We will begin by reflecting on who we are as teachers and what we want to offer to children in our classes. This reflection should be 300-500 words. W

A Guide to Evidence-Based Practices for Teaching All Students Equitably

Culturally Responsive

Teaching

About the Region X Equity Assistance Center The Region X Equity Assistance Center (EAC) at Education Northwest helps schools and their communities incorporate educational equity into policies, procedures, and classroom practices to ensure that all students receive what they need to succeed academically. Our principal responsibilities are to provide and support planning, implementation, and sustainability for equity initiatives at the request of school boards and other responsible governmental agencies. We work with our stakeholders to increase family and community engagement, improve student academic performance, and strengthen student engagement and school culture. We also provide assistance with culturally responsive teaching, school safety, and compliance with the requirements of the federal Dear Colleague Letters.

As one of 10 centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education, we provide training and technical assistance to K–12 public schools within Region X at no cost or through a cost-share arrangement. Region X consists of Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Territory of American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Territory of Guam, Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Yap), Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau.

For more information or to request assistance, go to: http://educationnorthwest.org/equity-assistance-center/

Contact Dr. Yvonne Ryans, Director, Region X Equity Assistance Center at Education Northwest 101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500, Portland, Oregon 97204 Phone: 503.275.9481 (toll free: 800.547.6339) [email protected]

Discrimination Prohibited No person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, national origin, sex, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance, or be so treated on the basis of sex under most education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.

About This Publication This publication is based on work supported wholly or in part by grant number S004D60006 and S004D990005 from the U.S. Department of Education. The content of this document does not necessarily reflect the views of the department or any other agency of the United States government. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this publication in whole or in part with the acknowledgment of the Region X Equity Assistance Center at Education Northwest as the source.

at Education Northwest

Equity Assistance Center

Region X

March 2016

Basha Krasnoff

Region X Equity Assistance Center Education Northwest

A Guide to Evidence-Based Practices for Teaching All Students Equitably

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Preparing Teachers to Be Culturally Responsive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Effective Teaching is Culturally Responsive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Teacher Skills and Student Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Teacher Caring and Community Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Teachers Cultivating Cross-Cultural Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Considering Cultural Diversity when Designing Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Teachers Recognizing Key Dimensions of Cultural Learning Diversity . . . . . . 14

Teachers Creating an Equitable Classroom Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Appendix A: Educational Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Appendix B: Considerations Beyond the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

1Culturally Responsive Teaching

Introduction Students in the United States and its territories come from a large and increasing number of racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse families: diverse students made up 48 percent of the population in 2011, up from 39 percent in 2001. Teachers and school leaders, for the most part, do not reflect that diversity (U.S. Department of Education Equity and Excellence Commission, 2013). In 2012, 84 percent of full-time public school teachers were White, 7 percent were Black, 7 percent were Hispanic, and fewer than 2 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander (Aud et al., 2013).

The contrast in the demographic composition of educators and their students is cause for concern because research shows that students’ race, ethnicity, and cultural background significantly influence their achievement. (Harry & Klingner, 2006; Orosco & Klingner, 2010; Skiba et al., 2011). There is extensive evidence from achievement test scores, grade promotion rates, graduation rates, and other common indicators of school success that students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds experience poorer educational outcomes than their peers (Bennett et al., 2004; Conchas & Noguera, 2004; Sanders, 2000). Additional factors such as poverty and inadequate training or professional development opportunities for teachers compound this negative impact, as do systemic issues like biased assessment practices and institutional racism.

