Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

I grew up in a small, suburban town outside Baltimore, MD. My neighborhood was white and upper-middle class. I went to school with the same kids all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade. On the other hand, the school that I teach at is very diverse. I have students from all different backgrounds. My school is districted in a middle class neighborhood and has several ESOL and magnet students from all over the region. It is important for me to keep in mind that their backgrounds and experiences may be very different from mine. To me, culturally relevant teaching is being able to effectively teach students from all walks of life.

Gloria Ladson-Billings has been monumental in culturally relevant pedagogy. Ladson-Billings was the first black woman to become a tenured professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison (Knutson, 2019). However, she never thought in her wildest dreams that she could achieve the career she has now. Other black students ended up working right after high school, so she never thought that she would go to a four-year college (Knutson, 2019). I agree that there is a stigma against certain students continuing their educations after high school. I have one black student who constantly insists that he is not going to college, and probably will not even finish high school. He is a very bright student, but he does not apply himself. When I ask him why he does not participate in class, he tells me that it does not matter. I think that his background and home-life are part of the issue. He knows that he is expected to get a minimum wage job as soon as he turns 16. The money that he makes will go directly to helping support his family. He has accepted this fate and cannot imagine ever going on to get a higher education and a better job.

Although I teach a wide array of students, the majority of my school's student population is black. There is definitely a stigma against black students going to college. This stigma is perpetuated by parents who did not go to college. Unfortunately, it is hard for students to plan for and do well in college when they are the first generation of college students in their family.

In mathematics, culturally relevant pedagogy "takes students' cultural or community funds of knowledge into account during mathematics instruction" (Gallivan, 2017). One suggestion from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is to "draw explicitly on students' use of mathematics in their cultures and/or home and community lives through high-level mathematics tasks" (Gallivan, 2017). I believe that I could easily incorporate some open-ended, group tasks that encourage students to make connections between mathematics and their own cultures and communities. One really great idea that I may implement next year is to give students a long-term project during our exponential functions unit. Students research their dream job to figure out what their projected yearly income would be. After that, they choose a car and a house and calculate their monthly payments based on their income. I think this would be a great project to give students some freedom to express their own interests and experiences.

References

Gallivan, H. R. (2017, March). “Supporting Prospective Middle School Teachers’ Learning to Revise a High-Level Mathematics Task to be Culturally Relevant.” National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Vol. 5, Issue 2. Retrieved from https://www.nctm.org/Publications/Mathematics-Teacher-Educator/2017/Vol5/Issue2/Supporting-Prospective-Middle-School-Teachers_-Learning-to-Revise-a-High-Level-Mathematics-Task-to-Be-Culturally-Relevant/#CulturallyRelevantMathematicsPedagogy.

Knutson, K. (2019, April 16). “Gloria Ladson-Billings: Daring to dream in public.” University of Wisconsin – Madison. Retrieved from https://news.wisc.edu/gloria-ladson-billings-daring-to-dream-in-public/.

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Affective Assessments

I appreciate that early on in my teaching career, I was introduced to Carol Dweck's idea of growth mindset. Growing up, I know that I had a fixed mindset about what I was and was not good at. I would say things like "I'm not a chemistry person" or "I'm not an art person." Dweck's book really changed my mind about what a student can and cannot do. In Dweck's opinion, students, teachers, and parents need to change their thinking from "I can't do it" to "I can't do it right now." When I was in high school, I loved art. In my sophomore year, I decided to take a photography class. At first, I was really interested in it, but once we moved to actual, old-school cameras, I had no idea what I was doing. My film was always over-exposed and I eventually gave up because photography was not something that I was naturally good at. However, I believe that if I took the time to properly study photography, I could take better photographs. Photography is a skill that I could easily master.

However, my time in the classroom this year has made me more of a realist. I like the growth mindset theory, but that's exactly what it is, a theory. While I know that students are capable of learning much more than they think they are, there is still a limit to what they can learn. This is where I take cues from Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. There are certain things that students can already do without help, and there are things that students can do with help. However, there are some things that students just cannot do, and they should not be expected to do.

