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Use APA headers to organize your response; Write ~ 200 words for each article that addresses the following:          a) Share 1 sentence or 1 phrase that is particularly meaningful to you and explain why. b) Describe a thing or two you learned about applying these practices in real-world settings; especially Health, Human, Social or Legal Services. c) Include these Elements: Total word count ~600 words Use APA Headers  Include proper APA In- text citations to identify sources and/or cite direct quotes or ideas/concepts Include an APA Reference Citation for each article you cite at the end of the response in a Reference List The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of- School Learning Access and Equity in Out-of-School Learning Contributors: Shirin Vossoughi Edited by: Kylie Peppler Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School Learning Chapter Title: Access and Equity in Out-of-School Learning Pub. Date: 2017 Access Date: April 11, 2017 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks, Print ISBN: 9781483385211 Online ISBN: 9781483385198 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483385198.n7 Print pages: 1-5 ©2017 SAGE Publications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved. This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book. javascript:void(0); http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483385198.n7 Moving beyond the study of learning as a strictly school-based phenomenon, recent decades have seen a significant rise in research on learning in everyday and out-of-school settings often referred to as out-of-school time (OST). Within this field, there is a growing focus on access and equity. Research animated by an access framework often considers what it takes to make socially and academically supportive OST learning opportunities available for all students, particularly those historically marginalized or inadequately served by schools. This frame emphasizes the ways in which OST settings provide access to distinct forms of academic and professional practice, identity and community development, and connections with mentors and peers. For equity-oriented researchers, this “access” frame is a necessary but insufficient approach to studying and working to transform educational inequities. Research animated by an equity framework treats all learning as a cultural and sociopolitical process and foregrounds questions of epistemology, power, and justice, such as “Access to what?” “For whom?” “Based on whose values?” “And toward what ends?” These questions build on a history of scholarship that utilizes careful studies of everyday activity to problematize narrow, ethnocentric measures of learning and argue for ecologically valid approaches to research. Equity-oriented research on OST environments therefore seeks to substantively widen our definitions of where and how learning takes place, challenge deficit ideologies, and reimagine education more broadly. This entry further examines the specific issues, current research, and policy questions involving the access and equity frameworks as they are applied to OST. It also discusses the implications of research findings on access and equity for the OST field. Conceptualizing Access and Equity: Key Issues OST settings include both educational programs (extracurricular activities, after-school programs, museums) and everyday settings (the home, peer groups, community settings). Research that centers issues of access within OST learning tends to highlight the differential opportunities available for young people to engage in extracurricular and OST programs across socioeconomic groups and geographic regions. This research addresses the following basic questions: Are high-quality OST programs available in the school or the community? What are the explicit or implicit costs of participation? How do programs recruit participants? What forms of transportation are or are not available to young people? What burdens does participation place on families? While OST programs are seen as a key site for positive youth development and academic support, the elimination of budgets for youth programs and the rise of “pay to play” policies have led many to highlight the growing gap in access to OST opportunities. The quality of OST programs is also shaped by a number of internal factors: the facilities available for programming; staff ratios, makeup, and turnover; access to resources for various activities and field trips; connections with parents and families; and the availability of meaningful professional development for program staff. Training in asset-based approaches to working with emergent bilingual students, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) youth, and students with different abilities, for example, is essential to developing inclusive and respectful environments that serve all students. In addition to these economic and structural dimensions, the increasing policy focus on narrow academic outcomes has reconfigured the relationships between OST and school- based learning, with particular implications for working-class youth and youth of color. Historically, many after-school programs were built on the twin goals of youth development SAGE SAGE Reference Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School LearningPage 2 of 7 http://www.sagepub.com and academic support. Other OST spaces are organized around interest-driven activities such as music, arts, media, sports, and recreational activities—emphasizing the development of young people’s confidence, collaboration, and agency and exposing youth to new interests and possible future paths. However, due to the requirements associated with public and private funding, OST programs are increasingly tasked with demonstrating effectiveness by evidencing impact