Culturally Responsive Teaching and Differentiation Makala Jones

Makala Jones

As teachers we must recognize that all of our students come from different places, cultures, family structures, backgrounds, and more. This means that they all learn different and we cannot assume that they are all alike. Because of this we have to learn to be able to personalize the curriculum so that we can teach EACH child in our classroom. Some characteristics of a culturally responsive teacher are: 

• Positive perspectives on parents and families 
• Communication of high expectations 
• Learning within the context of culture 
• Student-centered instruction 
• Culturally mediated instruction 
• Reshaping the curriculum 
• Teacher as facilitator 

I found an article on Edutopia called Making Connections: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, which is actually an interview with a woman named Zaretta Hammond about her book called Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. In this article Hammond talks about her book on culturally responsive teaching and talks about processes and strategies on how to implement culturally responsive teaching. Check out the link below for more: 

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/making-connections-culturally-responsive-teaching-and-brain-elena-aguilar

References

Making Connections: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/making-connections-culturally-responsive-teaching-and-brain-elena-aguilar