I use affective assessments from time to time in my classroom to get student feedback. At the beginning of the programming unit in Computer Science Principles, I gave students an affective assessment to gauge their programming skills and opinions about pair programming. I administered this assessment periodically throughout the programming unit to check in with students and adjust my instruction as necessary. During this uncertain time of digital learning, I plan to check in with my students using similar assessments as often as possible.

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Cultural, Socio-economic, and Linguistic Diversity

I am lucky to teach at one of the most diverse schools in my district. My school is only one of a handful of secondary ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) schools. This means that we have several students in general education classes who do not speak English fluently. I do not teach any ESOL-specific classes, but I still teach some ESOL students.

In the beginning of the year, I worked with administration and other teachers at my school to identify which of my students were in the ESOL program. Once I identified these students, I did some research into their native language and English test scores and provided each of them with subject-specific glossaries. Most of my ESOL students in algebra 2 and geometry have scored high enough on their tests that they do not need a glossary. However, I still make them available to all of my ESOL students to help even the playing field. I have also tried to seat ESOL students next to each other so that they can work together and help each other out.

I teach several students who come from low socio-economic backgrounds. A large percentage of students at my school are on Free and Reduced Meals (FARM). I make sure to keep students' possible living situations in mind while I am teaching.

During this time of digital learning, I am worried about my students, especially those from low socio-economic backgrounds. I am worried that they are not getting enough to eat. I am worried that they are completely isolating themselves and having a tough time coping with this change. I am worried that some of them do not have access to some of the things I take advantage of, like the internet. Digital learning is far from an ideal situation, and unfortunately, it creates a lot of equity issues among students. A lot of families do not have reliable internet that their students can use to do their schoolwork and keep in touch with their teachers and classmates.

Right now, I do not have much, if any, flexibility on how and what I teach. However, I think this opportunity has been a great experience in letting students work at their own pace. Many of my students plan on continuing their education after high school, so I think this has been a good way to prepare them for the type of self-regulated learning that will be required of them in college.

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Rock Star Theorists

I have finally reached the last semester of my teaching program. During this last year, I have had the opportunity to teach in my own classroom. I had a lot of thoughts about my own personal teaching style before the school year started. As the year goes on, my teaching style have only evolved. Here are a few of the "rock star" theorists I have been taking ideas from during this first year.

Jean Piaget
Piaget is often cited as the founder of the social constructivist theory. He laid out the ground work for constructivism by identifying four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Each stage is outlined in greater detail below.

Lev Vygotsky
From there, Lev Vygotsky built on Piaget's theory to factor in students' prior knowledge. Vygotsky developed the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to show that there are three categories of knowledge. The first is what the learner can already do without any help. For example, in algebra 2, students should be able to solve multi-step equations without any help. The second category (also known as the ZPD) is what the learner can do with guidance from a teacher. In algebra 2, I help students apply their prior knowledge of solving multi-step equations to solve radical equations. They are similar enough to a regular multi-step equation they would see in algebra 1, but complex enough that I need to show them how to solve for an unknown when a radical is involved. Lastly, Vygotsky realizes that there are things that learners cannot do. My example in algebra 2 is taking the derivative of a radical. In the scope of the class, students do not learn how to take derivatives and it is likely something they will not be required to learn during their high-school careers.

Jerome Bruner
I mention Piaget and Vygotsky because their work laid the foundation for theorist Jerome Bruner. Bruner built on the social constructivist theory by introducing the idea of scaffolding. Instructional scaffolding, much like scaffolding on a building during construction, provides students with "steps" to build their understanding of a more complex topic (TeachThought, 2020). As I mentioned in my example earlier, students are expected to have mastered solving multi-step equations once they reach algebra 2, but that does not mean that they can remember how to do it on the spot. When I teach students how to solve radical equations, I have them practice solving some simple equations before the lesson.