According to Scott (2000), if the essential intention of education is to positively impact students’ lives by equipping them with critical knowledge and skills through culturally relevant, expert practice, then disparities in curriculum and instruction require that school districts shift their priorities and policies. Scott suggests that districts:

• Require each teacher to obtain proper certification, training, and professional development

• Increase teacher motivation to recognize diverse learners’ strengths, as well as their needs

• Decrease dependence on packaged instructional materials and increase implementation of strategies and techniques targeted to the needs of specific student groups

• Integrate the use of technology into instructional practice to bridge the generational divide

• Recruit and retain high-quality teachers for schools in rural and remote areas

Addressing the unique needs of students from diverse backgrounds is one of the major challenges facing public education today because many teachers are inadequately prepared with the relevant content knowledge, experience, and training (Au, 2009; Cummins, 2007). Inadequate preparation can create a cultural gap between teachers and students (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2009) that limits the ability of educators to choose effective instructional practices and curricular materials. Research on curriculum and instructional practices has primarily focused on White middle-class students, while virtually ignoring the cultural and linguistic characteristics of diverse learners (Orosco, 2010; Orosco & O’Connor, 2011).

A mandate for change requires that racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students have the opportunity to meet their learning challenges with the strength and relevance found in their own cultural frame of reference. Therefore, teachers must be prepared with a thorough understanding of the specific cultures of the students they teach; how that culture affects student learning behaviors; and how they can change classroom interactions and instruction to embrace the differences.

2 © Education Northwest 2016

Preparing Teachers To Be Culturally Responsive Because culture strongly influences the attitudes, values, and behaviors that students and teachers bring to the instructional process, better teacher preparation is a major factor in solving the problems of underachievement. Reasonably, teachers can only be held accountable for student outcomes if they are adequately prepared to be culturally responsive to their students’ learning styles and needs.

Seminal studies of culturally responsive teaching, conducted over the course of the past 30–40 years have provided the evidence base for many of the innovative practices developed by Geneva Gay, Sonia Nieto, and Gloria Ladson-Billings. These “teachers of teachers“ developed systems of instructional delivery based on what the research told them about racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students. For them, cultural congruity had to be deeply embedded in any teaching practice; therefore, they recommended training teachers in instructional techniques matched to the diverse learning styles of their students. Gay (2002) made the case for preparing teachers with culturally responsive knowledge, attitudes, and skills during preservice education programs to improve the school success of diverse students. Through proper training, teachers learn to bridge the gap between instructional delivery and diverse learning styles and establish continuity between how diverse students learn and communicate and how the school approaches teaching and learning.

Villegas and Lucas (2002) encouraged teacher educators to critically examine their programs and systematically interweave throughout prospective teachers’ coursework, learning experiences, and fieldwork the strategies that research has shown better prepares them to work successfully with diverse students. These researchers posited that helping prospective teachers develop the following six characteristics would prepare them to be culturally responsive.

1. Socio-cultural consciousness: A teacher’s own way of thinking, behaving, and being are influenced by race, ethnicity, social class, and language. Prospective teachers must critically examine their own socio-cultural identities and biases in the context of the inequalities culturally diverse segments of society experience. They must recognize discrimination based on ethnicity, social class, and skin color and inspect and confront any negative attitudes they might have toward diverse student groups.

2. Attitude: A teacher’s affirming attitude toward students from culturally diverse backgrounds significantly impacts student learning, belief in themselves, and overall academic performance. By respecting cultural differences and using curricular and instructional practices related to the cultures of their students, schools and classrooms become inclusive.

3. Commitment and skills: A teacher’s role as an agent of change confronts barriers/obstacles to those changes and develops skills for collaboration. As agents of change, teachers assist schools in becoming more equitable over time.

4. Constructivist views: A teacher’s contention that all students are capable of learning requires building scaffolding between what students already know through their own experiences and what they need to learn. Constructivist teaching promotes critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and the recognition of multiple perspectives.

5. Knowledge of student’s life: A teacher’s learning about a student’s past experiences, home and community culture, and world in and out of school helps build relationships by increasing the use of these experiences in the context of teaching and learning.

6. Culturally responsive teaching: A teacher’s use of strategies that support a constructivist view of knowledge, teaching, and learning assists students in constructing knowledge, building on their personal and cultural strengths, and examining the curriculum from multiple perspectives, thus creating an inclusive classroom environment.

