Culturally Responsive Teaching Online and In Person: An Action Planner for Dynamic Equitable Learning Environments: Corwin Teaching Essentials

As needs, demands, interests, and opportunities for online instruction increases, Culturally Responsive Teaching Online and In Person is a book that will assist educators in the complex task of designing essential learning opportunities with student for academic and social success. This book reminds us that culturally responsive teaching practices are potentially transformative in person and online. Indeed, this book helps educators think about the tools, technology and teaching necessary to build more liberating, humanizing and just spaces of education.

Our students and their communities need educators who are courageous enough to acknowledge the role race plays as a barrier to learning. Our work is not universally designed if we lack the willingness to address race and racism and the need for culturally responsive teaching, regardless as to whether or not we are engaging students virtually or in-person. Budhai & Grant, through this text, are pushing us to do better for our young scholars by calling out the fact that our systems, structures and practices  need to be culturally relevant, if they are to authentically include and center around our learners who have been historically marginalized. This is a wonderful resource that guides educators step by step through the process of developing and implementing culturally responsive practices, virtually and in-person.
This workbook is a much-needed resource that attracts, engages, and supports teacher candidates, as cultural beings, in their transformation to becoming culturally aware, responsive, and humble educators. The authors position future educators to identify, acknowledge, and reflect on the critical role of their evolving racial and cultural identities and the implications thereof when practicing in the classroom. The book is a resource that transcends theory into practice and will serve teacher candidates in their journey as equity-minded practitioners to effectively implement culturally responsive, relevant, and sustaining pedagogies.

This guidebook addresses many questions and needs for educators to operationalize culturally responsive teaching across learning environments, in-person and online. I appreciate that the guidebook unpacks the work of Ladson-Billing, Gay, and Paris by connecting the theory to practice. I recommend this book for educators who actively engage in anti-bias, equitable, inclusive, and just teaching. The reflection questions, checklist, resources, and exercise are tangible actions for educators to engage moving towards actions in their environments.

As teaching and learning environments continue to evolve at breakneck pace, this wonderfully accessible guide is chock full of practical, useful, and actionable advice to help educators successfully navigate their culturally diverse classrooms, schools, and education communities. With self-guided exercises and reflections, educators will be able to address their unconscious biases, make meaningful connections with families and students, and ultimately, effectively incorporate culturally responsive teaching as they build the dynamic and equitable learning environments necessary for all students to thrive. Required reading for every educator!

For over 30 years, scholars and educators have advocated for the importance of centering student’s cultural frames, into the co-learning exchange of all learners, but in pariticuiliar, Black and Brown students, who have been historically marginalized in educational settings. The Distinction of Drs. Budhai and Lewis Grant’s critical important book: Culturally Responsive Teaching Online and In Person, is the argument that Culturally Responsive teaching (CRT) is not just for in-person instruction, but moreover, CRT can also be facilitated within an online modality. Thus, this book is a seminal resource for PK-12 educators who are passionate about reimagining the possibilities of CRT in any learning environment!

Budhai and Grant have created a treasure trove of resources for K-12 teachers and teacher educators who are committed to transforming a rapidly-changing world for the better.  Finally, we have a book that concretizes how to maximize culturally relevant pedagogy in contemporary, HyFlex learning environments in real time.  This text helps the reader translate the philosophical into the practical via inquiry-based, reflective exercises.  This book will empower educators, leading them to create equitably-rich opportunities for deep and dynamic learning across modalities.  The cornerstone of this text, the “Dynamic Equitable Learning Environments (DELE)” Model, inspires a new way teaching and learning in the 21^st century, providing new pathways to transform our schools by challenging and changing ourselves. As we shift our mindset to realize that we can change systems by recognizing the barriers to equity and inclusion, we reimagine an education that realizes justice in our classrooms, anti-racism in society, and healing in our homes.  You will read and re-read the gems of culturally responsive teaching and build your capacity to sustain equitable and thriving learning environments for our students to thrive in a world where their lives truly matter.

I joyfully offer my endorsement of Culturally Responsive Teaching Online and In Person.  At this critical moment in human history, scholars need a resource like this to be equipped with the tools that will empower teaching and learning at its fullness.  Dr. Stephanie Smith-Budhai and Dr. Kristine Lewis-Grant prove their scholarship in this work, especially by posing questions that lead to critical thinking. As an educator and a life-long learner, I plan to use this work and invite others to join me.  

Foreword by Matthew Kay
Introduction: Why Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters in Dynamic Equitable Learning Environments
Part One: Focusing on You: Unmasking Bias and Microaggressions
Opening Vignette: Mr. Malcolm Williams
Ch 1: Acknowledging Unconscious Bias
Ch 2: Reducing Implicit and Explicit Bias
Ch 3: Eliminating Microaggressions
Part Two: Focusing on Your Relationships: Co-Constructing Meaningful Connections with Students and Families
Opening Vignette: Ms. Asia Henderson
Ch 4: Activating Students’ Assets and Cultural Capital
Ch 5: Caring for Students Within their Sociopolitical Context
Ch 6: Forging Reciprocal Relationships with Families and Communities
Part Three: Focusing on Your Pedagogical Practices: Incorporating Culturally Relevant Teaching
Opening Vignette: Mr. Khemar Journey
Ch 7. Developing Equity-Mindedness
Ch 8: Planning Anti-bias Instruction
Ch 9: Preparing Culturally Responsive Authentic Assessments
Epilogue: A Call to Action: Leveraging One's Own Power and Privilege to Dismantle Systematic Barriers for Sustainable and Equitable Learning
References

An equitable, inclusive and practical application of culturally responsive teaching that transcends learning environments
Educators in the 21^st century are teaching diverse learners across a range of learning environments, while attending to critical issues related to equity, inclusion, and social justice. Now there’s a resource to help you merge the essential skills of embedding culturally responsive teaching practices into online and in person learning settings. Using the Dynamic Equitable Learning Environments (DELE) framework, you can build the knowledge, awareness, skills, and dispositions to pivot instruction to facilitate equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist learning experiences that transcend cultural, social, and linguistic backgrounds—no matter where, when, or how your students do their learning.
Combining an interactive workspace with teacher preparation and professional development, this book provides an action planner and toolkit for embedding culturally responsive teaching into online and in person instruction. Other features include:

• Demonstrative, inspirational, and culturally responsive practical approaches for online and in person educational settings
• Self-reflection questions, anti-bias exercises, and critical-thinking activities that support equity-mindedness
• Culturally sustaining checklist templates
• Links to additional responsive online resources, readings, and culturally relevant media
• Action plan templates to work through in each chapter
• Additional Call to Action practices to pursue after completing the book