on academic outcomes (often narrowly defined as raising test scores). In particular, those settings committed to providing free or low-cost programming are more likely to rely on sources of funding that require narrow forms of evaluation, exacerbating existing inequities within the OST landscape. While some argue that this shift is intended to leverage the role of OST programs to support young people’s academic growth, it also significantly constrains the space available for robust intellectual and social activities that may or may not directly translate into increasing test scores. This shift disproportionately affects students who are already experiencing the narrowing of school curriculum under federal policies that have emphasized the use of test results for school accountability and teacher evaluation. Researchers and practitioners are therefore concerned that the standardizing, sorting, and tracking practices that characterize many (though not all) schools will encroach on OST learning environments to the detriment of more inclusive and dynamic practices. In some cases, this encroachment is a direct result of new assessment requirements; in others, it is a local derivative of parents’ desires for OST staff to offer additional homework support, particularly with the increasing demands of the Common Core curriculum adopted by most states. In these cases, OST staff may find themselves negotiating between providing expanded homework support at the request of families, teachers, or administrators and providing the kinds of enrichment activities they might otherwise implement. These enrichment activities may be organized around peer collaboration, play, and the arts, as well as robust forms of disciplinary practice such as hands-on science or creative writing. For example, children engaging in literacy practices within after-school programs may be more likely to have the flexibility to focus on the process rather than the immediate product, to take their time with reading and writing, to engage with texts and linguistic genres that are personally and culturally relevant, and to engage in multiple forms of making meaning. Thus, the kinds of enrichment activities that can take place in OST programs are not counter to academic development. On the contrary, they can serve as an example of what deep and socially meaningful academic engagement might look like, particularly for students who may feel disconnected from disciplinary practices in school. Such approaches can also position youth as competent thinkers and learners within disciplinary domains, a substantive experience of intellectual dignity that is particularly important for students who may be labeled as failing in school. Indeed, some studies have found that (a) the less school-like nature of OST programs is key to their ability to recruit and retain participants and (b) some programs not explicitly focused on academic outcomes produced gains in academic achievement, school engagement, and graduation rates. While these findings contradict the assumption that OST programs need to become more school-like in order to support academic outcomes, there is also a need to expand how “outcomes” are defined to reflect the full range of academic and social practices supported by OST settings. This last point touches on a key argument highlighted by equity frameworks: The need to study and assert the value of OST settings on their own terms. There are multiple layers to this issue. First, there is a need to widen our view of OST learning to include the range of cultural and historical repertoires of practice young people develop across settings. This includes the forms of apprenticeship and learning that emerge both within OST educational programs and in the context of family, peer groups, hobbies, and other everyday activities. SAGE SAGE Reference Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School LearningPage 3 of 7 http://www.sagepub.com This view is essential to challenging reductive conceptions of culture and traditional forms of research and assessment that portray the practices of young people—particularly working- class youth and youth of color—as deviating from dominant cultural norms. Equity-oriented researchers therefore seek to illuminate the dynamic histories of practice, ways of knowing, forms of joint activity, and value systems present in various cultural contexts as a foundation for studying locally defined learning processes and outcomes. This is particularly pressing for youth whose out-of-school lives are treated as obstacles to be overcome rather than resources to draw on or whose interest-driven practices and forms of expertise are devalued in school. Such research can also help challenge the assumption that school-like learning necessarily involves greater cognitive demands than learning within everyday settings. Second, this lens is essential for approaching the pedagogical design of OST settings in ways that do not implicitly reproduce assimilationist ideologies (those that take dominant linguistic, cultural, and intellectual practices for granted as the ideal end points of development). This is a key distinction between the “access” and “equity” frames: To what extent do OST learning opportunities account for the histories of practice young people are involved in? Do they value and build on multiple ways of knowing, and if so, how? What kinds of mentorship and tools are available to help youth navigate everyday encounters with racialization and other forms of marginalization? Research that stops at providing equal access risks overlooking the need for explicit attention to issues of culture, race, and power, including the forms of exclusion that can emerge in settings designed based on the cultural norms and experiences of dominant populations. This “sameness as fairness” model has been shown to be an inadequate