HLP 7: Culturally Responsive classroom management

1. HLP 7: Culturally Responsive classroom management Dr. Nichelle C. Robinson 7/17/19 University of Memphis PLC Day

2. What is culturally responsive practices? • Teachers who utilize CRT practices value students’ cultural and linguistic resources and view this knowledge as capital to build upon rather than as a barrier to learning. • They use capital (i.e., personal experiences and interests) as the basis for instructional connections to facilitate student learning and development. • These teachers apply: interactive, collaborative teaching methods, strategies, and ways of interacting that support CLD students’ cultural, linguistic, and racial experiences and integrate methods with evidence-based practices (EBPs). • Based on work by: Gay (2010), Nieto, Bode, Kang, and Raible (2008); Ladson-Billings (2009); Harlin and Souto-Manning (2009); Hersi and Watkinson (2012); Nieto et al., (2008), and Santamaria (2009)

3. Culturally responsive practices:

4. Poster walk activity: • View each poster and list the positive and negative statements listed on the posters on the t-chart provided. • What do you notice about the negative statements? • How might these statements about diverse groups impact how you manage students’ behaviors? • Who do you think completed these posters?

5. Who are our students? How are they diverse?(Parker & Beck, 2017) • Race, ethnicity, and culture • Social class and religion • Language and dialect • Sex/gender • Sexual Orientation • Learning differences • Multiple intelligences

6. Brainstorming activity • THINKING, FEELING, SAYING, DOING – Write 1 thought for each action on the post-it provided. • What would a teacher preparing to address culturally responsive classroom management be thinking? • What would a teacher preparing to address culturally responsive classroom management be feeling? • What would a teacher preparing to address culturally responsive classroom management be saying? • What would a teacher preparing to address culturally responsive classroom management be doing?

7. HLP7: Establish a Consistent, Organized, and Respectful Learning Environment • To build and foster positive relationships, teachers should establish age-appropriate and culturally responsive expectations, routines, and procedures within their classrooms that are positively stated and explicitly taught and practiced across the school year. • When students demonstrate mastery and follow established rules and routines, teachers should provide age-appropriate specific performance feedback in meaningful and caring ways. • By establishing, following, and reinforcing expectations of all students within the classroom, teachers will reduce the potential for challenging behavior and increase student engagement. • When establishing learning environments, teachers should build mutually respectful relationships with students and engage them in setting the classroom climate (e.g., rules and routines); be respectful; and value ethnic, cultural, contextual, and linguistic diversity to foster student engagement across learning environments.

8. Classroom Strategies Building Relationships

9. Classroom Strategies(Weinstein, Curran, & Tomlinson-Clarke, 2003) • Build caring and inclusive classroom strategies • Greet students with a smile and a warm, welcoming comment • Greet 2nd language learners with a phrase from their culture • Shares stories about your life outside of school and let students share their interests/activities outside of school • Allow students to make choices/decisions about class activities and listen to their concerns or opinions • Deliberately model your respect for diversity by: expressing admiration for students’ bilingual ability, praising the # of different languages represented in the classroom, and by including examples of and content from a variety of cultures in your teaching • Communicate high expectations for every student and hold them accountable for high-quality academic work • Create a sense of community: illustrate to students how they are similar/different, engage students in morning meetings and cooperative learning activities

10. Classroom Strategies (cont.)(Weinstein, Curran, & Tomlinson-Clarke, 2003) • Organize your physical environment in a way that supports cultural diversity • A map of the world can be used to highlight students’ countries of origin • A sign/banner can welcome students in the different languages that they speak • Posters can depict people of various cultural groups (be sure to stay away from stereotypical images) • Mount children’s individual pictures on posters to create a jigsaw puzzle to reinforce that everyone comes together to make the whole • Classroom library should display books that promote themes of diversity, tolerance, and community • Arrange desk in clusters to encourage students to work together • Reinforce the importance of kindness and tolerance by having students drop kindness notes in the Kindness box (randomly read notes aloud) and creating a bulletin board display that encourages students to commit “Random Acts of Kindness”

11. Classroom Strategies (cont.)(Weinstein, Curran, & Tomlinson-Clarke, 2003) • Establish clear expectations for behavior at the beginning of the school year • Share 3-6 general rules for behavior with students at the beginning of the school year • Make sure that students understand what these specific behaviors look like, especially in culturally diverse classrooms because different cultures have different expectations for appropriate behaviors • Explicitly explain your expectations by: engaging students in discussion about the class behaviors, model the expected behavior (share examples and non-examples), provide opportunities for students to practice through role-playing

12. Classroom Strategies (cont.)(Hambacher, 2015) • Once you share your expectations, constantly and consistently remind students of them all year • Constantly remind students of expectations once shared: at the carpet, in line, on the way to the library, lunch etc. • Use subtle and direct reminders: • Develop “the look” • Develop a hand signal that student(s) recognize if “the look” doesn’t work for all students • Explicitly state to a student your expectation, “I need you to… Thank you for…”

