Making Monsters

Instructors have critically sought ways to embody the theories and ideals espoused in radical texts and work to better force changes in the type of students we produce. What is presented here is an honest reflective dialogue, based on a reflexive critique of 17 years as a professor and the students I have encountered. But more importantly, this is also based on an equal set of years studying the aftereffects of White supremacy, the “candy wrapper” left on the ground at a campsite that informs someone was present, insinuates what may have been done, and eludes a sense of disregard while foreclosing any understanding of what it will go on to do next. Those candy wrappers are the “mild” subjects of the legacy of lynching, colonialism, and state-sanctioned violence. So, in the context of being a faculty member engaged with students, I pose a question to you, for us, from me: What if instead of “transgressing” White supremacy, we are in fact maintaining it? Many of us in higher education have come to an understanding that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is insufficient for college teaching and student learning to positively move forward through the 21st century. If we are to understand White supremacy not as a societal add-on that has corrupted the world around us but instead as the actual world around us, how do we properly contextualize this in a course or class? How do we foster experiences that deepen an understanding of a systemic reality? This essay challenges reductionist understandings of White supremacy as a matter of privilege that are reflected in DEI, culturally responsive teaching, dismantling, antiracist, invisible-knapsack-based approaches. Could it be that through this reduction we are instead producing “monsters”?

Facilitating Culturally Responsive Teaching Through Online Courses and Coaching

Teacher professional development and education programs are enhancing job-embedded experiences to address the disparity between theory and implementation. Simultaneously, higher education is now offering online courses to attract geographically distant educators, especially in high-needs fields such as teaching English Learners and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse students. There is a need to investigate what online teacher professional development and education programs can do to promote teachers’ application of what they learn. This pilot study utilized the Inventory of Situationally and Culturally Responsive Teaching (ISCRT) to investigate 23 in-service teachers’ culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices before and after receiving online coursework and coaching. When compared to the control group, treatment teachers’ scores on four of the five ISCRT standards—Joint Productive Activity, Language and Literacy Development, Challenging Activities, and Instructional Conversations—as well as the composite were statistically significant. Findings suggest online CRT coursework with complementary instructional coaching supports teachers’ implementation of new knowledge and pedagogy.

Creatively Cultivating a Culturally-Responsive Mathematics Classroom

This chapter explores ways to cultivate a culturally responsive math classroom for in-person and remote learning. In doing so, readers will analyze examples and non-examples of culturally responsive teaching at work. The author will examine a conducive math classroom whose environment and climate is rooted in establishing a healthy and safe math community. She will also dissect texts and curriculum that reflect a culturally responsive math classroom or the lack thereof. In addition, this chapter will identify creative strategies that promote cultural and responsive principles for in-person and remote learning. With these five domains, environment, climate, text, curriculum, and strategies, educational leaders will become equipped to cultivate a culturally responsive math community in their classroom suited for diverse learners.

Achieving Praxis for TESOL Educators

Shifting educational landscapes have revealed a need for structured critical reflection. While research on culturally responsive teaching practices and critical reflection prompts exist, there is little in the way of short, synthesized resources for busy educators who desire to change systems of inequity. The authors of this chapter have developed the TESOL educator reflective self-checklist (TERS) for on ground and online educators that utilizes recent research on motivation to activate critical reflection and further culturally sustaining classroom practices. This chapter expands on the evidence and development of this reflective checklist, implementation of the checklist, and provides vignettes of the checklist in use.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Training for Pre-Service Special Educators in Higher Education

In the field of public education, special education teacher preparation is one of the most critical areas of teacher preparation in higher education, given the mandate of FAPE under the IDEA. Additionally, teacher preparation programming that provides pre-service teachers with the knowledge, skills, and clinical experiences that can meet the learning-diverse needs of students is of paramount importance. However, teacher preparation programs often focus on meeting accreditation standards, job placement and service opportunities while leaving the teaching of diversity in special education as an add-on to be fulfilled by service departments, humanities courses, and/or social science electives. In order for universities and institutions of higher education to fulfill its mandate of teacher-training in special education, with a focus beyond the disability, they must adopt a curricula revision that includes culturally responsive teaching and diversity.

Using Technology to Support Culturally Responsive Practices in Post-Secondary Settings

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is a research-based method of instruction that centers students' racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds in the curriculum and pedagogy to ensure equitable outcomes as well as promote critical consciousness related to social injustice. CRT is typically associated with P-12 educational settings; however, the principles and mindsets of culturally responsive education have been applied in post-secondary educational settings. The practices associated with CRT require intentional planning, preparation, and implementation. The abrupt shift to virtual and remote learning required quickly leveraging various technology tools to ensure CRT practices were incorporated into teaching and learning in order to create an equitable and culturally-responsive learning environment.

Sustainable Learning Through Curriculum Integration and Responsive Teaching

One of the principal challenges the education system faces presently is the discrepancy between what is learnt in class and the reality outside class. Due to the constant changes and rapid transformation in the world today, most students are undoubtedly training for jobs that may not exist when they finally graduate. How can educators prepare students for such a diverse and dynamic world? What does it take to produce highly innovative graduates that creatively apply outside-the-box solutions (locally rooted and globally scalable) to the world's most pressing issues? This chapter recommends an approach to education that focuses on learning as a process that creates both lifelong and life-wide learners as opposed to rote learners whose success is dependent on their ability to regurgitate content. The chapter demonstrates how Davis College and Akilah promotes sustainable learning through integration and responsive teaching and how the faculty development process plays a key role in this.

Promoting Inclusivity Through a Culturally Responsive Approach to Classroom Assessment Practices

Culturally responsive pedagogy is an approach to teaching that attempts to address the learning needs of students from marginalized or non-majority populations. While the concept of culturally responsive pedagogy has been practiced in various forms in educational institutions around the world, there is still a gap in how the principles of cultural responsiveness are authentically embedded in assessment practices, particularly in a way that encourages all students to actively engage in the learning process. The purpose of this chapter is to argue the necessity for culturally responsive teaching and to articulate specific ways in which teachers can integrate practices that promote anti-racism, encourage student voice, facilitate community discourse, eliminate inherent bias in grading practices, and mitigate barriers to accessibility.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Technology-Supported Learning Environments in Marine Education for Sustainable Development

This study examined and evaluated how culturally responsive teaching in technology-supported learning environments for preservice teachers was practiced and modeled using experiential learning theory as a guiding framework. Results from qualitative analysis of observational data and outputs of 19 preservice teachers showed that the latter were able to include cultural values and harness technology in their teaching. It was also found that cultural scaffolding enhanced by technology is the most practiced culturally responsive teaching construct during teaching demonstrations. However, technology was used as teachers’ instructional tools—in the form of visual aids that illustrate abstract multicultural concepts—instead of students’ learning tools. Our findings could be used to develop a K-12 curriculum progression that provides a culturally responsive and contextualized teaching and learning environment for sustainable development.