approach to bringing about substantive forms of equity. Third, from a disciplinary perspective, attending to issues of epistemology and power is not only useful for broadening participation in fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) but can also assert the space to take critical views of the disciplines themselves, and to support young people in simultaneously participating in and expanding what counts as science or literacy. Indeed, OST settings may be especially rich contexts for the generative expansion of disciplinary boundaries. In an after-school tinkering program designed and studied by Meg Escudé and Shirin Vossoughi, educators routinely introduced new scientific and artistic activities by inviting elementary-age children to draw connections to their everyday experiences. These connections were not only treated as bridges to science, as defined from a dominant perspective (science is culture and value free, takes place in the lab, utilizes the scientific method). Rather, they were treated as legitimate forms of scientific practice that reflect a range of values and epistemologies. This approach draws on foundational research by Douglas Medin and Megan Bang on the cultural dimensions of science, the centering of indigenous epistemologies in science education, and the pedagogical roles this approach can open up for parents and other community members. Thus, attending to issues of epistemology and power is necessary to understanding how, specifically, young people are positioned and supported in OST spaces, the moment-to- moment opportunities for learning available therein, and the deeper values and purposes of educational activity. Current Research and Policy Considerations While the preceding sections outline both the areas of overlap and debates among researchers studying access and equity in OST learning, there is some consensus within the field that high-quality OST programs are intentional learning environments. Intentional learning environments are as follows: SAGE SAGE Reference Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School LearningPage 4 of 7 http://www.sagepub.com Youth centered, taking an assets-based approach and prioritizing both adult mentorship and youth leadership Knowledge centered, developing clear learning foci and high-quality instruction, and designing for fluid movement between expert and novice roles such that young people’s intellectual resources and forms of expertise are taken seriously, and teachers also recognize themselves as learners Assessment centered, with assessment defined as formative feedback and opportunities for authentic performance and recognition; this approach to assessment parallels the historical role after-school staff have played in supporting students with academic struggles without defining them by those struggles The Fifth Dimension program provides one example of this approach. The Fifth Dimension is a network of university–community partnerships that bring together undergraduate students and elementary-age children to engage in joint activity around play, literacy, and technology in after-school settings. In contrast to adult-centered models, the Fifth Dimension’s focus on shared activity and bidirectional learning reorganizes interactions such that academic struggles are remediated through social supports and authentic activities. The program is inspired by the sociocultural approach of Lev Vygotsky, in which all participants learn through collaborative engagement with robust tools, ideas, and social relations. Fifth Dimension and similar programs also intentionally support undergraduate students and preservice teachers to reflect on their assumptions about children and learning, grapple with what sociocultural theories mean in practice, and expand their views of students’ potential and capabilities. Researchers also define high-quality OST programs as providing an inclusive social network and structure, challenging learning experiences and opportunities to form strong social bonds with peers and adults. These qualities are reflected in the aspects of OST programs that youth themselves identify as the most valuable: supportive relationships with adults and peers, safety, and opportunities to learn. Young people also report being most affected by the experience of leadership, opportunities to make a difference in their community, and the sense that they matter within the setting or community. In this vein, programs such as Oakland’s Youth Radio and Chicago’s YOUmedia provide opportunities for youth to engage in creative media production and journalism grounded in their lived experiences and perspectives. Youth Radio has developed a pedagogy of collegiality whereby young people and adults draw on one another’s skills and perspectives to create original, multitextual, and professional quality work for outside audiences. These settings support the argument that designing intellectually rich and equitable OST programs must include identity and affect as core elements of learning. Implications These findings on access and equity have three main implications for OST. First, there is a need for a much greater investment in OST programs, particularly in communities where there is a high need for such programming. Many researchers and advocates agree that this investment ought to prioritize greater support for the staff who do the everyday work of developing and running youth programs in the form of appropriate compensation, professional development, and the recruitment and retention of educators with diverse cultural backgrounds and forms of expertise. Currently, OST staff play multiple roles as teachers, tutors, counselors, mentors, and advocates. Investment in professional development should include both ongoing training and appropriate time for preparing activities and reflecting on implementation. Time to