Raising African American Male Achievement
through
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Dr. Avis Williams
India Smith
Objectives
• Participants will explore connections between
culturally responsive teaching and academic
achievement.
• Participants will be able to select appropriate
strategies for employing CRT concepts or practices.
• Participants will be able to utilize CRT concepts to
increase cross-curricular engagement.
Understanding
Culturally Responsive Teaching
What CRT is NOT
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One size fits all
Another teaching method
Teaching to Black/Hispanic students
Teaching to poor students
A curriculum
A “fix-all”
Just “one more thing!”
What is CRT?
• 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 (Lynch, 2011).
What is Culture?
• Culture refers to the characteristics of a particular group of people,
defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits,
music and arts.
• Culture is the sum of total of learned behaviors of a group of
people; these behaviors are generally considered to be the tradition
of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.
• Shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs,
and affective understanding that are learned through a process of
socialization.
• How is culture is like an iceberg?
• “9/10ths of it lies beneath
the surface. This hidden
area underlies our behavior,
influences our perceptions
and is outside our
immediate frame of
reference - until we plunge
beneath the surface - or
perhaps like the Titanic,
encounter it unexpectedly."
© 2014 Avis Williams,
The Cultural Iceberg
The Culturally Responsive
Classroom
Culturally responsive classrooms specifically acknowledge
the presence of culturally diverse students and the need for
these students to find relevant connections among
themselves and with the subject matter and the tasks
teachers ask them to perform.
~Winifred Montgomery
So, what are the characteristics of a culturally responsive
classroom?
The Culturally Responsive
Classroom
Inside the Classroom
•Use a range of culturally sensitive instructional methods
and materials: explicit, strategic instruction, interdisciplinary units,
instructional scaffolding, journal writing
•Foster an interactive classroom/learning environment:
A.) Cooperative learning groups bring students together within a variety of
supportive and collaborative learning activities.
B.) Guided and informal group discussions provide opportunities for students to
collaborate in constructing meaning from text and enable them to learn from each
other by sharing their reflections, opinions, interpretations, and questions.
The Culturally Responsive
Classroom
Outside the Classroom
•Collaborate with other professionals and families:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Consult and share ideas regularly with other teachers with whom
students work.
Communicate regularly with families.
Use culturally diverse community resources.
Attend culturally diverse community and neighborhood events.
Culturally Responsive Practices
CRT provides support to the cultural identities of
struggling students while striving simultaneously to raise
academic achievement. (Vavrus)
So, what are the characteristics of culturally responsive
teaching?
Culturally Responsive Practices
Inside the Classroom
•Communicate high expectations:
Let each student know that you expect him/her to engage, perform, and achieve at a
high level, rather than making excuses in your own mind for some students who don’t
participate at optimal levels at times.
•Facilitate learning:
Build students’ capacity to handle new material, solve complex problems, and
develop new skills by scaffolding their learning from what they already know through
a series of increasingly complex experiences that shift the focus of control from the
teacher to the learner.
•Anchor your curriculum in the everyday lives of your students:
Connect their knowledge and skills to content knowledge. Use real life, authentic
texts. Engage students in inquiry about things that matter to them.
Culturally Responsive Practices
Outside the classroom
•Engage in reflecting thinking and writing: Teachers must reflect on
their actions and interactions as they try to discern the personal motivations that
govern their behaviors.
•Acknowledge membership in different groups: Teachers must
recognize and acknowledge their affiliations with various groups in society, and
the advantages and disadvantages of belonging to each group.
•Learn about the history and experiences of diverse groups:
Teachers can read literature written by those particular groups as well as
personally interact with members of those groups.
The Power of Perception
Mix and Mingle
Directions
-receive a nametag (This is the society’s
Reflection
•
Think of how you felt when you
received your negative label, how
might this resemble the
experiences of some of our
African American male students?
•
Now, think of how you felt as you
began to receive positive
substitutions for that label. How
might experiences like this impact
our African American male
students?
perception of you.)
-get post it notes and a writing
utensil
-mix and mingle with peers (Continue
Mingling until the music stops.).
-have each peer you meet write a
positive substitution on a post it
note and stick on your arm
-once the music has stopped,
return to your seats.
-complete reflection
Next Steps in CRT
Instructional Best Practices
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Anchor Activities
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Learning Menus
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Interactive Notebooks
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Anchor Charts
Professional Development
•
Raising African American Male Achievement through Culturally Responsive Teaching
online PD offered to GCS middle and high school teachers, administrators and instructional support staff
Anchor activities
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Meaningful, ongoing assignments that students can work on
independently throughout a unit of study or longer and are tied to
CCSS/ES.
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Examples:
– Create PSA or game show
– Creative writing
– Composing musing or writing lyrics
– Brain teasers
– Student-created games
– Independent study
– Math fact games and practice
Learning menus
Differentiating with Learning Menus

Empower students through choice
while ensuring adherence to
important learning goals.
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Learning menus outline a variety of
instructional options targeted
toward important learning goals.
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Students are able to select the choices that
most appeal to them.
•
The teacher directs the menu
process, but the student is given
control over his/her choice of
options, order of completion, etc.
Interactive notebooks
“Interactive notebook. (in’terak’-tiv no¯t-bu˙ k) n.
•
1. A collection of notes taken from
reading, listening, discussion, and
viewing, including corresponding
responses, either in graphic or written
form. First introduced in AddisonWesley’s History Alive!
•
2. Daily journal-type recording of
student-written class notes from
reading, lecture, and discussions, and
the reflective and metacognitive
responses students make to their own
note taking.”
Why Interactive Notebooks
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Personal tool for students
A collection of learning
A scaffolding tool
An authentic assessment tool
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Promotes organization
Engages
Encourages students to combine
words and visuals
Encourages critical thinking
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(Carter, Hernandez, & Richison, 2009)
(Carter, Hernandez, Richison, 2009)
Interactive Notebooks
examples
Anchor Charts
Purpose
• Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom, as teachers and students make
thinking visible by recording content, strategies, processes, cues, and guidelines during the
learning process.
• Posting anchor charts keeps relevant and current learning accessible to students to remind
them of prior learning and to enable them to make connections as new learning happens.
• Students refer to the charts and use them as tools as they answer questions, expand ideas, or
contribute to discussions and problem-solving in class.
Building Anchor Charts
• Teachers model building anchor charts as they work with students to debrief
strategies modeled in a mini-lesson.
• Students add ideas to an anchor chart as they apply new learning, discover
interesting ideas, or develop useful strategies for problem-solving or skill application.
• Teachers and students add to anchor charts as they debrief student
work time, recording important facts, useful strategies, steps in a process, or quality criteria.
• Students create anchor charts during small group and independent work to share with the rest
of the class.
http://www.engageny.org/
Next Steps in CRT
Professional Development
Raising African American Male Achievement
through Culturally Responsive Teaching
online PD offered to GCS middle and high school teachers, administrators and instructional
support staff
Food for Thought
Malcolm London Poet, performer, activist
Young spoken-word poet Malcolm London has been
called the "Gil Scott-Heron of this generation" (by
Cornel West). His feisty, passionate performances take
on the issues of the day, including the Chicago
education system in which he grew up.
Exit Slip
In what ways is CRT
connected to academic
achievement?