Before my classroom experience, I considered myself a constructivist and took a lot of ideas from Piaget and Vygotsky. However, when I entered the classroom, I found that I needed to take a much more practical approach to constructivism. I found a happy medium with Bruner's theory and instructional scaffolding. I am a big believer in scaffolding lessons for my students, and so far it has worked very well.

Reference

TeachThought. (2020, February 8). Learning Theories: Jerome Bruner on The Scaffolding of Learning. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/learning/learning-theories-jerome-bruner-scaffolding-learning/

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Field Experience Reflection

I did not have huge goals going into my first year of teaching. However, I did want to create a classroom environment that fit my personality. I wanted to create a classroom environment that was accepting of all students. I am the type of teacher that prefers positive reinforcement over punishment. I also like to build strong relationships and an environment of mutual respect with my students.

I struggled to develop procedures and organization in my first months of teaching. I thought it would come naturally, but I realized that it is better to develop rules and procedures at the beginning of the year to help keep students accountable. There were a lot of things that I was unsure about at the beginning f the year. But I am ready to start next year strong. I've learned a lot over these past few months and I am excited for where my teaching career will take me.

Something I wasn't expecting (and I don't think anyone really was) was this recent pandemic. I am anxious about how long we will be out and how this will affect end-of-year activities like standardized testing and graduation. However, I feel like I am more prepared for this transition to online learning. A lot of my colleagues have been posting PDFs and are expecting students to figure out their own way to submit their answers (whether that be in a Word document or a photo of their work with pencil and paper). I have taken the time to incorporate each question from the PDf into a multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank/short answer question on Schoology. Over this past week, I received so many more submissions and a lot less questions than I expected. I believe that my M.A.T program has helped me adjust to this transition and be a much more responsive educator.

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Student Relationships and Discipline

In the first few months of my first year of teaching, I had my fair share of student issues. Some of them still feel very raw and real, so I wanted to talk about a situation with a student that turned out to be a very positive experience. At the beginning of the year, I had several students testing me. One student in particular, let's call her N, liked to question my authority. She liked to call out and get up during class. There was one day that N called out and asked me when I was going to update her grade. I explained to her that I teach three different classes and that I could not give her an exact time that grades would be updated, but that it would be soon. N then said that she would have her mom tell me to update her grade. At that point, I realized I needed to take it to the next level and contact her mom myself.

I let N's mom know about her behavior. N's mom was very upset about how she was acting and said she would talk to N about it. The next day, I saw N and she apologized. N and I have grown very close after that incident. She's become a student that I can always count on when students start to get out of control. Although the route I took was effective, looking back, I should have talked to N privately first. She knew that she was being disrespectful, and I think that a one-on-one conversation could have fixed the behavior. At least now I know that her mom is in my corner whenever I need her.

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Progress Towards End of Year Goals

The new semester (my last semester) of my MAT program is starting, so I decided to look back on my goals from the end of last semester. When I wrote my last blog post, I was frustrated with my students. We had just come back from Thanksgiving break and they were trying to take advantage of me before interim grades were due. I set a goal to become more confident in my teaching. I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, but I'm proud of my progress.

Friday was the last day of second quarter. Understandably, I had several students send me messages, pull me aside in the hallway, come after school, or flat out ask me during class what they could do to get a better grade. The end of the quarter has been very stressful, but I've been holding my ground and sticking to my expectations for students. For example, in my computer science class, I had a student ask me why she got a poor participation grade for her pair programming. She tried to tell me that her partner had been absent (which he had been absent maybe one or two classes the whole unit) and I explained to her that she did not finish all the programming assignments and oftentimes when I looked over, I saw that she was off task. She didn't argue. She knew I was right and understood my reasoning. And that was the end of that conversation.