debrief and reflect is crucial for staff to collectively identify and address the inequities that can reemerge in moment-to-moment decisions and interactions SAGE SAGE Reference Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School LearningPage 5 of 7 http://www.sagepub.com with young people. Overall, there is consensus in the field that the long-term social bonds identified in the literature as fundamental to positive youth development deserve to be safeguarded and sustained through greater support for OST educators. Second, there is a need to move away from narrow, test-based forms of evaluation. In their place, researchers have called for more dynamic and formative models of assessment that account for the local values and approaches to learning within OST settings. Though positive youth development and academic growth are not at odds, there is a stated need for more expansive measures and ways of assessing a range of approaches to disciplinary learning. At the same time, children and youth need spaces to play and to connect with one another and with positive mentors who are not limited to the academic outcomes of school. Significant learning outcomes within informal environments are diverse and often unanticipated prior to the learner’s participation in the activity. Thus, Jay Lemke and others argue that robust assessment must attend to cognitive, socioemotional, and identity-based outcomes at the level of the individual, the group, and the larger project or community. For equity-oriented researchers, a widened view of learning outcomes is also essential to challenging deficit orientations and recognizing the range of cultural practices and forms of ingenuity young people enact in their everyday lives. More broadly, researchers have called for reimagining the gap between school-based and OST learning by creating meaningful pathways for youth to move between informal or interest-driven practices and academic and professional domains. Thus, OST settings can not only play a crucial role in the social and academic development of youth, but they can also stand as examples of what is possible when learning is conceptualized not only as a cognitive process but also as a social, emotional, cultural, and historical activity grounded in community-based values and visions for the future. See alsoPolicies Supporting Out-of-School Learning; Race and Ethnicity in Out-of-School Learning; Social Class and Socioeconomic Status Shirin Vossoughi http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483385198.n7 10.4135/9781483385198.n7 Further Readings Chávez, V., & Soep, E. (2005). Youth radio and the pedagogy of collegiality. Harvard Educational Review, 75(4), 409–434. Halpern, R. (2002). A different kind of child development institution: The history of after-school programs for low-income children. Teachers College Record, 104(2), 178–211. Lemke, J. L., Lecusay, R., Cole, M., & Michalchik, V. (2012). Documenting and assessing learning in informal and media-rich environments. Cambridge: MIT Press. McLaughlin, M. W. (2000). Community counts: How youth organizations matter for youth development. Washington, DC: Public Education Network. Medin, D. L., & Bang, M. (2014). Who’s asking? Native science, Western science, and science education. Cambridge: MIT Press. Nasir, N. I. S., Rosebery, A. S., Warren, B., & Lee, C. D. (2006). Learning as a cultural process: Achieving equity through diversity. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 489–504). Cambridge: MIT Press. Nocon, H., & Cole, M. (2006). School’s invasion of “after-school:” Colonization, rationalization or expansion of access? I n Z. Bekerman, N. C. Burbules, & D. Silberman-Keller (Eds.), Learning in places: The informal education reader (pp. 99–122). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Vossoughi, S., & Gutiérrez, K. (2014). Studying movement, hybridity, and change: Toward a SAGE SAGE Reference Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School LearningPage 6 of 7 http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-out-of-school-learning/i6993.xml http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-out-of-school-learning/i7381.xml http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-out-of-school-learning/i8102.xml http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483385198.n7 http://www.sagepub.com multi-sited sensibility for research on learning across contexts and borders. Teachers College Record, 116(14), 603–632. SAGE SAGE Reference Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School LearningPage 7 of 7 http://www.sagepub.com 12 1 Climbing Out of the Gap Supporting Dependent Learners to Become Independent Thinkers Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the prac- tice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. —Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed T he chronic achievement gap in most American schools has created an epidemic of dependent learners unprepared to do the higher order thinking, creative problem solving and analytical reading and writ- ing called for in the new Common Core State Standards. One of the goals of education is not simply to fill students with facts and information but to help them learn how to learn. Classroom studies document the fact that underserved English learners, poor students, and students of color rou- tinely receive less instruction in higher order skills development than other students (Allington and McGill-Franzen, 1989; Darling-Hammond, 2001; Oakes, 2005). Their curriculum is less challenging and more repetitive. Their instruction is more focused on skills low on Bloom’s tax- onomy. This type of instruction denies students the opportunity to engage in what neuroscientists call productive struggle that actually grows our Copyright © 2015 by Corwin Climbing Out of the Gap • 13 brainpower (Means & Knapp, 1991; Ritchhart, 2002). As a result, a dis- proportionate number of culturally and linguistically diverse students are dependent learners. Here is the problem. On his own, a dependent learner is not able to do complex, school-oriented learning tasks such as synthesizing and analyz- ing informational text without continuous support. Let’s not misunder- stand the point—dependent doesn’t mean deficit. As children enter school, we expect that they are dependent learners. One of our key jobs in the early school years is to help students become independent learners. We expect students to be well on their way to becoming independent learners by third grade, but we still find a good number of students who struggle with rigorous content well into high school, mostly students of color. The closest we usually come to talking about this situation is the popu- lar “Read by Third Grade” campaigns. We say children are learning to read up until third grade then shift to reading to learn. The same is true with cognition. In the early grades, we teach children habits of mind and help them build cognitive processes and structures so that as they move through school they are able to do complex thinking and independent learning. For culturally and linguistically diverse students, their opportunities to develop habits of mind and cognitive capacities are limited or non-existent because of educational inequity. The result is their cognitive growth is stunted, leaving them dependent learners, unable to work to their full potential. In the New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblind- ness, Michelle Alexander (2012) suggests that this dependency is the first leg of the “school-to-prison pipeline” for many students of color. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the school-to-prison is a set of seem- ingly unconnected school policies and teacher instructional decisions that over time result in students of color not receiving adequate literacy and content instruction while being disproportionately disciplined for nonspe- cific, subjective offenses such as “defiance.” Students of color, especially African American and Latino boys, end up spending valuable instructional time in the office rather than in the classroom. Consequently, they fall fur- ther and further behind in reading achievement just as reading is becom- ing the primary tool they will need for taking in new content. Student frustration and shame at being labeled “a slow reader” and having low comprehension leads to more off-task behavior, which the teacher responds to by sending the student out of the classroom. Over time, many students of color are pushed out of school because they cannot keep up academi- cally because of poor reading skills and a lack of social-emotional support to deal with their increasing frustration. Copyright © 2015 by Corwin 14 • Building Awareness and Knowledge In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about the reasons behind the low performance of many students of color, English learners, and poor students. Rather than examine school policies and teacher practices, some attribute it to a “culture of poverty” or different community values toward education. The reality is that they struggle not because of their race, language, or pov- erty. They struggle because we don’t offer them sufficient opportunities in the classroom to develop the cognitive skills and habits of mind that would pre- pare them to take on more advanced academic tasks (Jackson, 2011; Boykin and Noguera, 2011). That’s the achievement gap in action. The reasons they are not offered more opportunities for rigor are rooted in the education sys- tem’s legacy of “separate and unequal” (Kozol, 2006; Oakes, 2005). School practices that emphasize lecture and rote memorization are part of what Martin Haberman (1991) calls a “pedagogy of poverty” that sets students up to leave high school with outdated skills and shallow knowledge. They are able to regurgitate facts and concepts but have diffi- culty applying this knowledge in new and practical ways. To be able to direct their own lives and define success for themselves, they must be able to think critically and creatively. As educators, we have to recognize that we help maintain the achieve- ment gap when we don’t teach advance cognitive skills to students we label as “disadvantaged” because of their language, gender, race, or socio- economic status. Many children start school with small learning gaps, but as they progress through school, the gap between African American and Many culturally and linguistically diverse students are “dependent learners” who don’t get adequate support to facilitate their cognitive growth. Consequently, they are not able to activate their own neuroplasticity. Figure 1.1 The Dependent Learner The Independent Learner • Is dependent on the teacher to carry most of the cognitive load of a task always • Is unsure of how to tackle a new task • Cannot complete a task without scaffolds • Will sit passively and wait if stuck until teacher intervenes • Doesn’t retain information well or “doesn’t get it” • Relies on the teacher to carry some of the cognitive load temporarily • Utilizes strategies and processes for tackling a new task • Regularly attempts new tasks without scaffolds • Has cognitive strategies for getting unstuck • Has learned how to retrieve information from long-term memory Dependent Learner Characteristics vs. Independent Learner Copyright © 2015 by Corwin Climbing Out of the Gap • 15 Latino and White students grows because we don’t teach them how to be independent learners. Based on these labels, we usually do the following (Mean & Knapp, 1991): •• Underestimate what disadvantaged students are intellectually capable of doing •• As a result, we postpone more challenging and interesting work until we believe they have mastered “the