3Culturally Responsive Teaching

Effective Teaching Is Culturally Responsive Researchers at the Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (Goe, Bell, & Little, 2008) concluded that being an effective teacher means more than providing subject-matter instruction or focusing on one measure of student achievement. They found that cultural responsiveness is integral to the “essence” of effective teaching and described five qualities that distinguish effective teachers:

1. Hold high expectations for all students and help all students learn, as measured by value- added or other test-based growth measures or by alternative measures

2. Contribute to positive academic, attitudinal, and social outcomes for students, such as regular attendance, on-time promotion to the next grade, on-time graduation, self-efficacy, and cooperative behavior

3. Use diverse resources to plan and structure engaging learning opportunities, monitor student progress formatively, adapt instruction as needed, and evaluate learning using multiple sources of evidence

4. Contribute to the development of classrooms and schools that value diversity and civic- mindedness

5. Collaborate with colleagues, administrators, parents, and education professionals to ensure student success, particularly the success of high- risk students or those with special needs

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Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement Expectations play a critical role in student achievement. Some students are more vulnerable to low expectations because of societal biases and stereotypes associated with their racial and/or ethnic identity. Though educators do not intend to communicate low expectations, there is well- documented evidence that these societal beliefs have a tangible, negative effect on the performance and achievement of racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students.

Over time, low expectations not only hinder learning but also negatively affect students’ attitudes and motivation, resulting in self-fulfilling prophecies. If they are to eliminate persistent disparities in student achievement, every educator must consciously and consistently demonstrate the same specific, observable, and measurable behaviors and practices to all students, regardless of the students’ current academic performance (Montgomery County Public Schools, 2010).

Decades of research on the Teacher Expectations Student Achievement (TESA) Interaction Model have identified 27 specific, observable, and measureable teacher behaviors that communicate high expectations. These behaviors provide equitable response opportunities and effective feedback, and help develop caring relationships. The 27 teacher behaviors were found to communicate high expectations to all students regardless of their race, ethnicity, or cultural or linguistic context (Los Angeles County Office of Education, 2002; Montgomery County Public Schools, 2010).

TESA researchers have found that teachers communicate high expectations by:

1. Welcoming students by name as they enter the classroom. Making the effort to accurately remember and correctly pronounce each student’s name is a gesture of respect of both the student and his or her culture. In many cultures, the giving of names is loaded with symbolic significance, and to mispronounce that name is to diminish it and its bearer (Ladson-Billings, 2009).

2. Using eye contact with high- and low- achieving students. To be equitable in the classroom, the teacher needs to be sensitive to the cultural norms and interpretations of even such simple behaviors as making eye contact and the messages this gesture sends about teacher expectations (Cooper, 1979).

3. Using proximity with high- and low-achieving students equitably. Although it has been observed that teachers unconsciously favor those student perceived to be most like themselves in race, class, and values, culturally relevant teaching means consciously working to develop commonalities among all students (Ladson-Billings, 2009).

4. Using body language, gestures, and expressions to convey a message that all students’ questions and opinions are important. Nonverbal behavior can be the most immediate part of a teacher’s overall reward system, as well as one of the most subtly motivating or discouraging forces available to teachers in their interactions with students. Students almost always notice nonverbal behavior, especially when others are receiving it, while it is often unperceived by the teacher using it (Marzano, 2007).

5. Arranging the classroom to accommodate discussion. An inviting classroom uses the arrangement of desks to enhance interpersonal relationships between the teacher and student and among students themselves. Students must be able to relate in a positive way to their peers so that they communicate with one another. This permits a sense of connection and collaboration (Shade, Oberg, & Kelly, 2004).

6. Ensuring bulletin boards, displays, instructional materials, and other visuals in the classroom reflect students’ racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. The lack of relevant and culturally appropriate pictures, posters, and other instructional materials—as well as drab and institutional colors on the walls—creates an environment that is uninviting to learners. The physical environment of schools reflects the expectations that educators have of the capabilities of their students (Nieto, 2000).

5Culturally Responsive Teaching

7. Using a variety of visual aids and props to support student learning. For children of color and families of immigrants, initial assessment of their acceptance in the school community depends on whether or not they see pictures, symbols, or other visual representations that remind them of their homes, communities, and values. An inviting classroom focuses on the use of color, physical arrangement of space, lighting, and sound to attract students to the learning process (Shade et al., 2004).

