When instruction respects and honors student backgrounds and experiences, educators and students build trust, improve communication, enhance collaboration, and create a supportive atmosphere.
Focus Area
Culturally responsive teaching and learning is a critical aspect of a district’s academic achievement. It requires alignment across departments, training for teachers, and support for all educators. We’ve built four phases to strategically implement culturally responsive teaching and learning in your district.
Serving as the headquarters for your professional learning program, the BL Lab is where professional learning happens. Teachers can access culturally responsive teaching and learning strategies, engage with their coach, track progress toward their outcomes, and measure their confidence to enact those outcomes in the classroom.
Instructional leaders use self-directed courses to drive ongoing professional learning in PLCs or to enrich new teachers with a full library of research-backed strategies and lesson plans that provide differentiated support any time throughout the school year.
Administrators can get an overhead view of the progress of their professional learning programs and see progress towards outcomes.
Bring your team together. Norm on new concepts, shared language, and best practices for culturally responsive teaching and learning. Launch experiences are best done in person. We include the teachers, instructional and school leaders who will work together to achieve this transformation.
Designing Culturally Responsive Teaching & Learning | In-Person
Educators can identify inequities in educational practices while identifying ways to take steps in the classroom and school to further learn about ourselves as educators and our students.
Teachers match with an instructional coach to plan lessons, try strategies, and measure the impact for students. Using the Try-Measure-Learn approach, coaches provide personalized support to help teachers begin using culturally responsive teaching and learning practices in the classroom to achieve measurable outcomes for students.
1:1 Job Embedded Coaching | Virtual
Educators work with a coach to create sustained shifts in practice aligned to target outcomes using our Try-Measure-Learn approach.
By now, teachers know what success can look like in culturally responsive classrooms. Learning Walks support teachers in achieving target outcomes and building an ongoing professional learning plan. This non-evaluative tool helps instructional leaders identify and celebrate areas of growth for culturally responsive teaching and learning.
Learning Walk Cycle | In-Person
Leaders can identify evidence of the target outcomes in the classroom and in student learning.
Provide collaborative learning experiences aligned to measurable changes you want to see in the classroom. Virtual Workshops offer targeted, collaborative learning where teachers have the opportunity to set goals, identify manageable implementation steps, and create a plan to reflect on results for an ongoing change in practice.
Getting Started With Culturally Responsive Strategies | Virtual
I consistently implement culturally responsive teaching practices into my instruction.
Reimagining Classroom Culture to Promote Inclusion | Virtual
I center student identities in my teaching to make sure my students feel included.
Analyzing What We Teach to Promote Inclusion | Virtual
I examine what and how I teach in order to include multiple perspectives.
Working with Caregivers to Deepen Learning | Virtual
I honor the contributions of families to create partnerships that support student success.
Promoting Asset-Based Thinking to Honor All Students | Virtual
I am mindful about how I speak to and about my students.
Developing Restorative Practices to Promote Inclusion | Virtual
I apply a restorative approach to my behavior management practices.
It takes one to three years to implement meaningful changes in culturally responsive teaching and learning practice, depending on your district’s goals and size. Our comprehensive professional learning plans incorporate a variety of learning experiences. Whether your teachers prefer in-person, virtual, in a group, or self-directed, we align to how adult learners actually learn. BetterLesson creates a learning plan tailored to your district strategic plan that includes a mix of research-backed and outcome-focused learning experiences.
Outcomes connect each professional learning experience. Every experience ties to an outcome that makes tangible changes in practice, impacting students and teachers. For the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning focus area, educators will work to achieve the following outcomes.
Outcome: I center student identities in my teaching to make sure my students feel included.
Outcome: I examine what and how I teach in order to include multiple perspectives.
Outcome: I honor the contributions of families to create partnerships that support student success.
Outcome: I am mindful about how I speak to and about my students.
Outcome: I apply a restorative approach to my behavior management practices.
Learn effective classroom management that creates a welcoming learning environment to support all learners.
Form authentic, trusting relationships with students’ families as a foundational part of building an inviting learning community.
Explore strategies to support teachers as they develop lessons that allow students to explore bias and social justice.
Accelerate growth in your schools and stay ahead of the curve.