basics” •• By focusing only on low-level basics, we deprive students of a meaningful or motivating context for learning and practicing higher order thinking processes Just increasing standards and instructional rigor won’t reverse this epi- demic. Dependent learners cannot become independent learners by sheer willpower. It is not just a matter of grit or mindset. Grit and mindset are necessary but not sufficient by themselves. We have to help dependent stu- dents develop new cognitive skills and habits of mind that will actually increase their brainpower. Students with increased brainpower can acceler- ate their own learning, meaning they know how to learn new content and improve their weak skills on their own. While the achievement gap has created the epidemic of dependent learners, culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is one of our most pow- erful tools for helping students find their way out of the gap. A systematic approach to culturally responsive teaching is the perfect catalyst to stimu- late the brain’s neuroplasticity so that it grows new brain cells that help students think in more sophisticated ways. I define culturally responsive teaching simply as . . . An educator’s ability to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making and respond positively and con- structively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in relationship and having a social-emotional connection to the stu- dent in order to create a safe space for learning. Numerous studies have demonstrated that culturally responsive educa- tion can strengthen student connectedness with school and enhance learning (Kalyanpur, 2012; Tatum, 2009). There has been a lot written about cultural responsiveness as part of the current reform agenda. As a teacher educator, I see teacher Copyright © 2015 by Corwin 16 • Building Awareness and Knowledge education programs pushing to include cultural responsiveness in their list of competencies for beginning teachers. Many states require teachers to have some type of cross-cultural, language, and academic development (CLAD) certification. Teacher induction programs that support new teachers in their first years in the classroom try to cover the topic in their beginning teacher mentoring programs. Most school districts only offer teachers one-shot professional development “train- ings” with little or no continued support. Too often, culturally respon- sive teaching is promoted as a way to reduce behavior problems or motivate students, while downplaying or ignoring its ability to sup- port rigorous cognitive development. THE MARRIAGE OF NEUROPLASTICITY AND CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING I can’t tell you the number of times someone has asked me for the cultur- ally responsive “cheat sheet” for working with African American, Latino, or even Middle Eastern students. A good number of teachers who have asked me about cultural responsiveness think of it as a “bag of tricks.” Far from being a bag of tricks, culturally responsive teaching is a peda- gogical approach firmly rooted in learning theory and cognitive science. When used effectively, culturally responsive pedagogy has the ability to help students build intellective capacity, also called fluid intelligence (Ritchhart, 2002) and intellective competence (Gordon, 2001; National Study Group for the Affirmative Development of Academic Ability, 2004). Intellective capacity is the increased power the brain creates to process complex information more effectively. Neuroscience tells us that culture plays a critical role in this process. That’s why it is so important for cultur- ally responsive teachers to be well-versed in brain science and cultural understanding. Beyond knowing the brain science, the biggest challenge I see teachers struggling with is how to operationalize culturally responsive pedagogical principles into culturally responsive teaching practices. It means understanding the basic concepts of culturally responsive peda- gogy (Hernandez-Sheets, 2009; Nieto, 2009; Villegas and Lucas, 2002) and then learning the instructional moves associated with them. The Ready for Rigor framework is designed to help teachers do just that with the aid of neuroscience to deepen your understanding (Figure 1.2). This simple framework organizes key areas of teacher capacity building that set the stage for helping students move from being dependent learners to self-directed, independent learners. Copyright © 2015 by Corwin Climbing Out of the Gap • 17 Ready for Rigor FrameworkFigure 1.2 AWARENESS ��Understand the three levels of culture � Recognize cultural archetypes of individualism and collectivism ��Understand how the brain learns � Acknowledge the socio-political context around race and language ��Know and own your cultural lens ��Recognize your brain’s triggers around race and culture ��Broaden your interpretation of culturally and linguistically diverse students learning behaviors LEARNING PARTNERSHIPS ��Reimagine the student and teacher relationship as a partnership ��Take responsibility to reduce students’ social-emotional stress from stereotype threat and microagressions ��Balance giving students both care and push ��Help students cultivate a positive mindset and sense of self-efficacy � Support each student to take greater ownership for his learning ��Give students language to talk about their learning moves INFORMATION PROCESSING ��Provide appropriate challenge in order to stimulate brain growth to increase intellective capacity ��Help students process new content using methods from oral traditions ��Connect new content to culturally relevant examples and metaphors from students’ community and everyday lives ��Provide students authentic opportunities to process content ��Teach students cognitive routines using the brain’s natural learning systems ��Use formative assessments