The goal of culturally responsive instruction is to make school learning relevant and effective for students by incorporating their customs, perspectives, cultural knowledge, life experiences, frames of reference, languages, performance and communication styles.
This requires making what students know and how they know it the basis of learning and teaching interactions and the curriculum. For instance, numerous societies and cultures celebrate with fireworks. During such a celebration, the teacher may demonstrate how to measure speed using fireworks by posing sample questions.
Establishing inclusiveness also entails routinely mixing students with various peers, so stimulating problem-solving discussions. This is an illustration of a teacher employing culturally responsive teaching.
This is beneficial for all students, but especially when there are substantial gaps between the teacher’s and student’s worlds. Culturally responsive teaching acknowledges and highly values the cultural knowledge and skills that students bring to the classroom as a resource for the development of various perspectives and modes of knowing.
In many parts of the world, classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse. Patterns of international migration have dramatically altered the cultural composition of numerous industrialized societies and, by consequence, their student populations. Teachers may develop a sense of belonging and ensure that all students feel appreciated and challenged by gaining an understanding of their students’ experiences.
The population of Kenya is ethnically varied. Consequently, many African ethnic groupings and sub-ethnic groups have interacted throughout Kenya’s history.
Incorporating a richness of cultural knowledge and skills into the curriculum, the Kenyan education system has, over the years, emphasized the development of Kenya’s rich cultural variety. But is the Kenyan teacher completely mistaken? Our teachers appear knowledgeable about the concept and its existence. However, the execution falls short of being convincing.
Long Derek, a senior lecturer at the University of Southern California, conducted research in 2018 that attempted to provide light on ways for bridging the Cultural Teaching Gap.
In the United States, for instance, the racial achievement gap is a problem afflicting the school system. Nationwide, black and brown students perform below their white counterparts. According to his study, academics such as Gloria Ladson-Billings and Geneva Gay have asserted that culturally relevant training is one of the most successful ways of reducing the achievement gap.
The purpose of Derek’s study was to uncover the challenges teachers experience while attempting to adopt culturally relevant instruction in the classroom. What are the knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors that prevent teachers from implementing culturally relevant instruction?
In this context, culturally relevant training involves recognizing the particular strengths of each student’s culture and utilizing those strengths to promote student performance.
The study revealed that teachers need to understand how to use culturally relevant tactics and have opportunities to reflect on their teaching. In addition to knowing that culturally relevant training would boost student learning, they must feel confidence in their ability to implement it.
In addition, the school must give teachers with opportunities to plan, administer, and reflect on their use of culturally relevant instruction.
Lastly, teachers need time to build strong relationships with their students so they can learn about them. In response, schools should provide extensive opportunities for professional development that explain what culturally relevant education is, why teachers should use it, and how the school can support its usage.
Teachers will read and debate research-based articles, collaborate with other teachers, and undertake “non-evaluative peer evaluations” as part of their professional development. How can I (the educator) educate with greater cultural sensitivity? (The best practices surrounding this concept)
For culturally responsive teaching, teacher reflection on the dynamic interaction of curriculum, content, and culture for each class or lesson is important. The following paragraphs discuss steps you can take to develop or enhance a culturally responsive pedagogy:
Reflect your cultural knowledge and teaching assumptions pertaining to culture.
The beliefs and attitudes of teachers are vital to their ability to make a difference for different learners. The sorts and frequency of interactions between teachers and students are determined by teachers’ beliefs, assumptions, and expectations of the student. Moreover, students perceive themselves and their learning capacities through the eyes of their teachers. Teachers’ actions and words influence pupils’ self-confidence and sense of competence.
It is important, therefore, to analyze your own teacher discourse and beliefs regarding learners from varied cultural backgrounds, and to culturally orient oneself by drawing more productive discourses. Culturally responsive teachers share a commitment for social justice and helping all students in achieving holistic growth.
They have the bravery to examine conventional knowledge, curriculum, and pedagogy, as well as their own beliefs and presumptions regarding students, families, and communities. They are also willing to move beyond known and familiar teaching practices in search of new ones that may be more effective for all students.
Consider the adaptability of your classroom management strategies to the diverse learning styles of your students, and whether certain practices may facilitate learning for some students while impeding it for others.
Consider each student’s expectations.
Are they elevated enough? Not all teachers presume that all students, particularly those from diverse cultural origins, have a high capacity for achievement. Students who adhere to mainstream classroom practices are viewed as more highly motivated and as greater achievers than students who display culturally cultural ways of learning and behaving.
Raising expectations appears to be essential for lowering achievement gaps; however, high expectations must be accompanied by excellent teaching. Assist students in setting ambitious but attainable goals, and reach them in helping those goals.
Utilize students’ cultural knowledge, perspectives, and skills as a teaching resource.
When students’ culture and experience are important to their learning, they are able to build upon their prior cultural understanding and experiences. Students begin their exploration of unexpected knowledge and experiences with their existing knowledge. Consider the diversity of cultures in your class to be a strength from which all students can benefit. Consider the depth of culture and experience to be an asset and resource that benefits, complements, and expands your teaching.
Create a secure and supportive environment and solid relationships.
A supportive, learning-friendly setting is essential for culturally responsive teaching. Relationships with students are the most effective approach to create a supportive environment. According to research, the quality of a student’s relationships with teachers has the greatest impact on his or her academic performance. Long-term, consistent, and continuous relationships, such as with a form tutor, are especially important because they assist students and their families feel that their teachers know and understand them.
Encourage a discursive curriculum and permit student autonomy.
A discursive curriculum facilitates the sharing, valuation, and incorporation of students’ knowledge, experiences, concerns, questions, and sense-making processes. It involves interaction patterns in which all students are included and can successfully engage. Through negotiation with students, knowledge can be co-created for specific goals that will subsequently reflect and even promote their cultural values.
Connect with families and the local community
Significant to student achievement are the relationships between school and home. Students and families from culturally varied backgrounds frequently experience a sense of alienation from schools, which they attribute to a lack of continuing and personalized relationships with teachers or the school. When relationships with families are long-lasting, commitment and collective duty are clear. Listening to students, families, and the community enables you to change your teaching to accommodate students from varied backgrounds.
What are the benefits of using this instructional approach?
Enhanced cognitive development
It stands to reason that when students feel secure in a pleasant setting, learning will flourish. Students become enthusiastic about learning when they participate as co-facilitators in the learning process. Thus, instructors may sense and observe the class working in unison to find ways to ensure retention. Rather than focusing on a student’s hairstyle, attire, or skin color, the focus shifts to classroom accomplishment.
Social Relationship
A culturally responsive educator seeks opportunities for social interaction within the classroom. This is an enormous benefit. Yes, students may be required to leave their comfort zone, but it is important that they learn their peers’ names. Students can learn about an individual’s origins and cultural values through brief icebreakers. Students may find that they share ideals and have more similarities than differences.
Engagement/retention
The first two to six weeks of a semester are critical for all students, but notably minority students. Consider what occurs over the first six weeks of your class. One of the greatest benefits of Culturally Responsive Teaching is the golden opportunity for instructors to engage students and connect them to their classmates. According to research, when students are placed in study or learning groups in the class, they develop bonds and learn to value the perspectives of others. Moreover, engaged students are more likely to continue their life, have a higher grade point average, and experience happiness in both their personal lives and the workplace.
Developing a community of successful learners
There is no magic wand for boosting cognitive development, fostering social relationships, and strengthening engagement and retention. Consider building a learning community in your classroom by encouraging learners to collaborate, appreciate, and celebrate variety. You will be shocked by the magnitude of the impact tiny improvements in teaching can have on students you are educating to compete in a global society.
