EDUCATOR SPOTLIGHT | CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE CLASSROOM EXPECTATIONS

Educator Spotlight
Written By Josh Morales

Culturally Responsive Classrooms: High Expectations and Rigorous Instruction for All

by Stephanie Clagnaz, Ed.D.


One of the four pillars of the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework is holding high expectations and implementing rigorous instruction for all students, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, language, ability, or economic background. The Framework calls for educators to examine our own implicit biases to reflect deeply on internal beliefs that may be keeping us from holding all to high expectations and understanding that all learners are capable of deep learning. If we refrain from holding all to high expectations and neglect to implement rigorous instruction for all, we miss the opportunity to help all learners to grow into independent and critical thinkers who make meaning of new concepts in various ways and are able to apply learning to real-life situations. As we approach the end of the school year, there is still time to implement one or more strategies to communicate our high expectations for all students. 


How can we instill high expectations and rigorous instruction for all? A starting point is to design lessons keeping our struggling learners at the forefront of our planning. Consider: how will students with disabilities achieve the lesson objective? What supports need to be put into place to ensure that they will successfully achieve deep learning? What about multilingual learners? Will they need a scaffold put in place to ensure growth in pursuit of the objective? Regarding students whose culture is often marginalized, are relationships developed that are trusting so that feedback given will be received and implemented? Consider these questions and use the last weeks of the year to challenge yourself to continue your journey toward becoming a more culturally responsive educator by transforming your classroom to include high expectations and rigorous instruction for all with one of these strategies:


Be the ‘Warm Demander’

Zaretta Hammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic EngagementandRigor for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students(Corwin, 2015), tells us that, “the culturally responsive teacher assumes the role of ‘warm demander’.” Hammond teaches us that our role is not necessarily to cheer students on, but rather to acknowledge and name the processes used by students that promote growth in their learning, to help them to connect what they already know to new information, and to apply new knowledge to real world situations. One strategy Hammond encourages educators to use is to give students intentional time to talk about their learning, making their learning visible. She suggests that we provide explicit time for all students to name and take note of what they learned, the processes used in learning, and the implications that their learning has in the real world. She recommends that educators avoid over-scaffolding. The chart below outlines additional qualities of the ‘warm demander’ as well as providing descriptors of educators with other kinds of approaches. As the year winds down, consider the qualities that make one a ‘warm demander’ versus qualities that make us educators who create alternate learning environments. Where do your beliefs and actions place you? Are you offering support, instructional scaffolding, and feedback to help learners achieve deep learning?

Give the Cognitive Lift to Students

Cognitive lift, also known as cognitive demand, refers to the level of critical thinking, engagement, and focus needed to complete a learning task. In short, we ask, “Who is doing the work of learning?” To create and maintain a rigorous learning environment, students must be provided with opportunities to do the heavy ‘lifting’ of learning. In order to ensure that rigorous instruction for all is in place, we must “deliver high-quality instruction that enables students to grow as independent learners, think critically, and make meaning of new concepts in multiple ways.” (CR-SE Framework) Employing differentiated instruction and encouraging exploration and curiosity as opposed to scripted, one-size-fits-all instructional programs makes a classroom culture more likely to communicate high expectations for all and simultaneously provides students with opportunities to learn deeply. When observing students engaged in learning, are we asking questions and providing just enough feedback for the students to do the important work of learning on their own or with peers (that is, entering the zone of proximal development)? Or are we providing learners with answers and shying away from student engagement in cognitive struggle to come up with solutions on their own? When planning lessons and units, are we planning to address learning gaps with scaffolds that will support all learners in achieving the objectives? How can we provide opportunities for learners to reflect upon and share the processes with which they engaged as their learning progressed? Consider whether or not your students are doing the ‘heavy lifting’ involved in true learning. If this hasn’t happened yet in your classroom, why not start now?


Instill a Growth Mindset

Stanford University Professor Carol Dweck teaches us that people who believe that working hard, capitalize on strategies that support learning, and respond to feedback are people who have a growth mindset. That is, those with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be developed. The opposite, or those with a fixed mindset, are individuals who believe that talent is innate and learning is achieved by those who have in-born talents and gifts; that intelligence is fixed. Students who don’t develop a growth mindset may shy away from challenging learning, fearing that they won’t be successful. Those with a growth mindset, however, learn more and are eager to learn. For educators to perpetuate high expectations for all students, instilling a growth mindset in learners is essential. How can we teach students to have a growth mindset? It is important for us to reward and celebrate hard work and progress. For less proficient students, a critical move for teachers is to emphasize the processes that led to progress for learners. We can also reward and discuss those students who used various strategies to learn more and those who kept working at a task without giving up. Consider which scaffold helped a student to achieve growth. Was a supportive tool, such as a graphic organizer or a checklist, used to help a student achieve deeper learning? For our less proficient students, naming and celebrating hard work, progress toward learning, and maintaining a “stick-to-it” attitude are ways to help students form a growth mindset toward learning. Developing this attitude in our students is an important component of establishing a classroom culture that reflects high expectations for all. What we are doing, in effect, is teaching learners that their brains can grow. Dweck’s research reveals that learners who believe that they can get smarter perform better than those who have a fixed mindset. We still have time this school year to instill these ways of thinking in our students!


Coaches at LEDbetter are ready and available to guide you in implementing any of these strategies before the school year ends or to help you to think through your early planning for next year. Contact us today for more information and for a free consultation to develop a unique and individualized plan to grow your teaching practice. We are available to work with individuals, teams, and whole-school or district implementation.



To learn more about how we can support you, please email excelerator@led-better.org, or schedule a call with us.



Josh Morales
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