Best Practices for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

The following is a list of what I believe to be the most important approaches and strategies that all culturally responsive teachers should practice:

1. Provide students with a cultural identity survey: 
• Providing your students with a cultural identity survey will give you an opportunity to learn the cultural identities of your students. Learning the cultural identities of your students is the first step in becoming a culturally responsive educator.
• Some questions you can ask on the survey include, but are not limited to: 
• What is your cultural or ethnic background?
• What languages do you speak?
• Are there any other cultures you are interested in learning about?
• The wording of the questions will change depending on the grade level.
2. Provide explicit, strategic instruction: Model!
• Students who are learning English as a second language need explicit instruction. Modeling is significantly important to all students, especially ELLs. 
3. Journal Writing:
• Assigning journal writing provides students with an opportunity for self reflection. Students can learn a lot about themselves and others when they are required to think critically in journal writing.  
4. Use of Visuals:
• Decorating the classroom with visuals from several different cultures can provide students with multicultural experiences even when they temporarily "zone out." 
5. Establish a classroom that respects individuals and their cultures:
• Multicultural Celebration: One way to express respect for individuals and their cultures is to have a Multicultural Celebration. Students can research their own culture, or even one they know little about, and then share what they have learned at the Multicultural Celebration. Students can share a dish or a tradition from their culture/the culture they studied.
• Show and Tell: Students can bring in an item from their culture to share with the class. Students are able to learn more about their classmates and their cultures.
• Read multicultural books 
6. Collaborate/ communicate with families:
• Parent Participation: Parents who are available can come into the classroom and talk to the class about their culture and the traditions that they celebrate. Students are able to have an opportunity to learn more about their classmates and their cultures.  
7. Use a wide variety of instructional strategies: 
• Children from various cultures have various ways of learning new information. For example,  students from cultures who have oral traditions would prefer learning new information orally.