Professional Development

Developing and Piloting a Tool to Assess Culturally Responsive Principles in Schools Serving Indigenous Students

This article presents a tool and discusses the rationale for the authors’ development of a tool designed to assess the alignment of culturally responsive schooling principles within schools serving predominantly U.S. Indigenous students.
Author/Presenter

Angelina Castagno

Darold H. Joseph

Hosava Kretzmann

Pradeep M. Dass

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2021
Short Description

This article presents a tool and discusses the rationale for the authors’ development of a tool designed to assess the alignment of culturally responsive schooling principles within schools serving predominantly U.S. Indigenous students. Schools that serve a majority of Indigenous students are generally located on or bordering Native Nations that are federally recognized as being sovereign Nations with a government-to-government relationship to the federal government, so the more generic diversity, equity, and inclusion tools that currently exist are insufficient for the unique contexts of schools in Indian Country. Thus, we offer a tool that can be used to identify and strengthen the integration of culturally responsive principles specifically for, with, and in Indigenous-serving schools.

Resource(s)

“Well That's How the Kids Feel!”—Epistemic Empathy as a Driver of Responsive Teaching

While research shows that responsive teaching fosters students' disciplinary learning and equitable opportunities for participation, there is yet much to know about how teachers come to be responsive to their students' experiences in the science classroom. In this work, we set out to examine whether and how engaging teachers as learners in doing science may support responsive instructional practices.

Author/Presenter

Lama Z. Jaber

Vesal Dini

David Hammer

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2021
Short Description

In this article, the authors present evidence from teachers' reflections that this stability was supported by the teachers' intellectual and emotional experiences as learners. Specifically, they argue that engaging in extended scientific inquiry provided a basis for the teachers having epistemic empathy for their students—their tuning into and appreciating their students' intellectual and emotional experiences in science, which in turn supported teachers' responsiveness in the classroom.

Promoting Teacher Self-Efficacy for Supporting English Learners in Mathematics: Effects of the Visual Access to Mathematics Professional Development

Teachers’ confidence and facility with strategies that position and support students who are English learners (ELs) as active participants in middle grades mathematics classrooms are key to facilitating ELs’ mathematics learning. The Visual Access to Mathematics (VAM) project developed and studied teacher professional development (PD) focused on linguistically-responsive teaching to facilitate ELs’ mathematical problem solving and discourse.

Author/Presenter

Jill Neumayer DePiper

Josephine Louie

Johannah Nikula

Pamela Buffington

Peter Tierney-Fife

Mark Driscoll

Year
2021
Short Description

The Visual Access to Mathematics (VAM) project developed and studied teacher professional development (PD) focused on linguistically-responsive teaching to facilitate ELs’ mathematical problem solving and discourse. This study examines whether VAM PD has a positive impact on teachers’ self-efficacy in supporting ELs in mathematics and how components of the PD may have influenced teacher outcomes.

Reaching Across the Hallway: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Supporting Computer Science in Rural Schools

Principal Investigator:

"Reaching Across the Hallway: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Supporting Computer Science in Rural Schools" is in its first project year. Our goal is to design and develop a train-the-trainer professional development model that supports 5th-8th grade teachers in integrating culturally relevant computer science into their rural, social studies classrooms.

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Teacher Professional Learning to Support Student Motivational Competencies During Science Instruction (Collaborative Research: Harris, Linnenbrink-Garcia, and Marchand)

Principal Investigator:

This collaborative project uses co-design as a strategy to develop a professional learning approach to help middle school teachers support students' motivation and engagement in the context of NGSS instruction. The project brings together motivation experts, science education researchers, and middle school science teachers. The poster outlines the project goals, introduces five motivation design principles, and describes four tools that were co-developed to support teachers' professional learning and practice for supporting student motivation.

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Target Audience:

Teacher Professional Learning to Support Student Motivational Competencies During Science Instruction (Collaborative Research: Harris, Linnenbrink-Garcia, and Marchand)

Principal Investigator:

This collaborative project uses co-design as a strategy to develop a professional learning approach to help middle school teachers support students' motivation and engagement in the context of NGSS instruction. The project brings together motivation experts, science education researchers, and middle school science teachers. The poster outlines the project goals, introduces five motivation design principles, and describes four tools that were co-developed to support teachers' professional learning and practice for supporting student motivation.

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Target Audience:

Teacher Professional Learning to Support Student Motivational Competencies During Science Instruction (Collaborative Research: Harris, Linnenbrink-Garcia, and Marchand)

Principal Investigator:

This collaborative project uses co-design as a strategy to develop a professional learning approach to help middle school teachers support students' motivation and engagement in the context of NGSS instruction. The project brings together motivation experts, science education researchers, and middle school science teachers. The poster outlines the project goals, introduces five motivation design principles, and describes four tools that were co-developed to support teachers' professional learning and practice for supporting student motivation.

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Target Audience:

Sensing Science through Modeling: Developing Kindergarten Students' Understanding of Matter and Its Changes

Principal Investigator:

The Sensing Science through Modeling Matter: Kindergarten Students’ Development of Understanding of Matter and Its Changes project has developed and researched a technology-enriched curriculum to support learning about matter and its changes at the kindergarten level. Traditionally, particle-based worlds are introduced in upper elementary school when children already hold incorrect ideas that are difficult to change. Early learners have significant—and highly untapped—potential for understanding abstract concepts and reasoning in sophisticated ways.

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Target Audience:

Strengthening STEM Teaching in Native American Serving Schools through Long-Term, Culturally Responsive Professional Development

Principal Investigator:

This is a 4-year, level II Exploratory study within the teaching strand of DRK12. The research explores the functioning and impact of a nationally-developed STEM professional development model within the Navajo Nation. Teacher participants represent the entire K-12 grade range and multiple content areas, and they all participate in an innovative STEM-content, culturally responsive, 8-month professional development fellowship. We explore the extent to which culturally responsive principles are evident in their self-authored curriculum units.

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Target Audience:

BioGraph 2.0: Online Professional Development for High School Biology Teachers for Teaching and Learning About Complex Systems

Principal Investigator:

The purpose of this study has been to address the accessibility and efficacy of high quality professional development by modifying a successful in-person PD to be delivered on the edX platform. The PD course introduces BioGraph, a curriculum that uses computer-based simulations to teach biology concepts and complex systems ideas. The study has taken place over the last four years with teachers from across the globe, and in biology classrooms across the US and in India with teachers and students who are working with the BioGraph curriculum.

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