and feedback to increase intellective capactiy COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENT � Create an environment that is intellectually and socially safe for learning � Make space for student voice and agency � Build classroom culture and learning around communal (sociocultural) talk and task structures � Use classroom rituals and routines to support a culture of learning � Use principles of restorative justice to manage conflicts and redirect negative behavior Validation W is e F ee db ac k Instructional C onversation Aff irmation Students are Ready for Rigor and Independent Learning Copyright © 2015 by Corwin 18 • Building Awareness and Knowledge THE FOUR PRACTICE AREAS OF CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING Learning to put culturally responsive teaching into operation is like learn- ing to rub your head and pat your stomach at the same time. This move feels a bit awkward at first because you have to get your hands to perform two different movements in unison. The trick is to get each movement going independently then synchronizing them into one rhythmic motion. Learning to operationalize culturally responsive teaching is much like rubbing your head and patting your stomach at the same time. The prac- tices are only effective when done together. In unison they create a syner- getic effect. The Ready for Rigor framework lays out four separate practice areas that are interdependent. When the tools and strategies of each area are blended together, they create the social, emotional and cognitive con- ditions that allow students to more actively engage and take ownership of their learning process. The framework is divided into four core areas. The individual components are connected through the principles of brain-based learning: Practice Area I: Awareness Successfully teaching students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds—especially students from historically marginalized groups—involves more than just applying specialized teaching tech- niques. It means placing instruction within the larger sociopolitical context. In this first practice area, we explore the development of our sociopolitical lens. Every culturally responsive teacher develops a socio- political consciousness, an understanding that we live in a racialized society that gives unearned privilege to some while others experience unearned disadvantage because of race, gender, class, or language. They are aware of the role that schools play in both perpetuating and chal- lenging those inequities. They are also aware of the impact of their own cultural lens on interpreting and evaluating students’ individual or col- lective behavior that might lead to low expectations or undervaluing the knowledge and skills they bring to school. Mastering this practice area helps teachers •• Locate and acknowledge their own sociopolitical position •• Sharpen and tune their cultural lens •• Learn to manage their own social-emotional response to student diversity Copyright © 2015 by Corwin Climbing Out of the Gap • 19 Practice Area II: Learning Partnerships The second practice area focuses on building trust with students across differences so that the teacher is able to create a social-emotional partnership for deeper learning. Culturally responsive teachers take advantage of the fact that our brains are wired for connection. As they move through the work in this area, teachers build capacity to •• Establish an authentic connection with students that builds mutual trust and respect •• Leverage the trust bond to help students rise to higher expectations •• Give feedback in emotionally intelligent ways so students are able to take it in and act on it •• Hold students to high standards while offering them new intellectual challenges Practice Area III: Information Processing The third practice area focuses on knowing how to strengthen and expand students’ intellective capacity so that they can engage in deeper, more complex learning. The culturally responsive teacher is the conduit that helps students process what they are learning. They mediate student learning based on what they know about how the brain learns and stu- dents’ cultural models. This practice area outlines the process, strategies, tactics, and tools for engaging students in high-leverage social and instructional activities that over time build higher order thinking skills. Moving through this area, teachers learn how to •• Understand how culture impacts the brain’s information processing •• Orchestrate learning so it builds student’s brain power in culturally congruent ways •• Use brain-based information processing strategies common to oral cultures Practice Area IV: Community Building In the fourth practice area, we focus on creating an environment that feels socially and intellectually safe for dependent learners to stretch themselves and take risks. Too often, we think of the physical set up of our classroom as being culturally “neutral” when in reality it is often an extension of the teacher’s worldview or the dominant culture. The cultur- ally responsive teacher tries to create an environment that communicates Copyright © 2015 by Corwin 20 • Building Awareness and Knowledge care, support, and belonging in ways that students recognize. As they move through this practice area, teachers understand how to •• Integrate universal cultural elements and themes into the classroom •• Use cultural practices and orientations to create a socially and intellectually safe space •• Set up rituals and routines that reinforce self-directed learning and academic identity CHAPTER SUMMARY • The achievement gap has denied underserved students of color and English learners opportunities to develop the cognitive skills and pro- cesses that help them become independent learners. • Culturally responsive teaching is a powerful tool to help dependent learners