Focus on Culturally relevant pedagogy
Designing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is essential to creating meaningful lessons that build from students' individual funds of knowledge while holding all students to high expectations. Last semester, we saw examples of teaching from deficit perspectives and the negative impact this had on students and teachers alike. Diversifying lesson activities, creating space for student voice, building collaborative and active learning environments, and drawing connections to student communities can help lead to responsive lesson design that begins with students and the unique experiences they bring to your classroom.
"Ladson-Billings contends that culturally relevant pedagogy has three criteria:
These are important components to keep in mind as you provide critical and constructive feedback for the lessons you observe. Keep in mind that within the context of our classroom, we are teaching to "imagined" students which does not allow you to develop the relationships or draw upon the unique cultural and community backgrounds that students would bring to the classroom. As a result, we can only offer examples that essentialize the depth and critical angle of this work. There is great danger in doing so, particularly as it can be seen to assume that CRP is just a set of practices you can transfer to any context. It most certainly is not. Rather, the mindset and approach to how you think about planning by beginning with students IS a perspective you can carry with you and should be utilized to develop much more authentic and responsive instruction than can be accomplished within the confines of our classroom context.
"Ladson-Billings contends that culturally relevant pedagogy has three criteria:
- Students must experience academic success.
- Students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence.
- Students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order." (See UNC Source below for further reading)
These are important components to keep in mind as you provide critical and constructive feedback for the lessons you observe. Keep in mind that within the context of our classroom, we are teaching to "imagined" students which does not allow you to develop the relationships or draw upon the unique cultural and community backgrounds that students would bring to the classroom. As a result, we can only offer examples that essentialize the depth and critical angle of this work. There is great danger in doing so, particularly as it can be seen to assume that CRP is just a set of practices you can transfer to any context. It most certainly is not. Rather, the mindset and approach to how you think about planning by beginning with students IS a perspective you can carry with you and should be utilized to develop much more authentic and responsive instruction than can be accomplished within the confines of our classroom context.
A few more resources you should review to help you in planning and observing peer lessons include:
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- UNC School of Education: Culturally Relevant Teaching