I had two other geometry students ask me why they got a zero for an assignment they turned in. This particular assignment was one that I knew was a tough one. It was obvious while I was grading it that some student had found an online answer key and passed it around. Many students copied the answers verbatim. In the gradebook, I made a comment on that assignment that said "see me." When these girls asked about the "see me" assignment, I calmly explained to them what happened and how I knew they were cheating. I reasoned with them that a zero was much more fair than a detention or a call home (which I considered at first, but there were so many students that cheated, that I was exasperated and gave them all zeros instead). After my explanation, one of them asked if I was still going to put the grade in, and I told them no. They might not have liked it, but they understood. And that was the end of that.

Overall, I am proud of my growth over the past couple months. I cannot wait to see what the future holds.

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Fall Semester Reflections

The week right after Thanksgiving break was hard. I don't know what made it different from any other week, but my students seemed to lash out at me a bit. The due date for interim grades was coming up and I was slowly putting grades in the gradebook. Unfortunately, I have a good amount of students in algebra 2 and geometry who cheat. I have students who will talk during the whole lesson and then when I come around during independent classwork, they have already finished their work. I realized fairly early on that they have an app downloaded on their phones where they take a picture of an algebra problem and it gives them the answer. I don't think that they realize that when I'm grading it's very obvious that they are cheating due to their work (or lack thereof). I have one student who rarely ever turns in his work, but when he does, it's just answers that he gets from the app. He came after school under the guise of coach class to harass me about his failing grade. "I've turned everything in, why haven't you graded it? My mom keeps asking why I have an E." I know perfectly well that it is his fault for not putting in the work necessary to pass the class, but instead I apologized for being behind on grading. I decided to start putting comments in the gradebook whenever students get 0s for cheating to let their parents know. I am so tired of being disrespected by students. My job is hard. It's especially hard as a full-time first year teacher who is also a graduate student. I want my students to take responsibility for their bad grades.

I think that an exemplary teacher is flexible, but still confident in their ability. I have been feeling the imposter syndrome hard this year. I want to be confident in everything I do. I want to be able to address students respectfully and explain to them that they need to take responsibility for their learning. I want to be able to shut down an off-topic side conversations during my teaching. I want to force students to persist through tough material and ask questions when necessary instead of cheating. There are so many areas where I feel incompetent right now. And I think mastery of these areas will only come with experience and hard work.

I have an obvious goal for next semester: make a plan and stick to it. I have done an awful job of keeping track of my responsibilities this semester. I hope that after a couple weeks off, I will have my teaching responsibilities under control enough to keep on track of my own schoolwork. I want to reach out to people when I am having a tough time and let them help me. This semester has been detrimental to my mental health and I need to remember to take care of myself. I can't pour from an empty cup.

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Meeting High Level Demands with Mini Lessons

Lately, I've been falling behind schedule, especially in geometry. I'm still trying to figure out how I should pace things. However, with winter break coming up, I'm setting hard deadlines. I haven't been spending a lot of time on topics that students seem to understand relatively quickly. It's hard for me to not do a ton of practice problems and make sure that students really understand before moving on. 

I think that it is important to break material down into mini-lessons. My students get bored and chatty if I talk for too long. I've been trying to incorporate more opportunities to involve students in their own learning. I like to break up lessons by starting out with a warm-up (sometimes I'll collect it to keep students on their toes). Then, we move on to guided notes and practice problems (if I can, I prefer to scaffold problems with the I do, we do, you do method). I feel that as time goes on, I will get better at planning more effective lessons by chunking them into more manageable pieces.

For SLOs, my department is doing what we call "throwback skills." Every month, we do a mini-lesson on an old skill from algebra 1 to better prepare students for the SAT. Usually, I incorporate my throwback skills into a warm-up and follow it up with a short discussion in order to prepare students for the quizzes. I believe that it is important to break up material and allow for student feedback. Overall, mini-lessons encourage students to meet higher-level cognitive demands.

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First Quarter Struggles & Successes

First quarter ended last week, which means I am a quarter of the way through my first year of teaching! The end of the quarter was stressful. I set two-week deadlines for assignments at the beginning of the quarter. However, when students came to me at the end of the quarter asking what they could do to improve their grades, I fell back on my word. I don't want to fail so many students. I want to be empathetic and give them a chance to turn in large assignments, even though I know they missed them because they were not paying attention or didn't even come to class.

