The Teaching Evaluation Gap - why students' cultural identities hold the key
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Abstract
In this article the authors argue that the current intense focus on, the previously ignored, issue of teacher evaluation gives inadequate attention to teaching practices that are particularly effective with students from diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. By ignoring these research-based practices, generally called "culturally responsive pedagogy", or CRP, any high-stakes teaching evaluation is likely, unintentionally and ironically, to fail the very students most in need of highly effective teaching.
The authors argue that research shows that well-executed evaluation based on observations of teacher behavior can increase teacher effectiveness. Giving teachers the opportunity to learn how to improve specific practices magnifies the effect. ...
Culturally responsive teachers understand that all students, regardless of race or ethnicity, bring their culturally influenced cognition, behavior, and dispositions to school. For example, ethnically diverse students' mastery of English, pronunciation, vocabulary, and phonology (rhythm, tempo, or pitch) often differ. What is spoken and left unspoken, whether one interrupts, defers to others, or asks direct or indirect questions, can vary importantly from group to group....
Culturally responsive teachers know how to adapt and employ multiple representations of subject-matter knowledge using students' everyday lived experiences. This bridges the gap between students' personal cultural knowledge and the unknown materials and concepts to be mastered. Culturally responsive teachers learn from families and community organizations and use this knowledge to inform their teaching and help families support their children's education. Culturally responsive teachers, aware that students of color are not mere products of their culture, avoid making generalizations about group behavior or identity. Culturally responsive teachers interact with students as individuals, caring and supporting them while holding high expectations.
They provide six examples, based on research that demonstrates how CRP enhances student learning, of how effective teaching can be measured.
- Learning From Family and Community Engagement - about the lived experiences of their students and using this information in selecting learning resources and adapting instruction.
- Developing Caring Relationships With Students - reflecting genuine warmth and sensitivity to students' cultures and levels of development.
- Engaging and Motivating Students - building on the lived experiences of diverse communities and taking into account differences in semantics, accents, dialects, and language facility.
- Assessing Student Performance - taking into account differences in students' cultural experiences and language facility.
- Grouping Students for Instruction - where various grouping strategies are flexibly used.
- Selecting and Effectively Using Learning Resources - incorporating a variety of materials that reflect the cultural diversity of the school, the community, the nation, and the world.
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