Ways to Create a Culturally Responsive Classroom
The rise in diversity across the United States means instructors increasingly have diverse populations of students in their classrooms. Below are resources to assist postsecondary educators in creating a culturally responsive classroom that is respectful of diversity and inclusive of all perspectives and backgrounds.
Global Social Justice Education Framework
Global social justice education challenges educators to utilize global competencies to recognize systems of injustice, and to work to create equitable learning environments for all participants. This new Global Social Justice Education Framework serves as a model to help ensure that CTE programs are designed to value all students and to prepare them for success in our interconnected world.
Professional Development Module
The competencies needed to meet the needs of the increasingly international workforce should be woven throughout the CTE community and technical college curriculum. Building global competence into CTE begins with understanding your students’ diverse experiences through the lens of social justice. Faculty Module 3: Engaging Diverse Students, helps faculty and administrators utilize the Global Social Justice Framework, provide tools to integrate student experience and learning, and address the foundation of global and technical competence within CTE programs.
Student Assignments
- Getting to Know Your Students Questionnaire is designed as a survey to give to students at the beginning of a program or semester to learn more about who they are.
- Conversation Questions are designed to assist educators in continuing to learn about their students. These can be used to spark group or class discussions, as a journal entry, or in casual conversations with students.
- CTE Journey Assignment is meant as a way for educators to understand students’ perspectives and assistance they may need, by learning about their CTE journey.
Additional Resources
- ACTE has gathered reports, articles, guides and toolkits to help you develop and support access and equity in high-quality CTE programs of study.
- Diversity Discussion Starters are conversation starters to get your classroom discussing diversity.
- The Human Library, based out of Denmark, was created to promote a greater understanding among people of different backgrounds.
- The Intercultural Learning Hub: The Intercultural Learning Hub (HubICL) was created by Purdue University’s CILMAR: Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research and contains many DEI focused activities.
- Learning for Justice provides free resources anchored in their Social Justice Standards.
- Normandale Diaspora Project from Normandale Community College, aims to center diverse voices on campus.
- StoryCorps was developed to, “preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.” See the stories of others or have students create new stories.
- Tanenbaum’s Seven Principles for Inclusive Education contains free resources and curricula for inclusive and respectful classrooms.
Readings
Articles, books, and blog posts on educating diverse students.
- “Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain,” book by Zaretta Hammond.
- “Unpacking Cultural Complexity to Create More Equitable Learning,” blog post on Education Week by Sarah Luchs.