8. Learning, using, and displaying some words in students’ heritage language. Cross-cultural literacy awareness benefits both students and teachers in building a community of learners. Students’ native literacy and native cultural backgrounds should be considered rich resources instead of obstacles (Schwarzer, Haywood, & Lorenzen, 2003).

9. Modeling the use of graphic organizers. Graphic organizers can be used to incorporate student insights and knowledge. Some students respond better to the inclusion of their social iconography, such as music, decals, graffiti, and TV imagery. This is particularly true for students learning English as a second language or those who are more attuned to aural and visual learning styles, rather than to reading and writing. It is precisely those kinds of representations that effective graphic organizers can include (Hill, 2003).

10. Using class building and team building activities to promote peer support for academic achievement. Before launching into collaborative learning tasks, students should engage in team-building activities that are designed to foster social cohesiveness. The objective is to create a social-emotional climate conducive to developing a sense of solidarity and intimacy among group members. This enables students to feel comfortable in future group activities that may require them to express personal viewpoints, disagree with others, and reach consensus in an open (nondefensive) fashion (Cuseo, 2000).

11. Using random response strategies. Accomplished teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse learners use a variety of approaches that allow students to confront, explore, and understand important and challenging concepts, topics, and issues in meaningful ways. Using random response strategies creates a caring, inclusive, safe, and linguistically and culturally rich community of learning where students take intellectual risks and work both independently and collaboratively (Trumball & Pachero, 2005).

12. Using cooperative learning structures. Much information about different cultural and ethnic heritages cannot be attained through reading books. Only by knowing, working with, and personally interacting with members of diverse groups can students really learn to value diversity, utilize it for creative problem-solving, and develop an ability to work effectively with diverse peers (Johnson & Johnson, 2000).

13. Structuring heterogeneous and cooperative groups for learning. Because cooperative learning groups encourage positive social interaction among students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, they have great potential to facilitate building cross-ethnic friendships and to reduce racial stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice. When students work cooperatively, they have the opportunity to judge each other on merits rather than stereotypes (McLemore & Romo, 1998).

14. Using probing and clarifying techniques to assist students to answer. Questions that probe should reflect different levels of cognitive complexity; techniques should vary from rephrasing the question, to asking a related question, to giving a hint, clue, or prompt, to using scaffolded questions (Pierce & O’Malley, 1992).

15. Acknowledging all students’ comments, responses, questions, and contributions. Differential treatment has been tied to race. Students of color, especially those who are poor and live in urban areas, bear the brunt of differential teacher behaviors—even receiving praise that is less supportive of student learning. Acknowledgement of all student responses should be affirming, correcting, or probing (Shade et al., 2004).

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16. Seeking multiple perspectives. Educators need to be explicit in structuring opportunities for students to hear varying perspectives. Validate all perspectives with responses such as: “That’s one idea. Does anyone else have another?” “That was one way to solve the problem. Who did it another way?” or “Who has an alternative view?” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).

17. Using multiple approaches to consistently monitor students’ understanding of instruction, directions, procedures, processes, questions, and content. Teachers should strive to have a wide repertoire of ways to assess student learning—ways that will be good matches to students’ learning styles. They also need a variety of ways to teach and to assess how all students think, problem solve, communicate, and work with others (Saphier & Gower, 1997).

18. Identifying students’ current knowledge before instruction. A culturally responsive, student- centered curriculum is rich and meaningful because it takes into consideration the experiences, realities, and interests of the students. All lessons must be relevant to the students’ lives. Key to teaching a diverse population is the belief that all students come to school equipped and prepared with basic experiences and fundamental knowledge (Shade, Kelly, & Oberg, 1997).

