Culturally Responsive Standards-Based Teaching: Classroom to Community and Back

Assessment: An exercise—such as a written or verbal test, portfolio, or demonstration— that seeks to measure a student's skills or knowledge in a subject area, or more globally (such as with IQ or SAT tests). Assessments are usually either criterion-referenced (the score is determined by how well a student does according to a set of criteria or a rubric) or norm-referenced (the score is determined by how well a student does as compared to other students).

Asset mapping: A process of creating a map of your (school) community that tells you what, where, and who the assets are of your school community. It helps everyone involved to learn about what they and their community have to offer the school.

Authentic assessment: An assessment strategy that asks students to demonstrate abilities through performance-based tasks within real-world situations. Taking a driving test behind the wheel of a car to get a license is a classic example of an authentic assessment.

Benchmark: A description of student knowledge expected at a specific grade, age, or developmental level. Benchmarks often are used in conjunction with standards.

Community-based learning: A broad set of teaching strategies that links learning activities in classrooms with a full range of experiences available in the community. This includes project-based learning, service learning, experiential learning, cooperative education, school-to-work programs, youth apprenticeship, lifelong learning, and many others. It provides learners of all ages with the ability to identify what they wish to learn and opens up an unlimited set of resources to support them.

Contextual teaching and learning: A conception of teaching and learning in which subject matter and content relate to real-world situations. Contextual teaching and learning motivate students to make connections between knowledge and its applications to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers.

Critical thinking: A process that stresses an attitude of suspended judgment, incorporates logical inquiry and problem solving, and leads to an evaluative decision or action (from the National Council of Teachers of English Committee on Critical Thinking and Language Arts).

Cultural competence: A set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that comes together in a system, agency, or among professionals, and enables them to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. Five essential elements contribute to the ability of a system, institution, or agency to become more culturally competent: [Page 218]

• 1.
  Valuing diversity
• 2.
  Having the capacity for cultural self-assessment
• 3.
  Being conscious of the dynamics inherent when cultures interact
• 4.
  Having institutionalized culture knowledge
• 5.
  Having developed adaptations to service delivery reflecting an understanding of cultural diversity

These five elements should be manifested at every level of an organization, including policy making, administration, and practice. Furthermore, these elements should be reflected in the attitudes, structures, policies, and services of the organization.

Culture: The integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious, or social group.

Curriculum (plural: curricula or curriculums): A plan of instruction that details what students are to know, how they are to learn it, what the teacher's role is, and the context in which learning and teaching will take place.

Evaluation: How well a program, curriculum, school, or district is teaching individuals to master skills or knowledge. Evaluation usually is based on gathering the assessment information from a number of individuals served by that program or school.

Experiential learning: Education that stresses hands-on experience and is accomplished by field trips, internships, or activity-oriented projects, as opposed to traditional classroom learning.

Higher-order thinking skills: The ability to view a problem or situation from multiple perspectives and to analyze it deeply, to understand complex concepts, and to apply sometimes conflicting information to address a problem that may have more than one correct answer.

Integrated curriculum: A meaningful way of organizing a curriculum that removes the boundaries between subject areas. Such a curriculum is based on the interdependence of concepts and knowledge and allows for faculty collaboration.

Learner-centered classroom: A classroom in which students are encouraged to choose their own learning goals and projects. This approach is based on the belief that students have a natural inclination to learn, that they learn better when they work on real or authentic tasks, that they benefit from interacting with diverse groups of people, and that they learn best when teachers understand and value the difference in how each student learns.

Learning style: The unique and idiosyncratic way each person learns. It may include how a person processes experiences (whole vs. part), the person's level of tolerance for accepting things that differ from the “norm,” the degree to which a person reflects or acts impulsively, how a person categorizes information (broadly vs. narrowly), a person's level of persistence, a person's level of anxiety to perform, and a person's locus of control (internal vs. external). Another way of conceptualizing learning style is based on Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory.

Multicultural education: An educational approach that looks beyond curricula's content and strategies from the white, Western European tradition. The goal usually is to broaden students' perspectives and understandings to encompass one or more cultures that are different from their own. Some multicultural education models highlight subjects from diverse cultural, ethnic, racial, and gender perspectives. Others represent an immersion in one culture, ethnicity, or race.

Multiple intelligences: Howard Gardner's theory, which states that people are “smart” in different ways. The multiple intelligences are linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. An understanding of these intelligences can help teachers reach students and help students make learning connections.

Outcomes-based education: An integrated system of educational programs that aligns specific student outcomes, instructional methods, and assessment; also an education theory that guides curriculum by setting goals for students to accomplish. Outcomes-based education focuses more on these goals, or outcomes, than on “inputs,” or subject units.

Positive youth development: An approach to working with children and youth that recognizes the developmental needs of young people and provides the supports, services, and opportunities they need to grow up healthy, caring, and responsible.

Project-based learning: A student-centered instructional strategy that engages students in long-term projects (usually in groups) that integrate several content areas and result in a product or report. It encourages students to play an active role in the creation of assignments and activities and, as a result, to help develop their collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

Reflection: Activities that are designed to encourage the self-analysis of learning experiences and to help set meaningful goals. Reflection usually involves some “evaluation” of those experiences and one's role in them (in order to improve in the future), but it can also involve reflecting on the context of the experiences, the relationship between the experiences and other events, or individual values and beliefs. Reflection can be organized as a group discussion, journal writing, role-play, media-based project, survey, or questionnaire, or it can involve the use of a more formal assessment tool.

Rubrics: Specific criteria or guidelines used to evaluate students' work.

Service learning: Combining service with learning activities to allow students to do work in the community that meets human needs or improves the community. Service-learning activities are integrated into the academic curriculum and provide students with the opportunity to use skills and knowledge they acquire in school in real-life situations to make a positive contribution. Students also apply the skills and knowledge they acquire in service learning to their schoolwork.

Standards: Statements of what students should know and be able to demonstrate. When—and to what degree—students should know something are benchmarks. Subject-matter standards form the bases to measure students' academic progress according to benchmarks. Curriculum standards drive what students learn in the classroom. Various standards have been developed by national organizations, state departments of education, districts, and schools. There is national debate on how to [Page 220]implement such standards: how prescriptive they should be, and whether they should be national or local, voluntary or mandated.

Teaching: Both what is taught (curriculum) and how it is taught (instructional practices).

Transferable skills: Skills that are interchangeable from one job or workplace to another. For example, the ability to handle cash is a skill transferable from restaurant cashier to bank teller. Some skills, such as the ability to function as a team member, are transferable to almost any job.

Transformational teaching and learning: Teaching practices that seek to create deep changes in students. These may involve changes in values, beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors and practices. Whereas most teaching seeks more superficial, though important, changes—such as improving reading, boosting test-taking ability, or imparting knowledge of history—transformational teaching seeks to improve students' lives and their relationships with others.