Learning Community Engagement

 

1. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy:

Educational equity is the heart of teaching and learning. Educators have the power to encourage and support students with marginalized identities to develop and enhance their lives. Culturally responsive pedagogy eliminates racial oppression in the classroom and opens doors to building a new society where people love each other without hate. For example, one opportunity to demonstrate educational equity is by implementing culturally responsive teaching practices by connecting students’ and families’ backgrounds into the lessons, getting to know each student by name, and acknowledging and including their cultures in everyday activities. "using culturally responsive teaching to improve the school performance of underachieving students of color." (Gay, 2000)

2. Inclusive Teaching:

Teaching should meet the needs of all learners, such as English language learners. For instance, teachers could use specific strategies to pre-teach vocabulary, cognates, and real-life examples. Also, planning the lessons is fundamental.  Including previous knowledge and cultural background expand opportunities for learning for all. Acknowledging that every learner has been exposed to different experiences is fundamental. Therefore, there cannot be a single learning style.  

3. Universal Design for Learning:

👉Engagement: Individual choices, autonomy, authenticity, relevance, minimizing distractions, persistence, and self-regulation

👉Representation: integration of all senses and movement, clarifying vocabulary, use of images, and helping learners decode texts to expand comprehension.

👉Action and expression: Assistive technology, multiple media for communication, tools for construction and composition, levels of support, goal setting, strategy development, assessing and monitoring progress. 

My organization uses: Universal Design for Learning

There is an opportunity for all learners! The ability to assess and utilize a designed curriculum support teaching and learning in many ways. Teachers can co-teach to expand interventions. Students' previous knowledge is included in the lesson, and students also set goals that are monitored throughout the year. Independent work is also encouraged to support individual learning. Also, culturally relevant material is implemented to expand understanding of other cultures and values to respect others.

Resources:

• Tools for construction and composition: Creating a culturally relevant toolkit is fundamental for educators. Therefore, this resource can be added to the kit because it provides practical resources to apply "Action and expression" in the classroom. 
• The UDL Guidelines: It is critical to understand how engagement, representation, action, and expression play a critical role in providing an enhanced education. This resource has all the tips and extra resources to apply UDL as a base to support learning. 
• Video: UDL guidelines structure: this resource supports understanding of the Universal Design for Learning plus examples in the classroom on how to apply it. 

References

Cosgrove, R. (2020). Inclusive teaching in a nutshell : A visual guide for busy teachers. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.

Gay, G., & NetLibrary, Inc. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching : Theory, research, and practice (Multicultural education series (New York, N.Y.)). New York: Teachers College Press.

UDLCenter. (2010, November 22). UDL guidelines structure. YouTube. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVTm8vQRvNc&t=3s