What is culturally responsive teaching?
Culturally responsive teaching means using students’ customs, characteristics, experience, and perspectives as tools for better classroom instruction.
How do you teach culturally-responsive lessons?
To augment their understanding and responsiveness, this involves: Emulating culturally-significant instruction styles, such as oral storytelling Helping you plan and deliver lessons that resonate with a diverse classroom, below are 15 culturally-responsive teaching strategies and examples.
How many core competencies are there in culturally responsive teaching?
There are many frameworks and ways to think about culturally responsive teaching.' Building on this scholarship, New America developed a set of eight core competencies that describe what culturally responsive teachers know and do (see Figure 1)."
What is culturally-responsive pedagogy?
Rooted in differentiated instruction principles, culturally-responsive pedagogy aims to link content -- from delivery to assessment -- with students’ ancestral and contemporary cultures. To augment their understanding and responsiveness, this involves: Emulating culturally-significant instruction styles, such as oral storytelling

Who was the founder of culturally responsive teaching?
scholar Gloria Ladson-BillingsCulturally responsive teaching stems from the framework of culturally relevant pedagogy, which was introduced by scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings in the 1990s.
What is culturally responsive teaching?
Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is a research-based approach to teaching. It connects students' cultures, languages, and life experiences with what they learn in school. These connections help students access rigorous curriculum and develop higher-level academic skills. Our brains are wired to make connections.
Is Culturally Responsive pedagogy a theory?
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is a theoretical model that focuses on multiple aspects of student achievement and supports students to uphold their cultural identities. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy also calls for students to develop critical perspectives that challenge societal inequalities.
What does research say about culturally responsive teaching?
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.
What are the 7 principles of culturally responsive teaching?
7 Culturally Responsive Teaching StrategiesActivate students' prior knowledge. ... Make learning contextual. ... Consider your classroom setup. ... Form relationships. ... Discuss social and political issues. ... Tap into students' cultural capital. ... Incorporate popular culture.
What are the 5 core components of culturally responsive teaching?
5 Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies for EducatorsActivate students' prior knowledge. ... Make learning contextual. ... Encourage students to leverage their cultural capital. ... Reconsider your classroom setup. ... Build relationships.
What are the three culturally responsive pedagogy?
Culturally responsive pedagogy is divided into three functional dimensions: the institutional dimension, the personal dimension, and the instructional dimension.
What are the four areas of culturally responsive teaching?
The Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) Framework outlines four principles and embedded strategies to help educators create student-centered learning environments that: affirm racial, linguistic and cultural identities; prepare students for rigorous and independent learning; develop students' abilities to connect ...
Why culturally responsive teaching is important?
Culturally responsive teaching helps bridge those gaps by engaging students from underrepresented cultures (which can be informed by everything from race and ethnicity to religion and ability) in the learning process in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them.
What does culturally responsive teaching look like in the classroom?
Cultural responsiveness is the ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of one's own culture as well as those from other cultures. Culturally responsive schools offer a learning environment where every student's cultures, languages, and life experiences are acknowledged, validated, and celebrated.
Why does a culturally responsive curriculum work?
In culturally responsive classrooms, the classroom climate is a safe haven characterized by respect and care. Teachers establish trusting relationships that allow all students to take risks and to challenge the perspectives of others, including the teacher.
Why is culturally responsive teaching important?
Culturally responsive teaching helps bridge those gaps by engaging students from underrepresented cultures (which can be informed by everything from race and ethnicity to religion and ability) in the learning process in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them.
What are culturally responsive practices?
Culturally-responsive practices involve recognizing and incorporating the assets and strengths all students bring into the classroom, and ensuring that learning experiences, from curriculum through assessment, are relevant to all students.
What is a culturally responsive lesson plan?
Matthew Lynch (2011) culturally responsive instruction is, “a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students' unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student's cultural place in the world.” There are several components to a ...
How can you identify the aspects of culturally responsive teaching?
Communicate high expectations. Make sure that you let each student know that you expect them to engage, perform, and achieve at high level, rather than making excuses in your own mind for some students who don't participate at optimal levels at times.
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.
What are some examples of culturally responsive teaching?
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.
How to be culturally responsive in the classroom?
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.
How to make your classroom more culturally responsive?
“These are all small changes you can make to your classroom more culturally responsive ,” Childers-McKee says.
Why is it important to encourage students who don't have a voice?