13. Classroom Strategies (cont.)(Weinstein, Curran, & Tomlinson-Clarke, 2003) • Communicate in culturally relevant/consistent ways with students and their parents (know the students’ ways of communicating and what’s effective) • Differences in discourse style can have a direct effect on students’ behavior • For example, African American children and children from working class families are used to straight forward communication from authority figures versus the indirect discourse strategies used by middle-class White teachers (Delpit, 1995) • Teachers may need to modify their discourse style to be consistent with the cultural backgrounds of their students • Use parents and guardians as resources to determine the type of discourse/communication style will work best with students (stern/direct vs. positive reinforcement/compliments/encouragement)

14. Classroom Strategies (cont.)(Weinstein, Curran, & Tomlinson-Clarke, 2003) • Collaborate with families • Culturally responsive classroom managers understand that a lack of direct involvement reflects a differing perspective about parental responsibility, rather than a lack of commitment to their children’s education (Asian American and Latinos value education but view education as the responsibility of the school) • Teachers and parents may have different expectations about what constitutes appropriate school behavior (teacher expects students to ask questions, debate and discuss but parents from other cultures expect students to be quiet and obedient and not to contradict their teacher and ask questions) • Engage in genuine, meaningful 2-way communication (ask parents for their feedback about how you can be effective with their child) • Greet parents before you begin a conference, give parents time to think about how to respond to you (shows sensitivity to cultural differences in communication styles)

15. Classroom Strategies (cont.)(Hambacher, 2015) • Use humor: • To respond to off-task behavior • To redirect students • It is a proactive and non-punitive way to deflect inappropriate behavior • Must develop respectful and caring relationships with students in order to joke with them • Students must feel that you have their best interests at heart

16. Strategies for individual students(Hambacher, 2015) • Know your students’ cultural backgrounds (dig deep to get to know them on a personal level) • Conduct student interviews • Develop relationships with families • Observe students as they interact with their peers • Doing these things assist you in learning about: • Students’ impoverished living situations and how they effect students’ lives. • Specific family struggles • Students’ strengths • How students learn best • Specific skills that need to be improved

17. Strategies for individual students (cont.)(Hambacher, 2015) • Co-create individualized action plans for student behaviors • Students identify personal learning goals for themselves and action plans for reaching these goals • Meet with each student individually, once/9 weeks and discuss their progress and steps they need to take to continue striving toward their goals • Plans are not dictated by the teacher but are generated by the students • Action plans involve shared decision-making, which supports students taking responsibility for their learning • Plans must be co-created to ensure that skills such as: organization, respect, and having a positive attitude are emphasized for success in the classroom and as successful adults in society

18. Strategies for individual students (cont.) • Use behavior contracts • Provides students with more one on one help, support, and intervention • Holds students accountable • Provides structure, routine, consistency, and organization • Promotes self responsibility • Improves students’ grades and accountability • Improves student buy-in • Increases student motivation and effort • Improves school/home communication

19. Implications for student outcomes • Students receive an equitable education • CRCM furthers social justice education • One size does not fit all when it comes to disciplining students from culturally diverse backgrounds • Being culturally responsive in our management practices leads to fewer discipline referrals for students of color • Not being culturally responsive in our management practices leads to a disproportionate # of discipline referrals for students of color

20. Debrief student outcomes • Why is it important that teachers are aware of the student outcomes for implementing effective culturally responsive classroom management? • How do these outcomes positively impact your students and classroom environment?

21. Implications for teacher outcomes • How do your classroom management decisions promote or obstruct students’ access to learning? • Understand that culturally responsive classroom management is a frame of mind as much as a set of strategies or practices • Culturally responsive classroom managers recognize their own biases/values and how they affect their interactions with students

22. Implications for teacher outcomes (cont.) • Culturally responsive classroom managers ask themselves hard questions about how they treat students based on their cultural background. • Culturally responsive classroom managers work to know the cultures and communities of their students. • Culturally responsive classroom managers explicitly teach their students mainstream ways without making them feel that these ways are better than their own cultural ways.

23. References: • Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: OSEP Technical Assistance Center • Centre for Justice and Reconciliation • Creating Classrooms for Social Justice - Edutopia • Hambacher, E. (2015). Culturally responsive classroom management: Going beyond behavioral learning. The New Hampshire Journal of Education, 18. Retrieved from http://nhje.plymouth.edu/?article=culturally-responsive-classroom-management-going-beyondbehavioral-learning

24. References cont.: • Robins, K. N., Lindsey, R. B., Lindsey, D., & Terrell, R. (2005). Culturally Proficient Instruction, 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. • Weinstein, C., Curran, M., & Tomlinson-Clarke, S. (2003). Culturally responsive classroom management: Awareness into action, Theory into Practice, 42(4), 269-276. • Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. (2008). Brief: Culturally responsive classroom management strategies. NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.