Meet Ricky the Robin...Ricky teaches at Woodland Academy and gets to teach all of the animals in the forest. 

Ricky

Ricky has to deal with many different backgrounds and diverse experiences. So he used Culturally Responsive Teaching!

CRT tried to connect teachers to students through the understanding of cultural nuances that sometimes cause conflict between teachers and students. (Rucker, 2019)

Ricky goes everywhere, teaching by his favorite maxims! 

[S]tudents find that academic experiences  are more meaningful in their lives and therefore become  more interested and focused on content area learning.  (Vacca et el., 2018 p 53)

Five essential themes in culturally relevant pedagogy: 1. Identity and achievement 2. Equity and excellence 3. Developmental appropriateness 4. Teaching the whole child 5. Student–teacher relationships (Vacca et al., 2018 p.54)

Ricky believes that the following strategies are most effective for his classroom...

"Vocabulary strategy instruction is effective when a  teacher helps ELs to develop a few key terms in depth rather than attempting to have  them learn many words superficially" (Vacca et al., 2018 p.75)

Vocab Development

Understanding is revealed when students can transfer their learning to new situations. (McTighe, 2021) Help them see vocab in action through mentor texts!

Writing for Metacognition

Help students how they learn by writing it out. This helps students build awareness around their thought processes. (Gable, 2016)

Students can try summarizing their thoughts to 

"increase comprehension and retention of new material," and "provide teachers with insight into whether students are really grasping important ideas." (McTighe, 2021)