Culturally Responsive Teaching Through Inquiry

Culturally Responsive Practice and inquirED While there is no single definition of culturally responsive instruction, at inquirED we've established a set of criteria to describe its use in our curriculum and to guide us as we continue to evolve. We've developed these criteria from the insightful and groundbreaking scholarship of Geneva Gay, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Zaretta Hammond, and others.

We consider instructional practice to be culturally responsive when it meets the following set of criteria:

• Builds cognitive capacity in students from diverse backgrounds

• Actively engages cultural learning styles and tools

• Includes instructional approaches that mirror the cultural norms of underrepresented groups

• Approaches difficult content with sensitivity and awareness

• Scaffolds students toward independence, increasing the freedom they have to choose the course of their own learning

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“Culturally responsive teaching is about helping culturally and linguistically diverse students build their skill and capacity to do rigorous work.”

Zaretta Hammond

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Webinar Summary

Thanks to Michelle Sadrena Pledger for joining us for a special webinar to talk about Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT).

Michelle shared her definition of CRT, then led us through some Mindsets, Moves, and Musings that can help you begin to shift your practice. She emphasized the importance of identifying and moving away from a deficit mindset with CLD students. She described Zaretta Hammond's Four Horsemen of Deficit Thinking, each of which helps to limit the cognitive growth and development of students.

Michelle also referenced several resources that can help you to develop your understanding and practice of Culturally Responsive Teaching. We wanted to share those with you!

Books about Culturally Responsive Practice

• Courageous Conversations about Race by Glenn E. Singleton

• Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond

• Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies edited by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim

• Culturally Proficient Leadership by Delores B. Lindsey, Randall B. Lindsey, Eloise K. Terrell , Dr. Raymond D. Terrell

• We Got This By Cornelius Minor

• So You Wanna Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

• How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

Organizations and Communities

• National Equity Project

• Courageous Conversation and Pacific Educational Group

• The Equity Lab

• Teaching Tolerance

• CRT and the Brain Resources Page

• Brown University Resource Page

Other Resources

• TED Talk: Gerardo Ochoa--The Impact of Mispronouncing a Name

• Bank Street School for Children Language Shifts

• James Nottingham’s Learning Challenge (Learning Pit) Animation

• Calibrating Ideas about Culturally Responsive Teaching

• The Learning Challenge: guiding students through the Learning Pit

• Cultivating Culturally Responsive Reform: The Intersectionality of Backgrounds and Beliefs on Culturally Responsive Teaching Behavior

Watch a recording of our webinar below