Standard 2 (5): The unit must ensure each program provides effective instruction on: the knowledge and skills needed to implement culturally responsive teaching and instructional strategies, including incorporating opportunities for candidates to learn about the role of teachers to disrupt patterns and systems of racism, privilege, and oppression.
Culturally responsive teaching and instructional strategies are taught and/or modeled throughout the required curriculum of each program. Starting with introductory courses required for admission and continuing throughout each licensure program, we teach, learn, and practice culturally responsive teaching and instructional strategies by naming the history, engaging the theory, and practicing the strategies to disrupt systems of racism, privilege, and oppression. Teacher candidates come to courses with a continuum of understanding and experience, and all have opportunities for growth throughout the program.
Our curricular and instructional approach with urban teacher candidates is rooted in the mission of the UED “to improve the educational achievement of historically and currently underserved urban learners and to advocate for their right to receive a high quality education“ and vision of Metro State University to being an anti-racist learning community. Since our first licensure programs were implemented in 2001 focused on the needs of urban teachers and urban learners, UED has been intentional in the work of educational equity by developing courses, policies and practices to integrate the needed work of culturally responsive educators to be systemic change agents and equity champions for social access through the door of education.
UED expects all instructors to integrate culturally responsive pedagogies and curriculum in the courses they teach to foster culturally responsive professional skill development of our future teachers. This expectation begins manifesting itself in the hiring process of all full-time and adjunct/”community” faculty as part of the interview process. At the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, we also began requiring all course syllabi to include the following statement:
“UED Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Statement: The School of Urban Education is committed to the principle of anti-racism and celebrates diversity as central to our mission. Throughout our programs and courses, UED is engaged in a process of continual reflection and evaluation to work toward an equitable democratic society. We disavow all forms of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, classism, ableism, and hate speech or actions that attempt to silence, threaten, and degrade others. In all our classes, we will work together to develop an excellent learning community that is inclusive, collaborative, and respectful. This means that our classrooms, our virtual spaces, our practices, and our interactions will be respectful. We will not only encourage and appreciate expressions of different ideas, opinions, beliefs, but also respect and consider what others say and their right to express themselves when their expression does not cause harm. Expressions or actions that disparage an individual’s race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, gender, gender identity/expression, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or socioeconomic status will not be tolerated in this course.”
Instruction in UED courses and urban field experiences from the beginning of candidates’ programs to their end introduce candidates how to incorporate attributes and knowledge from each student’s cultural background into their instructional strategies and curricula to improve learning outcomes, but also to make students feel included, validated, valued, and safe. Teacher candidates are taught on how to create a learning environment that affirms the strengths students bring into classrooms, rather than focusing on their deficits.
Besides this, teacher candidates are encouraged to strive to include literature from various racial, ethnic and cultural groups, parts of the world, and by diverse authors. Teacher candidates get equipped with skills on how to encourage their students to use familiar ways of speaking, thinking, knowing, and analyzing in order to learn new content and ideas. Overall, knowledge and skills gained from these courses help teacher candidates to:
In sum, by creating a conducive learning environment, offering culturally relevant content, and using culturally responsive teaching practices in their pedagogy, our teacher candidates are taught to help students make connections between their lives in the world and their lives at school that will increase their engagement and improve learning outcomes.
Furthermore, multiple opportunities are provided early in the program for teacher candidates to dive deep and learn about the role of reflective teachers as citizens, as well as engaging in ways in the classroom that will dismantle systemic patterns rooted in historical narratives that underline racism, privilege and socio/economic oppression in the US. Students learn about the responsibility of teachers to disrupt patterns and systems of racism, privilege, and oppression while enrolled in the Introduction to Urban Education and Reflective Teaching (EDU 200), Multicultural Education (EDU 203), Historical and Cultural Foundations of Urban Education (EDU 430/630), and Principles of Urban Education (EDU 600) courses. For example in both foundational classes, students are guided and required through several processes to demonstrate their understanding, intent of action (application) for the need to engage in and advocate for a culturally responsive and educationally inclusive learning environment. As well, teacher candidates through readings and research develop insight into the current social structures that influence educational outcomes based on social/racial/economic and other categories of marginalization. The processes for demonstrating the ability to implement learned knowledge and skills include: an essay for admission “Why I will/want be an effective urban educator, an interview with a current teacher in the field, 20 hours of field observation in a classroom engagement located in an urban setting, create an original project that amplifies urban learners voices on a specific need based on their original research stimulated by the primary authors of the text or current political actions they see as impacting the urban school settings, etc. - the outcome for the project is to bring forth: solutions/cost/and stakeholders.
While this element is well integrated throughout the program, UED collects three sources of evidence to evaluate whether instruction for this item is effective: 1) candidates’ scores on the overall assessment of their Advanced Urban Teaching Practicum (EDU 450); 2) candidates’ scores on the overall assessment of their student teaching experience completed by their cooperating teacher and university supervisor; and 3) Pre/Post Student Teaching Questionnaire.
The “Proficient” rating for Criterion 3 Diverse Learners on the overall assessments of their advance practicum and student teaching states:
“Demonstrated adequate understanding of how students differ in their approaches to learning and created instructional opportunities that were adapted to students with diverse backgrounds, talents, needs and exceptionalities.”
Starting in the fall of 2022, all teacher candidates also complete an online questionnaire in TaskStream just before starting student teaching and at the completion of student teaching about the effectiveness of instruction they received related to this component and all other components of Standard 2. Wherever and whenever either candidates’ scores or questionnaire responses point to the need for improvement to ensure instructional effectiveness, these data are used to re-examine course curriculum, assessments and instructional methods to ensure effectiveness. A combined majority of both program completers and beginning teachers either agree or tend to agree that the UTP equipped them with basic skills to meet the needs of diverse learners (see Exhibit 2.5.3). Though the response rate is small, more than 75 percent of supervisors either agree or tend to agree that teachers under their supervision have the basic skills to teach diverse learners.
Finally, we point to the contextual and demographic evidence of effective instruction for this item represented by the fact that a majority of our candidates are members of BIPOC communities. They hold UED accountable for providing effective instruction related to this standard because they would not choose nor stay in our program if it wasn't teaching and modeling cultural responsiveness while addressing the role of teachers in challenging systemic racism and other forms of oppression.
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