According to Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz (2014), over the past several decades, political, cultural, social, and economic changes have brought an increasingly diverse group of students to U.S. schools from across the world. ELs make up 9.1% of the student population. In urban schools, ELs make up 14.2%. n diverse classrooms, cultural and linguistic sensitivity is a crucial first step in working with students to meet academic standards. 

According to Kozleski (2010), in the article, Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters, becoming culturally responsive means that teachers, as well as students, have to negotiate new standards and norms that acknowledge the differences and the similarities among and between individuals and groups. 

Culturally responsive teaching helps to bridge different ways of knowing and engage students from non-dominant cultures in demonstrating their proficiency in language usage, grammar, mathematical knowledge and other tools they use to navigate their everyday lives (Kozleski, 2010)).  

In the video “Expanding Teacher Self-Knowledge”, Dr. Sonja Nieto stated that teachers need to know themselves before they can really teach their students well.

Dr. Sonja Nieto stated that, too often, teachers are unprepared to teach their student population, and go into the classroom with unacknowledged biases. It’s important for teacher education programs to start where teachers are and help them realize their own realities so they will know what they need to learn.

Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz (2014) list 7 characteristics of culturally responsive instruction:

1.    High expectations 

2.    Positive relationships with families and communities 

3.    Cultural sensitivity

4.    Active teaching methods

5.    Teacher as facilitator 

6.    Student control of portions of the lesson

7.    Instruction around groups and pairs to create low anxiety

Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz (2014) mention two instructional approaches for teaching cultural understanding seem to be effective. The decision-making approach provides learners with opportunities to engage in activities and projects related to cultural concepts and issues. The transformative approach, along with the decision-making/social action approach,  lends itself well to content literacy strategies that emphasize critical analysis and interpretation.

Formative assessment is a great model for teachers to use while students are in the process of learning. According to Davis (2017), formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic process during a lesson, unit, or course. It is done as students are learning.

Davis (2017) suggests some assessment tools that can be used to measure student learning. I would love to use Socrative so I could create quick quizzes, grade them, and keep track of student scores. However, if students do not have access to electronic devices, I would use QuickKey. With this tool, the teacher would create a multiple choice test, print it, and use his/her smart phone to scan student responses and grade the quizzes. 

In the video titled “Recognizing Individual Characteristics”, Dr. Dorothy Strickland stated that it is vital for teachers to educate themselves concerning the students they work with. They need to gain a broad understanding of the backgrounds of their students (cultural, linguistic). Then, teachers need to step back, put what they’ve learned in the background, and treat each student as an individual. It’s best to keep an open mind and not make assumptions as to what a student is, or should be, like based on their background.