimensional
Incorporating
Diverse Ways of….
• Knowing
• Understanding
• Representing Information
Involving
• Curriculum Content Learning Context
• Classroom Climate
• Student-Teacher Relationships
• Instructional Techniques
• Performance Assessments

18. It is…..
Empowering
Empowerment Equals
Academic Competence,
Self-Efficacy, and
Initiative.
Students’ strength in one
subject area will support
new learning in another

19. It is ….Transformative
It appreciates the existing strengths and accomplishments of all students
and develops them further in instruction.
Respects the cultures and experiences of various groups and then uses
these as resources for teaching and learning
Banks (1991) asserts that if education is to empower marginalized groups,
it must be transformative.

20. It is…..
Empowering
Empowerment =academic competence, self-efficacy,
and initiative.
• Students’ strength in one subject area will
support new learning in another
Teachers must demonstrate ambitious and
appropriate expectations and exhibit support for
students in their efforts toward academic
achievement.
• Challenge students to develop higher order
knowledge and skills
This can be done through attribution retraining,
providing resources and personal assistance,
modeling positive self-efficacy beliefs, and celebrating
individual and collective accomplishments
(Gay, 2000)

21. Culturally responsive teaching is
liberating
• This freedom results in improved
achievement of many kinds,
including increased concentration
on academic learning tasks.
It is…..
Emancipatory

22. Other Improved
Achievements
Can Include:
Clear and insightful thinking; more
caring, concerned, and humane
interpersonal skills; better
understanding of interconnections
among individual, local, national,
ethnic, global, and human
identities; and acceptance of
knowledge as something to be
continuously shared, critiqued,
revised, and renewed
Chapman, 1994; M. Foster, 1995; Hollins, 1996; Hollins, King,
& Hayman, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1994, 1995a and
1995b; Lee, 1993; Lee & Slaughter-Defoe, 1995.

23. What are OUR Responsibilities
as Educators in a Culturally
Responsive Classroom?
• To Create a POSITIVE Environment
in the Classroom where ALL
Students have the Opportunity to
be Successful
• To Cultivate a climate of Respect
and Dignity for ALL in the
classroom
• To Be an Agent of Change

24. What is
Diversity
Really
About?

25. DIFFERENCES ?

26. Or
SIMILARITIES?
Within the Context of
Uniqueness of Each Person?

27. How are We Different?
How are We Alike?
Diversity

28. How Do We Celebrate Diversity?
And Create a Culturally Responsive Classroom….

29. And Create a Culturally Responsive Classroom….
How Do We Celebrate Diversity?

30. Diverse
Learners
Studies have shown that the use of
Best Practices in teachingis a
significantfactor inclosingthe
achievement gap that persistby
race/ethnicity, socio-economics,
language,and disability

31. Best Practices
Simplified
DEMONSTRATION
OF HIGH
EXPECTATIONS
IMPLEMENTATION
OF CULTURALLY
RELEVANT
INSTRUCTION
ESTABLISHMENT
OF CARING
RELATIONSHIPS
PARENT AND
COMMUNITY
INVOLVEMENT

32. High
Expectations
Expectations are internal processes that arise from our
belief systems and values
Low teacher expectations is the MAJOR contributor to
the achievement gap.
Educators must be willing to explore our beliefs,
attitudes, and assumptions that lead to low
expectations and accept responsibility for the
influence they have on student learning.

33. High
Expectations
Students are taught challenging, rigorous curriculum in ways that capitalize on the strengths
of their learning style.
Students receive praise for their effort to foster motivation to and responsibility for their
own learning.
Talk in the school reflects the belief that “all children can learn to high levels.” Children are
believed to be “at-promise,” not at-risk.
Teachers demonstrate persistence in their efforts to help students meet standards by
changing instructional approaches to meet the needs of each student.
Teachers provide equitable opportunities for students to respond and participate.
Provide ample wait time for thinking and responding.
Teachers provide specific and timely feedback to students about their work.
Students are asked high-level, open-ended questions that require them to interpret,
analyze, synthesize, and evaluate

34. Implementation
of Culturally
Relevant
Instruction
Culturally relevant instruction includes
• Using the language and understandings that
students have acquired in their families and
communities to bridge the gap between
what students know and are able to do and
what they need to learn in school.
• Incorporating the everyday issues and
concerns of families and the community into
curriculum and instruction.
• Actively engaging students in the learning
process.
• Using equitable grouping practices.

35. Providing Rich
Instruction
Technology-enriched
instruction
• In technology -enriched
instruction teachers use
multimedia and other
technology to facilitate
student learning through
active engagement.
• Multimedia facilitates
auditory skill
development of English
language learners by
integrating visual and
auditory input.
Cognitively guided
instruction
• Teaching cognitive
strategies scaffolds
instruction for
students and
enables them to
self-monitor
learning and to
know how to
navigate
successfully
through difficult
learning situations

36. • Instructional conversations are
extended dialogues between teachers
and students for the purpose of
developing students’ language and
thinking skills and to guide the
learning process.
• These interactive discussions provide
teachers with essential opportunities
to know students, assess their
learning, and to contextualize
instruction to meet students’
academic needs and base of
experience.
And…
Instructional
Conversations

37. Culturally
Relevant
Instruction
Capitalizes on the funds of knowledge
in families and the community
Funds of knowledge refer to the
practical and intellectual knowledge and
skills found among the social networks
in students’ homes and communities.
When this knowledge is untapped and
used to plan and deliver instruction, it
becomes a social and intellectual
resource for teachers.

38. Culturally
Relevant
Instruction
utilizes…
Cooperative Learning
Has consistently shown to be an effective
teaching strategy in diverse learning
environments.
Cooperative learning provides learners
with essential opportunities to use
language in meaningful, purposeful,
and interesting ways, build self-esteem
and self-confidence, and develop
academic, communication, and social
skills.

39. Establishment of
Caring
Relationships
In effective classrooms the strengths of every student are
recognized, respected, and valued asstudents and teachers share
the roles of expert, researcher, teacher, and learner.

40. Parent and Community
Involvement
• Parent and community involvement in schools has
long been linked as having a positive effect on
student achievement.
• Recent studies indicate that effective home-school
partnerships increase grades, test scores,
attendance, graduation rates, post-secondary
enrollments, and homework completion.

41. “No significant learning can occur
without a significant relationship.”
Dr. James P. Coomer

42. Are You the
Favorite Person of
Anybody?
Click on the Video