JEA book review: 'Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain' serves as a toolkit for culture and diversity independent learning (2024)

FAQs

What is the summary of the book culturally responsive teaching and the brain? ›

In her book “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students,” Hammond blends practical brain science with the need for awareness of individual and collective culture, arguing we cannot be effective teachers without first ...

Culturally responsive teaching builds students' brain power by Improving information processing skills using cultural learning tools. This isn't an aspect of CRT we talk about a lot. Instead, educators like to focus on the affective elements.

Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

In her opening chapter, Hammond establishes that underserved students of color, including students who are linguistically and culturally diverse, have been affected by systems of inequity; these systems have held them back from becoming independent learners.

Culturally Responsive Teaching is an approach that leverages the strengths that students of color bring to the classroom to make learning more relevant and effective. A major goal of Culturally Responsive Teaching is to reverse patterns of underachievement for students of color.

Culturally responsive teaching is a research-based approach to teaching. It connects students' cultures, languages, and life experiences with what they learn in school. These connections help students access rigorous curriculum and develop higher-level academic skills. Our brains are wired to make connections.

These four practices are: (1) that teachers are empathetic and caring; (2) that they are reflective about their beliefs about people from other cultures; (3) that they are reflective about their own cultural frames of reference; and (4) that they are knowledgeable about other cultures.

Gloria Ladson-Billings proposed three main components of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: (a) a focus on student learning and academic success, (b) developing students' cultural competence to assist students in developing positive ethnic and social identities, and (c) supporting students' critical consciousness or their ...

Chapter 2: The author describes two cultural archetypes shes thinks are important to know – collectivism and individualism (p. 25-27).

In culturally responsive classrooms, teachers provide opportunities for choice in classroom activities, encourage child-directed learning, and assist students as they engage in these activities.

How does culturally responsive teaching affect student learning? ›

Since CRT focuses on inclusive curriculums, it helps teachers and students understand different perspectives, appreciate each other's strengths, and build empathy. It also helps teachers to introspect how their own identity and experiences impact their attitudes and teaching practices.

For example, we might invite families or community members representing the different faiths found in students' communities into school to share their values. Students' family members and community guests can provide firsthand knowledge of the content and add a level of relevance to learning.

Give students frequent opportunities to share information about their lives and cultures. Look for ways to build bridges to students' communities in thoughtful ways. Colleagues, family liaisons, families, and community members can help. Remember that sometimes culture is harder to see, but no less significant.

Ladson-Billings (1995) notes that a key criterion for culturally relevant teaching is nurturing and supporting competence in both home and school cultures. Teachers should use the students' home cultural experiences as a foundation upon which to develop knowledge and skills.

The six themes of CRE from Stembridge include engagement, cultural identity, relationships, vulnerability, assets, and rigor. These six themes overlap but are listed separately to elucidate the connections with classroom assessment.

Providing culturally responsive care to non-English speakers may include (but is not limited to) the use of interpreters, using plain language, and communicating in a way that is both linguistically and culturally appropriate.

Culturally-responsive practices involve recognizing and incorporating the assets and strengths all students bring into the classroom, and ensuring that learning experiences, from curriculum through assessment, are relevant to all students.

Which of the following skills are needed to be a culturally responsive teacher? ›

According to the results, being a culturally responsive teacher requires having certain personal and professional competencies, such as avoiding discrimination, respecting cultural differences, being a role model, having an empathic tendency, and having good communication skills as well as a pedagogical background.

The major elements of culture are symbols, language, norms, values, and artifacts.

This approach to teaching and discipline creates the conditions for social, emotional, and academic learning using practical strategies in four domains: positive community, effective management, engaging academics, and developmentally responsive teaching.

Have the capacity to (1) value diversity, (2) conduct self-assessment, (3) manage the dynamics of difference, (4) acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge, and (5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve.

Cultural responsiveness is the ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of one's own culture as well as those from other cultures. Culturally responsive schools offer a learning environment where every student's cultures, languages, and life experiences are acknowledged, validated, and celebrated.

Culturally responsive care is the intentional and consistent decision mental health care providers make to see, respect, and celebrate the aspects that make each person unique.

Ensure that principals and teachers have professional development opportunities to help them assess their own cultural viewpoints and biases, set high expectations for all students, acknowledge diverse learning styles, use culturally responsive pedagogy, and effectively engage diverse families and community members.

Geneva Gay published Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice in 2000. You may have come across this pedagogy under the names “culturally appropriate instruction,” “culturally relevant teaching,” “culturally congruent instruction” or other variations on these themes.

How do you embrace cultural diversity in the classroom? ›

Culturally responsive teaching holds the greatest promise of closing students' learning gaps by helping them rapidly build their brainpower or what many call intellectual capacity.

Culturally relevant literature is important because it can lead students to academic achievement, create educational equity and critical consciousness within a classroom community, and teach all students to take on a global perspective and understand cultural competence.

In her book Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, Zaretta Hammond defines culture on three levels: surface culture, shallow culture, and deep culture.

It means being respectful of everyone's backgrounds, beliefs, values, customs, knowledge, lifestyle and social behaviours. It helps you provide culturally appropriate care and support, so people are empowered to manage their own health.

Being culturally responsive requires having the ability to understand cultural differences, recognize potential biases, and look beyond differences to work productively with children, families, and communities whose cultural contexts are different from one's own.

Culturally relevant books help to engage all readers because they build on the lived experiences of students. Culturally responsive teaching insists on educators intentionally creating their classroom libraries with their students.

Diversity in literature can help students to be more compassionate, caring citizens. Reading about other cultures and identities can remind students of both similarities and differences in the human experience. No matter who we are, we all have dreams, hopes, and fears—and so can a book's protagonist.

Since CRT focuses on inclusive curriculums, it helps teachers and students understand different perspectives, appreciate each other's strengths, and build empathy. It also helps teachers to introspect how their own identity and experiences impact their attitudes and teaching practices.