Culturally Responsive Teaching

SUMMARY

Explore teaching general music through a culturally responsive lens. Part 2 identifies how to create student-centered, social, and emotionally supportive learning environment.

by Manju Durairaj

Sing, Say, Dance, and Play in a Culturally Responsive Way — Part 2

Manju Durairaj
Posted 10/4/21
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Creating a Learning Partnership

The ideas, notes, and materials are the intellectual property of Manju Durairaj. Please use and adapt them for use in your music room. However, you do not have permission to share without the express permission of the author.

Regardless of the teaching situation we find ourselves in, the most critical objective we must remember is creating a learning partnership with our students. We accomplish this goal by recognizing and utilizing the teaching practices found in the Responsive Classroom.

The responsive classroom philosophy is a student-centered, social, and emotional learning approach to teaching and discipline-based research following four key domains.

Engaging Academics: Learner-centered lessons that are participatory, appropriately challenging, fun, and relevant and promote curiosity, wonder, and interest.

Positive Community: A safe, predictable, joyful, and inclusive environment where all students have a sense of belonging and significance.

Effective Management: A calm, orderly learning environment that promotes autonomy, responsibility, and high engagement in learning.

Developmentally Responsive Teaching: Basing all decisions for teaching and discipline upon research and knowledge of students’ social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development.

* Definitions have been taken directly from the Responsive Classroom Website.

When designing your music classes, utilizing responsive classroom principles will ensure a positive learning partnership with your students. Each of the following areas will focus our teaching and keep students engaged and feel valued.

Teacher Language: How we speak to students is one of the most powerful teaching tools; using specific language strategies can ensure students feel valued in our classrooms.

Interactive Modeling: A strategy to teach students the proper way to complete routines and procedures.

Rules and Routines: Student input into rules give them a vested interest in creating a safe and fun environment.

Logical Consequences: Strategies for dealing with student misbehavior.

Use of Signals: Classroom management tool that teaches students to respond to a sound or visual sign.

Academic Choice: Teachers decide on the lesson’s goal, and students choose from a menu of options to reach the defined goal.

Opening Routines and Tasks: A strategy to create a welcoming and inclusive tone at the beginning of class.

Closing Routines: A strategy allowing students to check understanding and reflect on their learning.

Guided Discovery: A strategy to introduce, generate interest and engage with resources in the music room.

Collaborative Problem Solving: A strategy to work through challenging behaviors using empowerment, empathy to solve shared problems that cause behaviors.

* Hyperlinked definitions are connected to articles expanding on each of these Responsive Classroom strategies.

In Part 1: Detangling the Terminology, we clarified interchangeably and incorrectly used terminology. In this article, we are using the Responsive Classroom philosophy to build learning partnerships with our students. Next, Part 3: Technology will examine the technology that will help us connect with students and deepen their understandings.

References

About responsive classroom. Responsive Classroom. (2021, August 23). https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/about/ .