Strategies to introduce culturally responsive pedagogy into your classroom
Strategies to introduce CRP into your classroom could include the following.
CRP is focused on getting students into an academic mindset where they are confident challenging content, struggling through parts of their learning and sharing their own perspectives and understandings.
Task 18: Culturally responsive classroom
1. Watch this video to take a look at one example of a culturally responsive classroom.
You can reflect on these questions now or you can take these away and use them to start a short discussion with your colleagues.
- How is the classroom set up to facilitate varied ways of communication?
- How do teachers collaborate to support their students’ learning?
- How are different languages utilised to support learning?
- How would you describe this learning environment in a few words?
2. Watch this video to explore what CRP looks like more generally and across a school.
Comment
As these videos highlight, there is no one way a culturally responsive classroom will look but there are key commonalities in the way educators view their students through a strengths-based lens, utilising their cultures and identities as a starting point for learning.
Task 19: Case study
Now you have had time to familiarise yourself with the strategies and with the basics of CRP, take a moment to read through the following case study and choose three strategies that you believe would be most appropriate to support this specific student. Complete the table below justifying which you chose each strategy and how it could help that specific individual.
Amira from Baghdad, Iraq
Age: _________________ (Choose an age group that you work with)
Amira came to the UK as a refugee several years ago. She often gets in trouble for challenging her teachers, especially in subjects like history. Coming from Iraq and with many relatives still there, she has a different understanding of the role Britain plays in global affairs to the other students in her lessons who are mostly British. Her teachers get frustrated with her and send her out and Amira often complains to her head of year that she’s not doing anything wrong and that she’s not telling any lies. She says she wants to drop history despite it being her favourite subject.
How can this school use CRP to support Amira?
| Chosen technique | How I would use it | How it could help |
Comment
As the case study highlights, refugee students have so much knowledge into bring the classroom and this should be celebrated and built upon rather than pushed aside or minimised.
By giving space for learners to share, challenge and debate the content, everybody learns something new, including the teacher.
Culturally responsive pedagogy
