Culturally Responsive Teaching

3 credits · Peabody College - Professional

Culturally Responsive Teaching introduces students to theory, research, and especially practice related to developing and enacting curriculum and instructional practices that respond to the social context in which they (will) work. The course covers general principles and approaches to culturally responsive teaching and education such as how educators (including teachers, school counselors, social workers, leaders, policymakers, community organizers, outside of school facilitators) can develop and cultivate meaningful relationships with students, how educators can learn from and about the school and local community, how educators can develop and implement culturally responsive “classroom management,” and how educators can develop expectations for students that maximize their capacity. In addition, the course will assist educators in learning about and developing culturally responsive curriculum and teaching in their different content/subject matter areas (such as Mathematics, Science, Art, Language Arts, and Social Studies) as well as other learning contexts inside and outside of school. A recurrent and central question of the course is: How do educators co-develop culturally responsive instructional practices to support and maximize students’ learning opportunities? How do we build alternative, innovative tools to capture student learning and development over time? Learning opportunities and outcomes are conceptualized broadly and heavy emphasis will be placed on inputs over outputs. [3]