For second quarter, I'm turning over a new leaf. I am making a conscious effort to grade assignments the week they are due so that students know when they have missing assignments (I mean, I'm sure they already know, but now they really know). I am adding comments to every missing assignment that say something along the lines of "permanent missing if not turned in by (date)." I have been doing well with it so far. I am hoping this will save me a lot of time as the quarter goes on.

I am also trying to keep on top of checking when students have skipped my class. Unfortunately, class cutting is common at my school, but I am going to try to take the time to reach out to parents when students are skipping class and letting them know that they cannot make up the assignments they missed.

Overall, my goal this quarter is to work on organization and become more comfortable in my teaching position. I have had issues with time management lately. I'm falling so far behind in my curriculum and I am struggling to keep up with my responsibilities. I am the type of person that puts my all into anything I do, so lesson planning, grading, and organizing have taken up most of my time. Teaching has taken so much of my energy and I feel burned out. I have been so focused on being a good teacher that I have not been a good student.

As far as scheduling goes, I have just been taking things one day at a time and doing what feels right in the moment. However, I need to start giving myself a more structured schedule. I am a little behind my colleagues in algebra 2, so I feel like I need to play catch-up a little bit.

Despite all my struggles these past couple months, I have taken the time to plan some amazing end-of unit projects. My algebra 2 students just finished the unit on quadratic functions, so I had them do an Angry Birds project (inspired by Mr. Orr is a geek). The project went over very well. I had several students tell me that "(they) love projects!" I feel especially accomplished because the project resonated with one of my students with autism. He loves Angry Birds, so he went all out with this project. I have struggled to reach him in the past, so this felt like a huge success to me.
I hope to incorporate more projects into each unit as the school year goes on!

Angry Birds Project by Student A (with autism)

Angry Birds Project by Student B

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Trying to Meet the Needs for All Learners

I have learned a lot over the past couple months. There have been many ups and downs. I'm still adjusting to managing so many students at one time, but there are a couple kids that stand out. One student in particular, let's call him E, has been on my mind a lot lately. He is very talkative and has trouble focusing. E is retaking this class, so it is important that he passes. He is a very talented baseball player, so I have been getting some support from the baseball coach. We are trying to encourage E to stay on task and and complete his work. The coach has been taking away his phone and giving him a pep talk every day before my class. I have sat E in a seat in the front of the classroom. My goal is that by sitting him in the front next to people who will not talk to him, he will not get distracted as easily. It has been working alright. We have a few successes here and there, but he still fights me sometimes.

The class with E is just difficult in general. I have a couple students with IEPs in that class. One of them has a specific learning disability, who we will call S. S is a sweet student, but he has trouble staying on task. He has barely turned in any of his work and I have had to call home a couple times in regards to disruptions. Lately, I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants when planning lessons, so it can be difficult to for me to differentiate for so many unique learners.

However, I am getting better at building relationships. E might not like me very much right now, but I know he is the talkative, popular type. It helps so much to just come over and have a 5 minute conversation with him at the beginning of class or during the time that everyone is coming back from lunch. For S, I have placed him in the front of the classroom so I can check-in with him frequently. For example, yesterday I stopped by his desk to answer any questions he had and he actually told me that "This is easier than (he) thought!" He also told me that he understands Xs better than parentheses when multiplying, so I am trying to get out of my parentheses habit for him.

All of my kids are so sweet, even the "problem" ones. I just need to take the time to build relationships with them. At this point, I feel like I know my students pretty well. Some students just need more one-on-one time with me. As I move forward, I need to be more purposeful and deliberate with my differentiation. It has been a struggle for me. Especially because I was the student that always did well in a traditional classroom environment. However, these kids deserve for me to try my hardest to tailor my teaching to them. I need to do all that I can to make sure that they have the best learning experience possible.

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