19. Using students’ real life experiences to connect school learning to students’ lives. Strengthening student motivation is the major reason to make classroom connections to students’ lives: all learners are much more interested in information that relates to their personal situations. Teachers can recognize the students’ world outside the classroom by posting a poem, quote, joke, song, or picture every day that demonstrates an awareness of and respect for students’ backgrounds. They can also engage students in content-based projects, surveys, free-writing exercises, and storytelling that enable students to directly connect school with their communities (Landsman, 2006).

7Culturally Responsive Teaching

20. Using “wait time” to give students time to think before they respond to your question. A period of silence following a teacher’s question provides students with an uninterrupted period of time to think about what has been asked and to formulate a response. Pausing after the response before affirming, correcting, or probing gives other students time to consider their reactions, responses, and extensions (Stahl, 1994).

21. Asking students for feedback on the effectiveness of instruction. Teachers solicit and use student feedback to alter and improve their teaching. Individual discussions with students help teachers modify instructional practice to meet student needs by adapting materials, varying cues, changing the sequence of instruction, adjusting timing and transitions from one activity to another, or developing more appropriate expectations (Bellon, Bellon, & Blank, 1992).

22. Providing students with the criteria and standards for successful task completion. By providing anonymous samples of strong student performances, teachers can effectively communicate to students the criteria for successfully fulfilling a learning goal. Collaboratively examining a variety of successful products with peers and with teacher guidance helps students begin to create a mental model of what success looks like in terms of the learning goal or standard (Stiggins & Chappuis, 2005).

23. Giving students effective, specific oral and written feedback that prompts improved performance. Immediate feedback helps students begin to ask relevant questions about the work, make decisions, and learn to self-evaluate during the process rather than after they have submitted their work for grading. While students are engaged in various stages of completing their assignment, teachers are free to conference individually with students and to work with small groups. During this time, students have the opportunity to learn from each other how to develop and revise text (Cole, 1995).

24. Providing multiple opportunities to use effective feedback to revise and resubmit work for evaluation against the standard. The re- teach and reassess policy creates an environment of learning that promotes effort and persistence. Giving students the opportunity to master a skill over time and with repeated attempts can change their ideas about how and why they succeed in class. If we offer our students the opportunity to try again and really work with them to achieve, their perceptions of how and why they achieve might change from a belief in innate ability to the importance of persistence and effort (Guthrie, 2008).

25. Explaining and modeling positive self- talk. When the teacher explains to students the importance of positive self-talk and shares personal examples of how positive self-talk leads to positive outcomes, the students are asked to reconsider the nature of intelligence. They begin to think of their minds as muscles that get strengthened and expanded—becoming smarter with hard work. This diminishes the fear that their academic difficulties reflect an unalterable limitation (Aronson, 2004).

26. Asking higher order questions equitably of high- and low-achieving students. Classroom questioning has an extremely important role in equitable classroom practice. Posing questions during lesson instruction is more effective in producing achievement gains than instruction carried out without questioning students. Students will perform better on test items previously asked as recitation questions than on items they have not been exposed to before. Oral questions posed during classroom recitations are more effective in fostering learning than are written questions. Questions focused on student attention to salient elements in the lesson result in better comprehension (Cotton, 1998).

27. Providing individual help to high- and low- achieving students. One-on-one meetings are the ultimate confidence builders for students and are especially effective as follow-ups to instruction when students practice a strategy. A teacher’s undivided attention to each child conveys caring about their learning and interest in helping them understand and improve.

8 © Education Northwest 2016

Teacher Skills and Student Success Other researchers have found evidence of particular, high-quality teaching skills that are successful with all students. Although researchers have used different terms in describing these skills, they have consistently identified the same ones. Figure 1 summarizes

the skills identified by researchers Delpit (2006), Ladson-Billings (1995), and Sleeter (2008) in three seminal studies (as described by Skrla, McKenzie, & Scheurich, 2009).

Figure 1: Research-based, high-quality skills for teaching all students equitably

Delpit Ladson-Billings Sleeter

See students’ brilliance: Do not teach less content to poor, urban children but instead, teach more!

Believe that students are capable of academic success.

Hold high expectations for students’ learning, regardless of how they are doing now.

Ensure that all students gain access to “basic skills”—the convent

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