RtI Center
Building Culturally
Responsive Systems
Day 3
Facilitator:
Date:
http://www.wisconsinrticenter.org/crcp.html
The Wisconsin RtI Center (CFDA #84.027) acknowledges the support of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in the development
of this presentation and for the continued support of this federally-funded grant program. There are no copyright restrictions on this
document; however, please credit the Wisconsin DPI and support of federal funds when copying all or part of this material.
REMINDER
• This training focuses on SYSTEM components.
• You are presented with big ideas that apply to
your practice, but have cultural examples to
illustrate how these concepts play out in practice.
• It is your team’s responsibility to translate these
ideas: to learn about the cultures your school
serves and how these concepts can be applied to
your school.
Four Agreements of Courageous
Conversations Activity
• Stay Engaged
• Speak Your Truth
• Experience Discomfort
• Accept and Expect Non-closure
Glenn E. Singleton
1
OVERVIEW
Review Day 1 and 2
• As a team:
– Review who your underserved students are
– Discuss what is going to be different in your
building by implementing culturally responsive
practice changes
• Identify a couple “TURN AND TALK” topics for
a brief discussion
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to create understanding of “Fill Building”
• Gain a deeper understanding of one’s self
• Create movement towards thinking, behaving, and being
• Reflect on their own contributions to the district, school, and classroom
• Use a culturally competent process - with a problem solving team - to
provide culturally and linguistically responsive support to students and
families
• Learn how individual and group identities intersect
• Develop and/or cultivate an appreciation for different perspectives
• Understand how cultural competency (or lack of it) impacts student
achievement
• Use self awareness skills to recognize, reflect, and work on how one’s
own ethnicity, culture, and life experiences may affect others
2
Material Organization
for the Next Two Days
• Each concept presented will be organized in the
following way:
– Presentation of the culturally responsive practice
concept
– Reflection on the role identity plays in affirming or
isolating culturally diverse students
– Presentation of practice examples
– Application activities
– Team planning time
Agenda
• Review from days 1
and 2
• Understanding VABB
• Classroom Practice
Components
Skill Building:
The How and Why of Teaching
Skill IS:
– being responsive-adaptive
– the ability of the staff to tailor their practices to the needs
of the students they serve
– effective teaching in every classroom
– classroom management, long term planning, use of
materials
– human relations and knowledge of content as well as
instructional skill
– responsive instructional practice structured around the
norms and cultures of the students
3
Culturally Responsive
Practitioners:
• Are culturally competent
• Know about their students’
cultural beliefs
• Think of all of their students as
capable learners
• Have high expectations of all
students
• Help students set short- and
long-term goals for themselves
• Know each student
• Draw on students’ own
experiences to help them learn
• Engage all students using a
wide variety of teaching
strategies and skills
• Help students deal with
inequitable treatment of
students of color
• Teach students to be critically
conscious and knowledgeable
about all students’ cultures
• Create a bridge between the
students’ home and school
lives - while meeting district
and state curricular
requirements
Cultural
Competency
Model
Adapted from the Washington Department of Education
and the work of Liang and Zhang, March 2009
Handout 3.1
GETTING OUR VABB ON
Validation, Affirmation, Bridging, and Building
4
Seven Experiences
Articles
Book Studies
Community
Site Visit
Guest Speakers
Coaching
& Modeling
School Visits
Conferences
& Workshops
They Ask, “Where Can I?”
VALIDATE
AFFIRM
BUILD
BRIDGE
Validate | Affirm | Build | Bridge
VALIDATE
AFFIRM
BUILD
BRIDGE
Handout 3.2
5
Validate
VALIDATE
Validate –
To make legitimate
that which the institution
(academia)
and mainstream
has made
illegitimate.
Affirm
AFFIRM
Affirm –
To make positive
that which the institution
(academia)
and mainstream media
has made
negative.
Build
BUILD
Build –
connections
To make the
between the
home culture and language
and the
school culture and language
through instructional strategy
and activity.
6
Bridge
BRIDGE
Bridge –
To give opportunities
for situational appropriateness
or the utilization
of the appropriate
cultural
or linguistic
behavior.
Relationship and CRP
• Culturally responsive practices does not mean
the student “moving to where the teacher is.”
• CRP means the teachers manage the dynamics
of difference, seeing the student and family
for who they are and their experiences.
• Getting their VABB on to educate.
CULTURE and CULTURAL VALUES
Norms and Relationships
7
Culture, Cultural Values and
Norms, and Relationships
• Education is based on the belief that all students
can learn
– Learning occurs during interaction between people:
Parent and Child |Teacher and Student |Student and Student
• Interactions and relationships between teachers
and students provide students with the motivation
to do their best
• Harness student relationships outside the
classroom to create a common context that
learning and connections can be built on
Culture, Cultural Values and
Norms, and Relationships
As CREDE points out regarding relationships:
“…this kind of mentoring and learning in action is
characteristic between parent/child, graduate
school, internships, new employees, on the job
training – of all education, except the common
K-12 tradition.”
Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE)
Concept Definitions, 2015
Identity Discussion
• How does the educator’s identity impact this
component of culturally responsive practice?
• How does the student/family and community
identity show up in this aspect of culturally
responsive practice?
• How can the educator be mindful of their identity
and the identity of their students in
implementing this component?
8
REMINDER
• Cultural precepts are values that tend to be
shared within a particular culture.
• The degree to which they are shared vary
based on the individual – not everyone from
a particular culture will identify with
all precepts.
Examples of Cultural Precepts
• Cultural differences between collaboration
and communalism
• The role of the person (individual vs. part of
something bigger)
• Definitions of success, education, respect
Video Share:
Latino Culture & Cultural Values
9
CULTURAL VALUES
Gallery Walk
• Nguzo Saba
• Ma’at
• Seven Grandfathers
• Comparative Values
and Characteristics
• The Essence of Hmong Identity
• Sharroky Hollie’s Cultural Relativity Matrix
and Continuum Chart pg. 71
Handouts 3.3 – 3.4 – 3.5 – 3.6 – 3.7 – 3.8
Team Time
• Reflect on the gallery
walk and the elements
of culture activity.
– Identify points of cultural
agreement between how
your classrooms/practices
operate and how
students are served.
– Identify points of cultural
divergence between how
your classrooms/practices
operate and how
students are served.
Interactions are Based on Culture
• Staff have cultural identity
• Students and families served have cultural
identity
• If unattended, staff culture guides the
interactions
• The teacher needs to identify, understand,
and build a common classroom context that
embraces dynamics of difference
10
Example Classroom Activities
• Multiple activities exist requiring student collaboration to accomplish
joint outcome
• Joint activities are matched to time available to successfully
accomplish them
• Environment is arranged to facilitate student needs (individual and/or
group) to communicate and work jointly
• Staff engage in learning activities with the students
• Student groupings are organized based on factors such as friendships,
mixed abilities, language, project, interest, or promoting interactions
• Student collaboration is monitored and supported in positive ways
Activity/Application
Reflecting on the cultural gallery walk, the
elements of culture activity:
– Identify how “points of cultural agreement” and
“joint or interactive learning” can be used when
cultural divergence is present.
– What other ways can this be done in a classroom?
Team Time
Planning
• Thinking about this
section, what you
learned, and the
activities:
– How will you take
this information
back to your school
and teach staff?
11
CODE SWITCHING
Teaching Cultural Capital
Definition:
Cultural Capital
The
language
and
skills
needed to be
successful
in the academic setting
Activity/Application
Immersion activity led with instruction in the Hmong/Menomonee experience
12
Teaching Situational
Appropriateness
Educators teach academic
knowledge, skills, and
habits to fluency…
…with the understanding
that the student has
learned knowledge, skills,
and habits to fluency at
home first.
Bridging Home and School
• Think of this as “Cultural Capital” or the language,
behaviors, and skills needed to succeed in the
ACADEMIC setting.
• Academic culture is best thought of as an
additional culture for students to learn, NOT to
supplant or replace home/community culture.
• Academic language/literacy is built through
interaction, conversation, and teaching (and reteaching) students to “code switch.”
Identity Discussion
• How does the educator’s identity impact academic
language and academic literacy development with
students?
• How does the student/family and community identity
show up in student behavior and language when they
come to the academic setting?
• How can the educator be mindful of their identity and
the identity of their students in implementing this
component?
13
Video Share…
Jamila Lyiscott
• Develop orally and create opportunity for performance (Explanation,
narratives, presentations, and other forms of public talk).
• Represent culturally familiar experiences, roles and situations.
Activity:
The Power of Prior Learning
Relating what students
already know
from home,
and aligning it
with school
expectations…
Handout 3.9
The Power of Prior Learning
What you Were
Raised With:
School
Expectations:
____________
Respectful
____________
Responsible
____________
Safe
14
Activity:
Playspent
Find person you
don’t know well
and pair up.
Make sure you
have one laptop.
http://playspent.org/
Playspent Processing
(with your Playspent Partner)
• What are your initial thoughts about the
experience?
• What prior knowledge did you use to resolve
the situations you faced in Playspent?
• How did your family culture/teaching/values
impact your thinking and actions in the
situations?
• How does this connect back to
community mapping?
Meaning-Making Practices
•
Models use of graphic organizers
•
Identifies students’ current knowledge
before instruction
•
Asks higher-order questions equitably
of high- and low-achieving students
•
Pre-teach vocabulary
•
Have a variety of ways for students to
reflect on, and/or demonstrate what
they learned
A Resource for Equitable Classroom Practices, 2010,
Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland
15
Examples of Academic
Language Concepts
Hawthorne bridges the
gap between
home and
school language
through posters
that reflect
school expectations
in the
student’s family’s
language.
Example Activities
• Student conversations about home and community topics are frequently
linked to classroom topics. Student first and second languages are
incorporated.
• Student preference for interaction is regarded by teacher in terms of eye
contact, wait time, turn taking, spot lighting, etc.
• Student prior knowledge is connected to literacy and content areas
whenever possible.
• Students are encouraged to use content vocabulary to express
understanding.
• Frequent opportunity is given for students and teachers to interact
during instructional activities.
Cultural Behavior Example
=
16
Activity/Application: VABB
• Considering the indicators of language/literacy
development and the need to utilize students’ cultural
knowledge, prior knowledge and experiences:
– Identify how students’ cultural knowledge, prior knowledge,
and experiences are currently evaluated and utilized in your
practices
– Identify where this is absent from your practices
– Identify four strategies for incorporating prior knowledge and
experiences to bridge to academic learning
Team Time
Planning
• Thinking about this
section, what you
learned, and the
activities:
– How will you take
this information
back to your school
and teach staff?
STUDENTS SEE THEMSELVES
Making the School Environment Responsive (or Reflective)
17
Students See Themselves DAILY
• Educators link teaching and pedagogy to
students’ identities, experiences, and home and
community culture.
• Not only does this highlight students’ culture as
an important part of their identity, but builds on
prior fluencies as base for new learning.
• Making this a part of the environment daily is
essential, not just on “celebratory months” or
days.
Identity Discussion
• How does the educator’s identity impact
contextualization, or utilizing in the classroom the
things that are familiar?
• How does the student/family and community
identity appear in the classroom and instruction
in terms of what is familiar?
• How can the educator be mindful of their identity
and the identity of their students in
implementing this component?
Collective memory
is how a people experience their present
in light of the past…
18
Menominee Clan System
Menominee students making a birch-bark canoe
Lunch - yum
Lunch
Please be back at ________
CULTURAL IMAGING
Affirming Student Cultural Identities
19
Addressing Identity Practices
• On the part of the teacher, these are actions and
arrangements that encourage and elicit
productive self-exploration and self-definition in
the context of meaningful rich inquiry about the
world.
• On the part of the learner, these are actions that
involve trying out different roles, representations,
and expressions of self by discourse, stance,
dress, and - particularly - language.
Identity Development Practices
• Ensure visuals in the classroom reflect the racial, ethnic, and cultural
backgrounds that are representative of your students
• Develop oralcy and create opportunity for oral performance.
(Explanation, narratives, presentations, and other forms of public talk)
• Represent culturally familiar experiences, roles, and situations
• Propose credible role models in culturally recognizable and significant
context
• Create pathways into the instructional activity for enabling self
definition where students find a sense of place within the learning
community
• Use students’ real life experiences to connect school learning to
students’ lives
• Explain and model positive self-talk
A Resource for Equitable Classroom Practices, 2010,
Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland
What Is Identity Development,
and How Is It Related to CRP?
Possible selves: the lives students might live
once they leave school
20
Example:
Possible
Selves
More Than
Anything Else
21
Example Activities
• Students begin activities with an inventory of what they
already know - from home, school, and community related to the topic
• Students participate in activities that are meaningful to
them - that link content to local community norms and
knowledge
• Staff acquire information about local norms and knowledge
by talking with students, families, community members,
and by understanding community resources
• Staff plan joint activities with students that focus on
community-based learning activities
• Parents, families, and community members are involved in
instructional activities
Activity/Application
• Considering the importance of prior knowledge,
inclusion of home and community in the
academic setting, and high expectations for
students:
– Identify ways prior knowledge can be included in two
or three content activities (increase each year)
– Identify ways community resources can be utilized in
enhancing academic context
– Identify ways home and community can be included
routinely in academic activities
Team Time
Planning
• Thinking about this
section, what you
learned, and the
activities:
– How will you take
this information
back to your school
and teach staff?
22
Technical Assistance Sessions &
Resources
• 7 Experiences Professional Development Model: Steps
Towards Breathing New Life Into Our Instructional Practices
• Strengthening the Will Through the Inside Out Process
• Culturally Responsive Mulit-level System of Support: Data Use
• Identify Development and Culturally Responsive Practices
23