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There are ways educators can become more confident in this area of culturally responsive teaching. And one of the things I always say is start small but think big. And one of the ways that you can do that is by starting with delivery versus content. And a lot of times when I talk to STEM folks, they really are struggling to understand where they can be culturally responsive, how they can be culturally responsive.
And one of the easiest ways to begin is to ask yourself, “Do I want to put cultural responsiveness “in delivery or content?” So again, for folks who understand it and get it, they can kind of do both. But starting from the beginning, if you were starting from scratch and didn’t know anything about culturally responsive teaching, you can start from asking yourself, “Do I want to deliver this information culturally responsively or do I want to have content that has cultural responsiveness?” So that’s one tip that I would give.
A second tip that I would give is just say that, you know, sometimes it’s just learning about your students and asking your students, you know, giving them some ideas about culture and asking them what they would like to see in your content. So for instance, and this is a generic example but for instance, you know, if you’re teaching a STEM course and you want to put something in culturally responsive, the Tuskegee experiment in the United States if you’re in the United States would be a great example of that. It’s something that had real impact and real negative consequences for a group of people in the United States. And so for some people that would be a very culturally responsive lesson. So that’s one idea. Another idea.
Also, I think when we look at current design and practice, we’re kind of throwing the kitchen sink at everything and we’re saying this is culturally responsive and that’s culturally responsive, when in actuality we can measure acculturative stress and we can also measure what is culturally responsive. And with that in mind, there’s a model and it’s called the ACCCE model.
And the ACCCE model, and it’s A, three Cs, and an E. And those are really all of the areas of culture that are in an academic classroom that can make a difference for students. So the A stands for academic. And then there are three Cs. And it’s cognitive culture, community culture, and collaborative culture. And the E stands for ethnicity. And so when we start to look at practices of culturally responsive teaching, all the methods can fall under one of those categories and it helps educators understand and be more intentional and effective in their culturally responsive teaching.
Culturally responsive teaching can feel like a big issue to tackle, but there are a few simple things you can do to get started.
Start small, think big: It can be helpful to think in terms of cultural responsiveness in the way you deliver your teaching and in the content that you teach. Maybe start with one of these rather than trying to do both at the same time, at least until you are more confident. For example, if you are focusing on delivery, think about a culturally responsive introductory question such as “If you could travel back in time and meet someone who looks like you or an ancestor of yours, what would you tell them about, your educational experience, or this subject.”
Ask your students: Your students have great ideas – ask what they would like to see regarding cultural responsiveness within the course. If you want to hear directly from your students about their experiences in other courses and classroom culture you can include surveys, small group discussions, or complete a q and a about students’ past experiences and what they may be looking for in relation to your content area/subject matter. Additionally, faculty can inform students on what they are doing to improve classroom culture. Transparency is always welcome.
Use the ACCCE Model: ACCCE is a guide to addressing cultural responsiveness in a systematic way. It stands for Academic culture, Cognitive culture, Collaborative culture, Community culture and Ethnic culture. We will look at this model in more detail in the next lesson.
Discussions
How are you currently organising your culturally responsive teaching techniques? Do you have a method for how you apply or build them into your current practice?
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.