SERVE, VERVE, OBSERVE Your Way to Culturally Responsive Teaching: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks to Reach Marginalized Students

In this informative and interactive session, participants will use a 3 step framework to tweak their classroom practices to become more culturally responsive educators.

In part 1, SERVE, participants will learn how to move beyond cultural fairs and cultural celebrations to integrate culturally relevant content into their curriculum that truly connects with learners' identities and experiences, thus improving overall school climate.

In part 2, VERVE, participants will learn how to tweak the way they deliver lessons to engage students from communal cultures in order to do academically rigorous work. Participants will even practice some of these strategies in an online environment and view videos of what that instruction can look like in the classroom. Not only will these tweaks improve instruction for all students, it is a key factor in closing the academic achievement gap.

The final part of this session, OBSERVE, will explain how to use teacher observations to develop learning ally-ships with students, as well as how to leverage observations of students to choose the right culturally responsive teaching pedagogy for each student. At the heart of culturally responsive teaching is learning how to be responsive. Educators will also learn how to differentiate between deviant behaviors and cultural behaviors which are often mislabeled.

To keep participants engaged through the PD, breakout rooms, polls, games, videos, humor, discussions, and other interactive tools will be utilized to share this researched-backed content. All participants will walk away with printable resources and ideas which can be implemented the very next day!