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.
Why should teachers encourage students to draw on their prior knowledge?
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.
How to make a lesson more 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.”
What are the tenets of Culturally Responsive Teaching?
Educators use varying definitions that emphasize different aspects of culturally responsive teaching, but there is a common theme among all definitions (Hollie, 2017; Martinez, 2021; Muhammad, 2020; Hammond, 2014; Krasnoff, 2016; Johnson, 2021; Gatlin,-Nash, Johnson, Lee-James, 2020; Kubic, 2021; Stringfellow, 2019).
How can culturally responsive teaching be applied specifically to reading instruction?
Culturally responsive teaching, including how it applies to teaching reading, cannot be deduced to a single routine, program, or set of steps to follow.
Keys to Literacy and Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction
In 2020, Keys to Literacy updated its mission statement to reflect our commitment to supporting culturally responsive literacy instruction:
What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?
Simply put, Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is a research-based approach to teaching, which connects students’ cultures, languages, and life experiences with their learning in schools.
How to apply culturally responsive teaching in the classroom?
The first step in being culturally responsive is to assess yourself, as we all often develop biases in our lives.
How does culturally responsive teaching benefit stakeholders?
1. With the help of CRT, teachers can identify the strengths and weaknesses of students and develop their own mechanisms to engage with them effectively. Since the concept is inclusive in nature, it works better for talented but underprivileged students.
How can teachers be more culturally responsive?
Teachers can be culturally more responsive by removing their biases, which, intentionally or unintentionally, becomes a part of their personality in their life journey. Besides, teachers need to gain knowledge about their own culture and the culture of their students. These traits help a teacher in handling diversity in a classroom.
Why is it important to address student diversity in a classroom?
A teacher’s aim should be that all students in the classroom achieve at least minimum standards. It can be done by taking into account the diversity among students and creating an atmosphere in which their differences are supported and celebrated to provide them with the best opportunity to learn.
What is culturally responsive pedagogy?
No single teaching approach will engage each student at once, but building a strategy to consistently deliver culturally-responsive lessons will help you appeal to diverse learners with distinct backgrounds. Rooted in differentiated instruction principles, culturally-responsive pedagogy aims to link content -- from delivery to assessment -- with students’ ancestral and contemporary cultures. To augment their understanding and responsiveness, this involves:
Why is it important to have culturally responsive lessons?
Delivering culturally-responsive lessons can not only help you engage students, but allow them to make personal connections with content. Greater student investment should lead to other benefits, such as more rigor and motivation. A happier, focused classroom is the ideal outcome.>>Create or log in to your teacher account on Prodigy -- a free game-based learning platform that delivers a range of culturally-relevant math content through engaging word and scenario-based problems. Aligned with curricula across the English-speaking world, it’s loved by more than 700,000 teachers and 20 million students
How to develop positive attitudes?
Develop Positive Attitudes -- This further focuses on relating content to students. A popular method is allowing them to choose between activities and assessments that let them showcase their values, strengths and experiences. For example, while providing clear learning goals and evaluation criteria, encourage students to submit their own project ideas.
Why is problem based learning culturally responsive?
This is because, when presenting a relatable real-world problem for your students to solve, two cultural connections will typically occur. First, there will likely be a cultural link in the question, whether it’s explicit or students make it themselves. Second, because they can apply different approaches to solve the question, they may use unique cultural perspectives. But if you want to create a scenario with explicit cultural ties, consider:
How to encourage students to submit ideas for their own projects?
By asking students to submit ideas for their own projects, the benefits of choice extend beyond free study time. Specifically, they should build confidence by showcasing their strengths. So, encourage them to pitch ideas for taking a project from concept to completion. A student must show how the product will meet academic standards in his or her pitch. If the idea falls short, give the student ideas to refine it. If the student can’t refine the idea, he or she can choose a project from a list of options you provide. Not only will you be pleasantly surprised by some pitches, but you may generate ideas for future culturally-responsive exercises and assessments.
How to build a stronger understanding of students' values and habits?
You’ll build a stronger understanding of students’ values and habits -- as well as strengths and weaknesses -- by individually asking them questions. While running a large-group exercise, pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:
What is the practice of asking students frequent questions while giving lessons?
Call-and-response -- the practice of asking students frequent questions while giving lessons -- usually keeps them engaged, but also enables them to share thoughts and opinions. Involve everyone by:
