In this discussion you will be asked to consider how your teaching is responsive to the diversity of students in today's public schools. Please read the article "Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive classrooms, and share your thoughts in the discussion blog.
In addition to participating actively in the discussion blog on this important topic, I am asking that each of you identify one of the suggested culturally responsive collaboration strategies from this article to implement in your classroom this semester.
One statement from the attached article that stood out to me was "This strategy (constructing learning environments that reflect the cultural membership in the class) goes beyond wall decoration to atmosphere: Teachers must attend to all students and try to involve them equally in all class activities (p. 6)."
ReplyDeleteThis really stood out to me because when I think about how to make a classroom culturally responsive, I think about including decorations and hanging quotes from role models of all the different ethnic, religious, racial leaders for the students represented in my class, but it goes beyond that. It depends on how I make each student FEEL in my class. Do I take the time to make sure they get to speak in front of their classmates, do I really listen to their answers, do I make them feel like productive members of the class?
Because I am not currently teaching in my own classroom, one strategy that I can implement to have culturally responsive collaboration is to attend culturally diverse community or neighborhood events, but once I am teaching, I look forward to working with all teachers that interact with my students to discuss student progress and continued needs.
Allie,
DeleteWhile reading your post I couldn’t help but notice you frequently referred to how the students “feel.” It made me think of a time during my student teaching when I lost my temper with a class; I yelled at them and chewed them out big-time. When I had finished, I noticed students covering their ears, some were crying, and they all were in shock. I felt absolutely horrible afterwards when I realized that I had torn into a 7th grade class like that. I proceeded to tell my monitoring instructor; I guess I was looking for some comforting affirmation and was hoping he’d say something like, “Well, you’ll just have to do that from time to time.” He didn’t tell me that. In fact, what he told me made me feel even worse. He said that students may forget what you tell them, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. I eventually apologized to the class, but there was no undoing it. His words stuck with me, and that situation made me much more aware of how my students feel. Now, I make sure I take the time to do the things you listed, like listening, validating their opinions, and encouraging their comfort within the classroom.
Allie,
DeleteI couldn’t agree with you more. When, considering ways to be more responsive to the diversity of students the best way is to make them “feel” like they are truly a part of the classroom and that they “feel” equal to their peers. It is important to try your best to treat each student equally and take the time to figure out what makes each student comfortable. By understanding the individual personalities, I have first-hand seen students adjust and become acclimated to the classroom without any problem. I think attending culturally diverse events to connect with the student’s and their families would also be a great way to become more culturally responsive.
I agree about how we need to make sure we not only understand how to diversely teach our students but that we also need to take their cultures into consideration when we are decorating the classroom or if there are holidays coming up. We need to include all of the above to make sure our classrooms are fully consider culturally responsive.
DeleteI agree that we need to make sure that we need to do our best as teachers to ensure that each student in our classroom feels that they are accepted and important. Having culturally diverse decorations depicting each culture is such a good idea. Thanks so much for sharing!
Delete-Kayla Belt
*After reading “Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms,” I found several potential strategies in order to be culturally responsive in the classroom. To begin, I agree with the article that being faced with limited understanding of diversity will negatively affect the students’ ability to become successful learners. However, there are many ways strategies that can be found beneficial throughout the article.
ReplyDeleteI currently have a Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian students that are a part of the Behavior Disorder classroom at my school. At this age, (3RD-5TH grade) it is always interesting to watch and listen to the students because they are just now getting to the point of where they like to crack jokes on each other. This reminded me of “Our School’s Anti-Bullying Rules,” that are hung all throughout the school with a picture of students all diversities. This goes along with the “Establish a Classroom Atmosphere that Respects Individuals and Their Cultures” strategy in the article. Current and relevant bulletin boards that display positive and purposeful activities and events boost student’s self-esteem when learning environments reflect cultural membership. Another strategy that looked could be potentially helpful would be to collaborate with other professionals and families. Sending out newsletters to families and invitations to participate in classroom celebrations would bring together a feeling of unity and inclusion.
*I believe that fostering an interactive classroom learning environment would be a beneficial strategy in order to be more culturally responsive. When you bring students together from diverse background to work together and solve a problem, they become one. I would give my students a project, problem to solve, or a goal for the students to work together on. From this, they will be able to respect each other’s opinion and encourages participation and sharing of ideas in a small collaborative group.
I enjoyed reading about the diversity you have in your classroom. It is good to establish and foster an interactive classroom learning environment with them because when they sit down and work together they become one unite. Continue the great work!
DeleteHaving a "family" night that allowed families to participate in a classroom celebration would be an excellent idea to print unity and inclusion! This would allow individuals to meet each other and understand their different cultures. One of the schools I use to substitute at, that had a high number of individuals from a variety of culture backgrounds, would hold cultural nights. Randomly throughout the year they would hold cultural nights that would celebrate different cultures. This allowed families to attend with their children and see projects they had been working on in relation to that culture and also learn more about the cultural diversity at their children's school.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading and reviewing the article “Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms,” I found that many statements and points to be very helpful in remembering and aiding myself in the classroom. I agree and also believe that we do not fully understand how diversity in the classroom can impact lessons and learning unless we are willing to take a leap and work with others around us to see what we can do to help to students. “Collaboration and communication with culturally diverse families and with other professionals are essential elements of culturally responsive classrooms.” We must open ourselves up to understanding and learning so that we can best help our students become successful in a diverse classroom. I will be keeping this print out so that I may review it and practice some of the strategies within my resource classroom and inclusion as well as sharing it with my team. I found this article very useful and a good reminder.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we must open ourselves to understanding and learning diversity. I personally do not have a diverse student population at this time in my classroom but would love my students the opportunity to learn about different cultural. Like the article discussed, opening our classrooms to and working with professionals is an excellent start. I would love the opportunity to invite individuals from different cultural backgrounds to speak with my students. I also have to agree with you that this article is very useful and a good reminder.
DeleteI really enjoyed getting to the read the article “Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms”. Although my current classroom does not have much majority in terms of cultural diversity, I have been given the experience to work in a high diversity school. A few years ago, I worked as a substitute and was given the opportunity to work in a long term position at an elementary school. This elementary was located next to West Virginia University in Morgantown. The school’s student body was based on a high number of students coming from a wide range of different cultural backgrounds. The majority of the students’ parents were either professors at the University or doctors at the local hospital.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading the article the following quote stuck out to me. “Many teachers are faced with limited understanding of cultures other than their own and the possibility that this limitation will negatively affect their students’ ability to become successful learners.” (Montgomery, 2001) Before working at this school I had very limited experience working with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds. At first, my limited knowledge hindered my abilities to work with some students. This school did an amazing job at allowing students and staff to learn more about the different cultural backgrounds within the school. For example, they would allow parent volunteers to come in to teach a lesson on that child’s cultural background. This was an amazing opportunity for everyone in the school to gain more insight and knowledge into different cultural backgrounds beyond their own.
Although my current classroom does not have much diversity in terms of cultural backgrounds, this article opened my eyes to different things I could do to bring this diversity into my classroom. For example, I really enjoyed getting to read the section on collaborating with other professionals and families. “Collaboration and communication with culturally diverse families and with other professionals are essential elements of culturally responsive classrooms.” (Montgomery, 2001) The idea of inviting culturally diverse community resource members into my classroom is something I am going to speak with my principal about (Montgomery, 2001). I would love the idea of allowing individual from diverse backgrounds to come into my classroom and speak with my students.
I am very happy you were given an opportunity to work with a diverse group of students. I personally believe that the best way to learn is by experience. Thanks so much for sharing! I'm sure this experience will help you a lot as a teacher! -Kayla Belt
DeleteTimothy Hall has left a new comment on your post "Module Two Discussion":
ReplyDeleteIn the article, Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms, the author makes several good points to consider that insure an educator meets the cultural needs of their students. First, Montgomery suggests that educators need self-reflection (Montgomery, 2001). Educators need to engage in reflection for many reasons, but when considering whether or not classroom instruction and environment are appropriate, teachers need to first look at their practices. Montgomery provides a checklist that can be used to assess an educator’s performance. The checklist requires the educator to clarify their beliefs about diversity; then, it addresses the educator’s actions for addressing diversity, and finally, it questions what is needed for the educator to improve (Montgomery, 2001). This checklist may expose some difficult truths, if answered honestly. For example, my school lacks racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. Consequently, I do not have much experience teaching a diverse group of students. However, with additional coursework, experience, and self-reflection I hope to increase my teaching performance and expand my abilities to address students from any background.
Another important point Montgomery discusses in the article is to consider teaching that is designed around students. For example, Montgomery says, “Teachers must attend to all students and try to involve them equally in all class activities” (2001). Also, Montgomery suggests that teachers need to consider student interests when designing instruction. Further, teachers need to create an environment that fosters respect for different cultures; this can be accomplished through instruction and student input (Montgomery, 2001). Moreover, I try to increase my students’ cultural awareness through instruction, role-playing, and journals in which they have to write from the mindset of someone else.
The article also mentions cooperative learning groups as a way to address diverse student abilities. Montgomery says, “This kind of learning group allows all children to see the benefits of bringing together people with diverse backgrounds for problem solving” (2001). I frequently use this technique to address a wide range of abilities. For example, I may pair a student that struggles with reading to a student that reads well. Alternatively, for a presentation, I will pair a student that has anxiety problems with a student that does not mind speaking in front of the class. Even though I am not explicitly teaching the value of utilizing individual strengths to overcome a group’s weaknesses, students are inherently capitalizing on other’s abilities.
Lastly, the instructions say to choose one culturally responsive collaboration strategy to implement in our classrooms, but I’m going to choose two. The first strategy, from the Google site directions, I already implement. That is to collaborate with other teachers with whom the students work and discuss progress and learning needs. In Special Ed., we do this a lot. I almost constantly discuss student progress and teaching strategies with other, relevant, teachers. The next strategy that caught my attention while reading the article is the I Search strategy. For this strategy, in collaborative groups students choose a topic, conduct research, and prepare a product to represent their knowledge of the topic. This strategy will perform several functions. First, it will address CSOs they are working towards. Next, it will help foster the use of research to support claims or findings. Also, since they are working collaboratively, it will allow them to exploit each other’s strengths. Lastly, it will do the aforementioned tasks while fitting seamlessly into my typical classroom instruction and structure.
Posted by Timothy Hall to SPED 6324spr17 at February 10, 2017 at 8:31 AM
After reading "Culturally Responsive Teaching", I feel like I did learn a lot of valuable ideas on how to help make my future classroom culturally diverse and to create the best learning environment for all students. I really like the idea of having each student in the class do a journal. This will give them all the opportunity to write and express themselves. This will give me a chance to read over the journal and understand what some of their strengths and weaknesses are. This will then help me be able to be a more effective teacher. I also loved the mention of making your classroom culturally diverse. Each student should be able to feel important and at home. There can also be classroom projects based on culture. I remember when I was in middle school and had a Spanish class, we had a project where we each had to learn about Mexican cuisine and each prepare something for the class to try. It was very informative and fun. I would like to do something along those lines with my students for each culture.
ReplyDelete-Kayla Belt