Situating Critical Explorations in the Classroom toward Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

• In Event: Teaching Toward Equity: The Teaching-Learning Research Stance and Its Practices

Abstract

PAPER 1
Situating Critical Explorations in the Classroom toward Culturally Responsive
Pedagogy
Purposes
This teaching-learning-research reflection aims to illustrate both the power of Critical
Exploration in the Classroom (CEC) to affect learning and the role context plays in
learning culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). The paper includes: 1) the stories of two
different CEC with veteran teachers—in a graduate course and in a school; 2) a review
of topics and themes in students’ write-ups of CECs; 3) a reflection on the role of
context and CEC working together to advance CRP.
Theoretical Framework
CEC: Duckworth (2006) adapted Genevan methods (e.g. Piaget) for the classroom.
CEC as a teaching research process has the power to advance CRP because of its
focus on choosing engaging, authentic materials, asking challenging questions and
attending to the learning of particular students and their sense making (blinded).
CRP: Ladson-Billings (2017, 142) tells us that CRP involves “three main components:
(a) a focus on student learning; (b) developing students’ cultural competence; and (c)
supporting their critical consciousness.” Ladson-Billings (2014, 2017) and Gay (2013,
2018) consider a focus on student learning to include consideration of the whole child,
holding high expectations, and looking for growth beyond test scores. It also includes,
as López (2017) describes, “teachers’ knowledge about how to access and validate
students’ prior knowledge in genuine ways that consider children’s culture as assets
(Banks, 1993; Gay, 2000; Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejada, 1999; Ladson-
Billings, 1994, 1995a, 1995b; Lee, 1993, 1995, 2007; Moll & Gonzalez, 2004)” (p. 197,
emphasis added).
Context and complexity: Through CEC, pre-service and in-service teachers can practice
the elements of CRP listed in the descriptions above, but whether or not this happens
can depend on context. When cognitive schema and tools develop in context through
practice, learners develop more nuanced, complex, and strategic understandings
(Brown, Collins, and Deguid, 1989). Learning in context can introduce understanding
that cognitive and affective resources, these knowledge frameworks and stances, carry
a history and a legacy that informs their current use (Holland and Cole, 1995).
Methods and Techniques
Each part of this paper comes from documenting learning during CECs. Part 1 is a
narrative based on teaching notes. Part 2 lists the findings of a content analysis I conducted, of three years of students’ CEC projects. Part 3 reflects on a case study
(blinded) with focus on context.
Data Sources
Part 1—Teaching notes
Part 2—Student work, i.e. final project write ups of CEC for three years of classes
Part 3—Case study and teaching notes
Finding: CEC has the potential to advance CRP when situated in settings that explicitly
call attention to dynamics of race, class, language, and schooling and offer pre-and in-
service teachers analytic tools for critical self-reflection.
Significance
This paper has significance for teacher educators who seek to design curriculum and
field experiences that advance equity and inclusion and who seek ways to understand
their students’ learning and for those interested in identity construction of pre-service
and in-service teachers.

Author

• Mary Kay Delaney, Independent Scholar