develop the cognitive skills for higher order thinking. • Culturally responsive teaching uses the brain principles from neurosci- ence to mediate learning effectively. • The Ready for Rigor framework helps us operationalize culturally responsive teaching. INVITATION TO INQUIRY • How is your school addressing the needs of low-performing students of color? • How do you support struggling students to become independent learners? • How have you and your colleagues operationalized the principles of cul- turally responsive teaching? GOING DEEPER To deepen your knowledge, here are some books, reports, and articles I would recommend: •• All Students Reaching the Top: Strategies for Closing Academic Achievement Gaps by the National Study Group for the Affirmative Development of Academic Ability. •• The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future by Linda Darling-Hammond. Copyright © 2015 by Corwin But Thats Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Gloria Ladson-Billings Theory into Practice, Vol. 34, No. 3, Culturally Relevant Teaching. (Summer, 1995), pp. 159-165. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841\%28199522\%2934\%3A3\%3C159\%3ABTJGTT\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-E Theory into Practice is currently published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/leb.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected] http://www.jstor.org Thu May 31 14:55:35 2007 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841\%28199522\%2934\%3A3\%3C159\%3ABTJGTT\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-E http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html http://www.jstor.org/journals/leb.html You have printed the following article: But Thats Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Gloria Ladson-Billings Theory into Practice, Vol. 34, No. 3, Culturally Relevant Teaching. (Summer, 1995), pp. 159-165. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841\%28199522\%2934\%3A3\%3C159\%3ABTJGTT\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-E This article references the following linked citations. If you are trying to access articles from an off-campus location, you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR. Please visit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR. References The Afrocentric Idea in Education Molefi Kete Asante The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 60, No. 2. (Spring, 1991), pp. 170-180. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2984\%28199121\%2960\%3A2\%3C170\%3ATAIIE\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-L Racial Attitude Development among Young Black Children as a Function of Parental Attitudes: A Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Study Curtis W. Branch; Nora Newcombe Child Development, Vol. 57, No. 3. (Jun., 1986), pp. 712-721. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-3920\%28198606\%2957\%3A3\%3C712\%3ARADAYB\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-Z Translating Culture: From Ethnographic Information to Educational Program Cathie Jordan Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2, Applying Educational Anthropology. (Summer, 1985), pp. 105-123. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-7761\%28198522\%2916\%3A2\%3C105\%3ATCFEIT\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-0 http://www.jstor.org LINKED CITATIONS - Page 1 of 2 - http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841\%28199522\%2934\%3A3\%3C159\%3ABTJGTT\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-E&origin=JSTOR-pdf http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2984\%28199121\%2960\%3A2\%3C170\%3ATAIIE\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-L&origin=JSTOR-pdf http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-3920\%28198606\%2957\%3A3\%3C712\%3ARADAYB\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-Z&origin=JSTOR-pdf http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-7761\%28198522\%2916\%3A2\%3C105\%3ATCFEIT\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-0&origin=JSTOR-pdf Liberatory Consequences of Literacy: A Case of Culturally Relevant Instruction for African American Students Gloria Ladson-Billings The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 61, No. 3, Africentrism and Multiculturalism: Conflict or Consonance. (Summer, 1992), pp. 378-391. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2984\%28199222\%2961\%3A3\%3C378\%3ALCOLAC\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-G Reading between the Lines and beyond the Pages: A Culturally Relevant Approach to Literacy Teaching Gloria Ladson-Billings Theory into Practice, Vol. 31, No. 4, Literacy and the African-American Learner. (Autumn, 1992), pp. 312-320. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841\%28199223\%2931\%3A4\%3C312\%3ARBTLAB\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-E Explaining School Failure, Producing School Success: Two Cases Lynn A. Vogt; Cathie Jordan; Roland G. Tharp Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4, Explaining the School Performance of Minority Students. (Dec., 1987), pp. 276-286. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-7761\%28198712\%2918\%3A4\%3C276\%3AESFPSS\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-6 http://www.jstor.org LINKED CITATIONS - Page 2 of 2 - http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2984\%28199222\%2961\%3A3\%3C378\%3ALCOLAC\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-G&origin=JSTOR-pdf http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-5841\%28199223\%2931\%3A4\%3C312\%3ARBTLAB\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-E&origin=JSTOR-pdf http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-7761\%28198712\%2918\%3A4\%3C276\%3AESFPSS\%3E2.0.CO\%3B2-6&origin=JSTOR-pdf