700 - Unit of Work Muhammad Ali

EDCURSEC 700 - Culturally Responsive Pedagogies

Unit of Work - Part B
Muhammad Ali (5600793)

PART B - CRT REFLECTION

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is acknowledging that learners in a classroom are culturally located
individuals and is the teachers commitment and ability to identify, utilize and value students languages,
identities and cultural backgrounds as meaningful resources for learning (Gay, 2010). It is about creating
a pedagogical framework that bridges the gap between home, school and the community culture
(Ladson-Billings, 1995). CRT requires; the delivery of instruction and content to have an aspect of
multiculturalism; an understanding of ethnic groups having different values; being aware of factual
cultural realities of learners; contextualisation of issues; and creating a conducive learning classroom
climate for ethnically diverse students (Gay, 2002). CRT occurs when teachers are aware of the two
worlds of their learners; the formal education and the individuals own world (Samu, 2006).

Pencil Code screenshot

Picking the topic for my unit was imperative to foster CRT. Gay (2010) states that most culturally diverse
students and their teachers live in different worlds, and they do not fully understand or appreciate one
anothers experiential realities (pg 144). Coding can be seen as a very foreign and westernised field of
computing. Almost all students in my class were end users of this technology and it was important for me
to familiarise them with the creating and generating stages. In order to do this, I needed to understand
that most of the families would not consider many job prospects of coding for their children even though
there is a high need for this. Therefore I had to appreciate the realities of my students worlds and also
have high expectations of them to be able to understand and be able to generate their own code. Coding
being a fairly new type of learning, it was also my social responsibility to teach my students about this
field where more and more jobs are opening up and therefore it was important for my students to have
exposure to this. Caring is a moral imperative, a social responsibility, and a pedagogical necessity
(Gay, 2002, pg 109). CRT outlines the teachers responsibility of using their knowledge and thinking to
decide the best interests of their learners through societal and community influences. The knowledge
of interest is information about ethnically diverse groups; the strategic thinking is how this cultural
knowledge is used to redesign teaching and learning (Gay, 2002, pg 109). At the end of my unit, the
parent evening played a big role in conveying this social responsibility to the whanau of my students and
bridging that gap between school and home.

In this reflection, I will be using Gays (2010) framework to reflect on how CRT was implemented within
my Pencil Code unit.

It acknowledges the different cultural heritage of pupils as legacies that affect their learning and
as valuable content within the curriculum.

There are two particular aspects of my unit that acknowledges the cultural heritage of my pupils as
legacies; learning loop commands through the creation of cultural patterns; and learning coding

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coordinates through creating Matariki star clusters. Here I will talk about the Matariki lesson and later on
will address the cultural patterns which also meets a different framework of CRT. The lesson required
students to learn about how coordinates work in coding. I wanted to refer back to Mori legend of
Matariki and how this type of knowledge had existed in the heritage of Mori culture. CRT is utilising the
local culture to build foundations for all education (Fickel, Macfarlane, & Macfarlane, 2017). So students
coded an animation of the Matariki star cluster. Prior to this lesson, students were scaffolded on different
elements of coding that would come together to form what they would be doing in this lesson. In this
lesson they were introduced to a new concept of coordinates by exploring their cultural heritage.
Teachers need to know how to use cultural scaffolding in teaching these studentsthat is, using their
own cultures and experiences to expand their intellectual horizons and academic achievement (Gay,
2002, pg 109).

Student work - Matariki coded

It bridges the gap between home and school, and between academic concepts and sociocultural
realities.

CRT is the first step of bridging the gap between home and school (Ladson-Billings, 1995). At the end of
my unit and a different Robotics unit which I also taught as part of the 9 DTP course with the same
students, my mentor and I hosted a parent evening to celebrate and showcase student work to whanau.
In the parent evening, students presented their coded animations and their robotic projects to their
whanau followed by an award ceremony where all the students in the class received a digital citizenship
and participation certificate recognising all their hard work and learning. The evening was concluded with
everyone joining in to have some kai. Sharing school projects with whanau and the community forms
CRT by building strong relationships and supports unity (Fickel, Macfarlane, & Macfarlane, 2017). I
believe the evening was very successful and students were able to share their work and have that
connection of school and home. We prepared for this evening in class where students learnt about
whakaatu - presenting. I could see how proud the parents and whanau were seeing their childrens work
and were also able to ask questions about their learning and the field of computing/coding and engage in
valuable conversation between educators and parents. Fickel, Macfarlane, & Macfarlane (2017)
emphasises how whanaungatanga is a core value that provides the necessary foundation for creating
and maintaining a culture of care within classrooms, and school as a community (pg 118).

Parent and whanau 9 DTP evening

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700 - Unit of Work Muhammad Ali

It deploys a variety of teaching and learning strategies.

