Student productivity & culturally responsive teaching
Culturally responsive teaching is an educational approach promoted in Australian classrooms to help all students meet the Australian curriculum standards in education. This approach sees educators utilising students’ funds of knowledge, experiences, and interests to transition new knowledge into effective learning (Ukpokodu, 2011, p. 48). By getting to know their students, educators are better able to adjust learning activities to meet the learning expectations of students, caregivers, and society. This enables more meaningful and relevant information transfer by drawing upon students’ prior funds of knowledge, which in turn will improve student learning, performance and engagement (Thomson & Hall, 2008, p. 3; Teaching Tolerance, 2010).
Funds of knowledge are the information and skills that an individual or household have accumulated historically and developed culturally in order to function in society. The skills every student brings to the classroom can be called upon to deepen connections and improve working relationships between educator and student, but also between peers (Fancher, 2015). It is the educators responsibility to strive to understand their students’ cultural and situational environment, and to fully consider what role the students’ play as participants in the both classroom and home in order to allow numeracy and literacy skills to develop appropriately throughout all learning areas (Ukpokodu, 2011, p. 48; O’Donnell et al., 2012, p.143; Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016, p. 24). As part of the general curriculum capabilities in Australian schools, intercultural understanding plays an imperative part in developing culturally responsive teaching practices and facilitating positive relationships between all facets of the students’ socio-cultural framework. By drawing upon a students’ funds of knowledge, educators can validate both new learning and the connection between culture, family, community and school.
Year 7 and 8 Visual Arts shows some excellent examples of how intercultural understanding can help bridge the gap between effective learning relationships and classroom practice. Numeracy, literacy, and intercultural understanding play an important roll in the Australian Arts curriculum, and as such, educators need to be aware of how they can utilise the students’ funds of knowledge to improve performance, understanding and engagement within the arts subjects (ACARA, n.d.a). In the Australian Curriculum: The Arts, students are required to use numeracy and literacy skills to collaborate, plan, design, create, interpret, analyse and evaluate artworks while utilising communication skills to effectively develop, apply and transfer their knowledge and skills as artists and audiences (ACARA, n.d.b) and intercultural understanding by investigating both the tangible, and intangible cultural aspects of artists and their artwork.
For example, in Visual arts: years 7 and 8, educators can enable students’ to explore influences and the historical and modern impact of their own culture based on the activities and funds of knowledge of both artists and audiences to improve overall understanding of literacy and numeracy that span the bioecological framework by integrating past experiences and current cultural exposure to represent increasingly complex peer and educator/student relationships (ACARA, n.d.b). This can then be linked to the content description for Visual Art which examines that students are required to classify and link specific imagery and resolutions of visual artworks from contemporary and traditional art to explore alternate viewpoints and enrich their art-making.
By establishing first what the desired outcome of the activity is, say, in what area the students need to improve or refine their skills, educators can utilise the backward design method to write appropriate lesson plans that incorporate culturally relevant information to improve literacy and numeracy skill development, all while helping students to develop intercultural understanding (Fancher, 2015). By examining alternative viewpoints on traditional art, educators can incorporate culturally responsive tasks into the classroom activities. Educators can incorporate culturally specific imagery into the examinations, utilise appropriate language acquisitions, help students’ to explore the use of culturally relevant icons in post-modern Australian art, and assist the students’ in making the connection between the tangible aspects of cultural artworks [colour, symbolism, and traditional techniques] to the intangible cultural background of the students, the artists, and the audiences [the subjective response to artworks — emotions and feelings] (Artlandish, 2018).
References
AAMU Museum of contemporary Aboriginal art. (2010). Aboriginal art today! 4. [Photograph] Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/aamumuseum/5793034413/
Artlandish. (2018). Aboriginal Dot Art. Retrieved from https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/aboriginal-dot-art-behind-the-dots/
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (n.d.a). F-10 Curriculum: The Arts — Visual Arts Year 7 & 8 content descriptions. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/the-arts/visual-arts/?year=12758&capability=ignore&capability=Literacy&capability=Numeracy&capability=Information+and+Communication+Technology+%28ICT%29+Capability&capability=Critical+and+Creative+Thinking&capability=Personal+and+Social+Capability&capability=Ethical+Understanding&capability=Intercultural+Understanding&priority=ignore&priority=Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+Histories+and+Cultures&priority=Asia+and+Australia’s+Engagement+with+Asia&priority=Sustainability&elaborations=true&elaborations=false&scotterms=false&isFirstPageLoad=false
ACARA. (n.d.b). General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum: The Arts — Learning area specific advice. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/
ACARA. (n.d.c). F-10 curriculum: General capabilities — Intercultural understanding. [Chart]. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/intercultural-understanding/
Desimone, M. (2014). student-). Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/95622330@N04/14546205954/in/photolist-oap7fo-mn749b-9bZEMf-7Jm7Hw-LxVfrf-aiiYa3
Fancher, J. (2015, April 18). Part 1 Funds of knowledge. [YouTube Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_iiXLTIf68#action=share).
Geekgirl2209. (2013). Culturally-Responsive-Teaching_0. [Photograph] Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/61344897@N06/8557603967/in/photolist-8cYDmt-584icZ-e3cXvZ-bqMmF4-ZK4FvZ-rDW53f-qait5j-22VgYQD-ZThrc4-eEFGnb-puSUeb-qaiuWL-qaqFEr-eEFGqE-rpLM4F-qasaJD-qajqbd-YKAaXH-qrS9X2-puSU1L-qrNBJ3-qajpUG-puSSro-pv7jC4-qrNz1h-qKdVNm-rpD7Rm-eEzANZ-qas5UZ-qaqK6z-7xHALE-qrNBQ5-qKdUbU-rpLLhv-qKrb1p-qKdTim-puSSmU-NSu6hq-MXTvCj-NVH2bK-NMSFGZ-qP8tqY-NKngeG-MXyLiZ-qajq1U-pv7jZX
O’Donnell, A. M., Dobozy. E., Bartlett, B., Nagel, M., Spooner-Lane, R., Youssef-Shalala, A., … Smith, J. K. (2016) Educational psychology (2nd ed.). Milton, QLD: John Wiley & Sons Australia
Teaching Tolerance. (2010, June 17). Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. [YouTube Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8&feature=youtu.be
Thomson, P. and Hall, C. (2008). Opportunities missed and/or thwarted?: ‘Funds of Knowledge’ meet the English national curriculum. Curriculum Journal. 19(2), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585170802079488
Ukpokodu, O. N. (2011). How Do I Teach Mathematics in a Culturally Responsive Way? Identifying Empowering Teaching Practices. Multicultural Education, 19(3), 47–56. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?q=EJ955945&id=EJ955945
Woolfolk, A., & Margetts, K. (2016). Educational psychology (3rd ed.). Frenches Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.
