Incorporating Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Strategies in the 21st Classroom to Engage Multicultural Students
Format
Poster Presentation
Location
Harborside Center East and West
Strand #1
Social & Emotional Skills
Strand #2
Academic Achievement & School Leadership
Relevance
The topic at hand targets both the cultural diversity and multicultural education components of the social and emotional skills strand. This presentation seeks to provide the participants with experiential pedagogical examples tailored to include and engage students from multicultural backgrounds. Visual aids and handouts will be present.
Brief Program Description
By simulating an inclusive cultural class experience, the presenter will give examples of how educators can survey their classrooms for various cultures while promoting student participation. By allowing students to experientially be a part of incorporating multi-cultural references to the content covered, it is perceived that this inclusive method can reduce classroom anxiety while educating through their individualized cultural experiences.
Summary
In recent years there has been an influx of multicultural students pursuing education within American-based classrooms. With that comes language and cultural barriers outside of American tradition. What may appear to be normal to one student may not be so to another. This is where the importance of cultural diversity, multicultural education, and communication skills comes into play. For example, a student may understand the material, yet feel challenged when given the opportunity to articulate and correlate personal meaning in the classroom. This “difference” in communication can indirectly be a gateway for teasing and bullying of these students. Sarah Edwards and Wilma Kuhlman (2007) stressed the importance of exploring the academic and psychosocial abilities of students through culturally responsive teaching. This model suggests a hypothetical outline for introducing culturally responsive practices for teachers such as: writing introductory letters describing students’ ethnic backgrounds and special interests; meeting with students to discuss cultural history, adopting a strengths-based approach, and taking a look at the books chosen for class and how they address culture. Culturally relevant teaching practices (e.g. reading articles and discussing theoretical/personal underpinnings) are also included in this model. These few suggestive practices pose a need for the presence of this presentation as an introductory method to exploring and understanding students within their cultural reality; paying respect to their process of assimilation, yet not forgetting the foundation of their individualized principles. The participants will leave with an introductory understanding of the Culturally Responsive Teaching Model, and tools tailored to exploring the unique qualities of their individual students through handouts and visual aids.
Evidence
The presenter is seeking to explore culturally responsive teaching as tested by Sarah Edwards and Wilma Kuhlman through a poster presentation. The aforementioned researchers defined culturally responsive teaching as a method that releases ethnically diverse students' potential through exploration of both their academic and psychosocial abilities. Edwards & Kuhlman (2007) conducted a field experience where they selected teacher candidates who worked in area classrooms each week for ten weeks during a semester. The pool of students included were either from an African-American, European-American, Hispanic, Asian-American or Sudanese immigrant family background. The majority of the families qualified for free or reduced lunch. Educators were also charged to engage in critical cultural self-reflection and guided simulated situations in their teacher educator programs. The researchers described how they incorporated cultural experiences in their service learning literacy methods and secondary English methods. Findings were obtained through observation and by assessing their student teachers' responses. Edwards, S., & Kuhlman, W. (2007). Culturally responsive teaching: Do we walk our talk? Multicultural Education, 14(4), 45-49.
Biographical Sketch
Terah L. Davis, MS, NCC, LAPC is currently a second year doctoral student in the Counselor Education and Supervision program at Mercer University in Atlanta, GA.
Keyword Descriptors
Culturally, Responsive, Teaching, Ethnically, Diverse, Population
Presentation Year
2015
Start Date
3-3-2015 4:00 PM
End Date
3-3-2015 5:30 PM
Recommended Citation
Davis, Terah L., "Incorporating Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Strategies in the 21st Classroom to Engage Multicultural Students" (2015). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 173.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2015/2015/173
Incorporating Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Strategies in the 21st Classroom to Engage Multicultural Students
Harborside Center East and West
By simulating an inclusive cultural class experience, the presenter will give examples of how educators can survey their classrooms for various cultures while promoting student participation. By allowing students to experientially be a part of incorporating multi-cultural references to the content covered, it is perceived that this inclusive method can reduce classroom anxiety while educating through their individualized cultural experiences.