The most immediate determinant of student success or failure in school depends on the interactions of
teachers and learners at that interface between two culturally embedded worlds - worlds that reflect the
unequal, imbalanced power relations of wider society (Samu, 2006, pg 46). I wanted to deploy teaching
strategies that created a power shift in the classroom with my students where I gave them opportunities
to lead and become the teacher. I used techniques such as asking students to write on the board,
taking the not knowing position and asking students to share their knowledge and teaching me how to
create or code something. CRT calls for teaches to be able to part with their power and create an
environment of shared learning (Ladson-Billings, 1995). I wanted to make students feel that learning was
taking place both ways in our relationship, creating a sense of ako. Building on from this, another
teaching and learning strategy that I deployed was using examples in class that were culturally relevant
to the students. Gay (2010) states that examples consume a large portion of teaching time and are the
meaningfulness bridges for students between academic abstractions and their experiential realities (pg
113). I used examples in class that the students were aware of. I found most of this out from their
personalised reflections journals where they posted on them their interests. So when referring to coding
animation commands, I could give examples of Anime animations which I knew most of them knew and
understood. These strategies were put in place because I wanted my students to feel that I valued their
opinions and feelings creating a caring environment. Caring refers not merely to affective connections
between and among people but to the articulation of a greater sense of commitment to what scholarship
and/or pedagogy can mean in the lives of people (Ladson-Billings, 1995, pg 474).

It encourages and instructs pupils to embrace and praise each others cultural heritages.

Here I would like to share more about the cultural patterns that I had mentioned earlier. For my students
to learn about the loop and fill coding commands, I incorporated cultural patterns into this lesson.
Culturally responsive teachers know how to determine the multicultural strengths and weaknesses of
curriculum designs and instructional materials and make the changes necessary to improve their overall
quality (Gay, 2002, pg 108). Students needed to learn how to code loops that repeated set code in a
circular or linear pattern. This gave me an opportunity to encourage students to embrace their cultures
and create cultural patterns which contained formations of the same fundamentals of repetition, colour fill
and loops. Teaching needs to step away from continually implementing micro contexts and biased
cultures into learning (Samu, 2006). Students then were able to share their cultural patterns and praise
each others designs on Google Classroom. I wanted to create a safe online environment where students
could critique each others work while embracing each others cultural heritages. CRT requires teachers
to not always focus on accomplishments of the same few (Gay, 2002). Through Google Classroom I was
able to comment and give feedback to all students and not be constrained by the time limit of the period.
Students were given another opportunity to share their cultures and stories when it came to the
storytelling part of the unit.

Student work - cultural patterns coded with loop and fill

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700 - Unit of Work Muhammad Ali

It incorporates a range of multicultural information, resources, teaching and learning materials

across all school subjects within the curriculum.

Gay (2002) states that a powerful way to establish CRT is integrating ethnic and cultural diversity into the
most fundamental and high-status subject areas and an examination of school curricula and measures
of student achievement indicates that the highest stakes and highest status school subjects or skill areas
are math, science, reading, and writing (pg 109). This Pencil Code unit incorporated mathematics -
numeracy, art, English - literacy and technology allowing for integrated learning to take place. Gay
(2002) goes on further to emphasise how teachers need to multiculturalize these different subject areas.
Coding requires a high level of numeracy skills when calculating angles, distance, arc and vectors.
However the visual and computerised coding nature of pencil code allowed me to scaffold this and make
it interesting and visually stimulating, increasing productivity and engagement. The storytelling aspect
allowed for reading and writing to occur followed by presenting skills, all fully integrating the multicultural
information, resources and teaching materials.

Overall Reflection

To what extent were you able to cover the elements? What worked well? What proved challenging?
What do you consider to be the limitations of your unit as far an example of the culturally responsive
teaching you aim to do? What would you change next time and why?

I was able to cover most of the elements of my unit and incorporate CRT in it. Aspects that worked well
was establishing a working relationship with the students and families, being able to create a unit with
culturally relevant topics that students found engaging and being able to practice CRT as described
above. An interesting aspect from the readings of CRT, I found was critically looking at caring for
students. Gay (2002) says culturally responsive caring creates an ethical, emotional and academic
partnership with students and teachers need to understand that culturally responsive caring is action
oriented in that it demonstrates high expectations and uses imaginative strategies to ensure academic
success for ethnically diverse students (pg 110). However she further explains that this is a very
different conception of caring than the often-cited notion of gentle nurturing and altruistic concern,
which can lead to benign neglect under the guise of letting students of color make their own way and
move at their own pace (pg 109). This made me think about how I would differentiate students of colour
in my classes. I would think that letting students go at their own pace was allowing for differentiation so
that students are able to grasp new knowledge and understanding at their own pace and not move too
fast but now I think I need to care for them in a way where I would expect them to achieve high.
Teachers have to care so much about ethnically diverse students and their achievement that they
accept nothing less than high-level success from them (Gay, 2002, pg 109). Next time I would also like
to incorporate more Mori taonga - culture and language into my unit. Since the majority of my class was
Pasifika, I decided to concentrate more on Pasifika patterns and cultures. However upholding the rights
of the Treaty, I intend to utilise more Te Reo and Tikanga in my lessons. Something that I really was glad
of doing was using the reflections journals where students could reflect on the learning that was taking
place in class and were able to personalise this however they wanted. I was able to keep and see
progress of every student and adjust my planning and teaching accordingly.

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References

Fickel, L. H., Macfarlane, S., & Macfarlane, A. H. (2017). Culturally responsive practice for indigenous

contexts: provenance to potential. In C. Reid & J. Major (Eds.), Global Teaching (pp. 101127). Palgrave

Macmillan US. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-52526-0_6

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2),

106116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487102053002003

Gay, G. (2010). Acting on beliefs in teacher education for cultural diversity. Journal of Teacher

Education, 61(1-2), 143152. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487109347320

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational

Research Journal, 32(3), 465491. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312032003465

Samu, T. W. (2006). The Pasifika umbrella and quality teaching: understanding and responding to the

diverse realities within. Waikato Journal of Education, 12, 3549.

Part B 5