How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You

Chapter 8: Creating a School Culture That Welcomes Diverse Learners

Chapter 8’s focus is to analyze the learning environment necessary to build a classroom of excellence and how to develop and maintain a school community/culture that welcomes diverse learners.

Strategies gathered from Chapter 8 and other resources to accomplish these goals:

Regarding Characteristic # 2, particularly points G, H, I:

G: I plan my lessons to capitalize on my student’s cultures and experiences.

Use cultural crafts, economics, architecture and employment patterns to engage students in the study of math concepts and operations

Use real local bus schedules to teach elapsed time

Use culturally diverse names and depictions in math story problems.

Provide culturally diverse literature, both fiction and nonfiction in the classroom.

H: I plan and assess to determine if culturally responsive teaching practices have helped my students learn.

  • Have students self-assess by checking for understanding through informal assessments (RESOURCES PROVIDED*)
  • Make connections across instructional strands, not just reading (using nonverbal symbols to share connections, journal writing to reflect on connections and sharing time to facilitate relationship building through connections
  • Teach all students HOW to be successful, academically and socially (have students define success in different scenarios, sports, games, beat the clock, home behavior, classroom behavior, school, etc.)

I: My teaching approach varies in ways that accommodate the cultural differences in my classroom, including student groups and students helping each other.

Formalize the tendency of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino students to study together by using small groups frequently

Use African American story telling traditions and informal interactions to teach writing skills

Address personal space during class meetings, or close quarters grouping. (Some cultures value less space, some cultures/backgrounds see it as disrespectful)

Use call and response techniques during lessons *Note that “talking back” during a lesson may be a sign of engagement, not defiance or disrespect (as in church)

Regarding Characteristic #3, particularly points K, L, N:

K: I make an effort to educate families about our school.

Be aware that African American parents are likely to be skeptical of entering their child into intervention or SPED processes due to long standing over-identification of black males as special needs. Keep parents involved on an ongoing basis!

“Steppin’ Out”: Meeting parents and families during preservice week to welcome students to their new class, establishing a positive relationship in the families comfort zone first

L: I build strong, positive working relationships with the parents of my students.

Relate concepts to students’ real world experiences and personal stories

Celebrate even minor success on the road to major victories, keep track of small progress and let students know!

Provide opportunities for students and families to “tell their story” (Name/family/location/traditions, etc)

Have communications home translated into appropriate language through the ESOL office

Invite community members (students’ families are a good starting point!) that reflect the backgrounds of your students (civic leaders, business leaders, artists, successful high school and college students) into the classroom for read-alouds, buddy reading, Author’s share audience, math centers/games etc.

Parent workshops that get parents connecting with each other that would not have place or opportunity to associate together outside of school (dinner and discussion over pertinent topic, workshops, Single Parent Support Group)

N: Creating a sense of community in my classroom is key to student success.

Address students as “scholars” to emphasize academic pursuits at school.

Practice shared leadership among students (classroom jobs, including student tutors)

Use music to create a team atmosphere (discuss different music types listened to at home then expose students to another music genre to unite around)

Checking for Understanding

In research conducted on closing the achievement gap between racial and ethnic groups, studies found that almost half of African American and Latino students indicate that they understand the lesson about half the time, or less. The same is true for between one-quarter and one-third of Asian American and white students. African American and Latino students also reported less understanding of the processes being taught and less comprehension of assigned reading materials.

Newsletter of the Minority Student Achievement Network (2003)

Giving students time to process and store important information during a lesson increases retention and achievement. For every 5-10 minutes of instruction given by the instructor, students should be given 30 seconds to 5 minutes of time to process the information. This time allows the instructor time to assess whether the students understand the materials or need instruction adjusted. Here are a few strategies that can easily be employed with your students. Remember to model every strategy before students are expected to do them.

Pair Share—Assign talking partners. / Periodically have students “turn and tell” what they are thinking or answer to a question. This allows all students to engage in thinking about the content. It is critical that students know who their partner is and that the partner is sitting close enough so that whispering or talking in a low voice is appropriate.
3-2-1 / 3—Key ideas or important words
2—examples or words from the content
1—summary statement or question that might be asked on a test
5-3-1 / 5— On their own, ask students to list 5 words from the lesson or reading
3— Partner students up to share their 5 words. Partners then agree on the 3 important words
1— Have partner groups join another partner group and share the 3 words each group came up with.
Then have the 2 groups agree on 1 key word that best represents the content. Ask each group to share that word with the whole group and tell why it is the best word to represent the content.
One to Five Rating / Ask students to rate your statements on a scale of 1 to 5. For example, you might say “After reading this section about Stanley, how would you rate Stanley’s level of frustration?
1---He’s not very frustrated
3—He’s somewhat frustrated
5— He’s very frustrated.
After students demonstrate their rating, have students give text information to support the rating.
Show of Hands / Ask students Yes/No questions or Agree/Disagree questions about the content. Hold up 1 hand if the answer is “yes” or “agree” and 2 hands if the answer is “no” or “disagree”
Example: In this paragraph, Stanley is humiliated. Agree/Disagree. Have student give specific details to describe why they agree or disagree with the statement.
Paired Verbal Fluency / Assign one student to be “Partner A” and one to be “Partner B”
a.Give the following directions:
i. When I say go, partner ____ will begin
talking about ______(give topic).
Partner ____ will actively listen, but not
speak. You will talk for 60 seconds.
ii. You may say anything about the topic. You may look in your notes or book to jog your memory. You can:
1.State facts
2.Make a fist list of what you know
3.Ask questions
4.Describe a visual
5.Make a text to self, text, or world
connection
6. Summarize
7.Draw Conclusions
8.Argue a point
9.Discuss character traits or feelings
10. Talk about the author’s purpose or
point of view
b.After 60 seconds, I will say “switch” and partner _____ will begin talking while partner _____ actively listens. Partner ____ will not repeat anything partner ____ has already said. You will talk for 60 seconds.
c.After 60 seconds, I will say “switch” and partners will repeat for 40 second intervals.
d.Repeat for 20 second intervals
I Remember / After giving about 5 minutes of content instruction (or reading as section of a text), have students make a fist. Tell them to list 5 things (verbatim) they remember from the lesson.
Say Something / After reading a section of a text or giving students information on a concept, stop and have students tell what they are thinking. I say to the students “Say something you are thinking right now about the content.” They can tell a classmate sitting nearby or I’ll quickly call on 3-5 students to say something to the whole class.

Assignment Rubric


1 /
2 /
3
Scholarly
(Did I do my best thinking to accomplish the task; do I have new thinking to share?)
Teamwork
(Did I offer a strategy to a teammate; did I work so others around me can also do scholarly work?)
Craftsmanship
(Is my work neat? Can others understand what I mean?)

I can make my work better by ______

______.