Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Spotlight

Culturally Responsive Instruction for Native American Students

Welcome to this professional learning series on culturally responsive instruction for Native American students. This series provides a framework for instruction that emphasizes experiential, active, and student-centered learning. It supports all teachers in creating culturally responsive instruction for their Native students. If you are already familiar with your students’ cultures and communities, you should be ready to dive into implementing this framework. If you are not yet familiar, this series will guide you on your journey to become more knowledgeable. We do not provide lessons or curricula on particular cultures, histories, or languages. Instead we provide the pedagogical principles to support you in creating (or adjusting) lessons and curricula informed by and integrating your students’ cultures. Implementing this process will pave the way for your students’ to achieve success, both in and out of the classroom.

If your role is to support teachers and advocate for Native students, this series is right for you as well. It can help you know what to look for in classroom observations, guide your feedback to teachers and schools, and inform your recommendations to improve programs for Native students.

The series was developed by education researchers Barbara Jones and Joan Herman through a review of the literature on culturally responsive instruction for Native American students, and through regular consultation, feedback, and contributions from David Sullivan, member of the Kiowa Nation and Special Programs Director at Anadarko Public Schools in Oklahoma. Feedback was also provided by Georgina Owen, Title XI State Coordinator at the Colorado Department of Education, who also helped organize the pilot study for these training materials with Title XI Coordinators in Colorado. This project was created through a collaboration between CRESST and WestEd, with funding provided by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

This series addresses the following questions.

  • What is culturally responsive instruction?
  • Why is it important for Native American students?
  • How does culturally responsive instruction connect to traditional Native American educational approaches?
  • What are specific guidelines for providing culturally responsive instruction for Native students?
  • What does culturally responsive practice look like in different subject areas?
  • What are the steps to take to develop a culturally responsive practice?

Working Together!

We recommend that if possible, you work through this professional learning series together with peers in a professional learning community (PLC). This PLC can be in-person at your school site, or a video/phone conference-based community, e.g., across rural schools in a district.

Our vision for using these materials involves:

  • Individuals, on their own time, completing one section of the professional learning series at a time. This includes watching the course video and any additional material, such as completing any handout or inventory activities that go along with the section. To support productive meetings, we’ve included a document on establishing meeting norms below.
  • After completing the section activities, individuals come together and meet with their PLC and discuss:
    • What they’ve learned through the videos and application activities
    • Questions that have come up
    • Experiences/reflections related to culturally responsive instruction in their classrooms
    • Goal setting for each participant

Linked below is a sample meeting agenda for these meetings.

  • Additionally, teachers may come together for Video Study Groups (VSG). These are more targeted meetings to provide peer feedback to one another based on video recordings teachers take of their classrooms. To support this effort, we’ve included a sample initial meeting agenda and an agenda for follow up VSG meetings.

Meeting Norms | PLC Meeting Agenda | VSG Meeting Agenda 1 | VSG Meeting Agenda 2

Let’s get started!

The series of videos and tasks are presented in sequential lessons and build on each other. Follow the steps to complete each lesson before moving on to the next video.

1. The What and Why of Culturally Responsive Instruction

This section introduces culturally responsive instruction and explains why it’s critical for the academic success of Native American students.

Steps to complete section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Click on the link below to answer the Exit Questions for this section. Note: you will be prompted to make a copy of the Google doc before using it. Keep track of where you save it for later reference.  If you don’t yet have a Google account. Click here to get started.
  3. Complete the Reflection handout

Exit Questions I Reflection handout

 

2. Understanding Culture and Native American Diversity

This section provides a framework for considering culture in classroom settings and explores the range of diversity among Native students.

Steps to complete section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Answer the video Exit Questions
  3. Read the article on the historical and cultural underpinnings of education in Native American communities
  4. Complete the Student Inventory – either for teachers or for those who support teachers

Exit Questions | Historical & Cultural Underpinnings of Native Americans and Education | Student Inventory for Teachers | Student Inventory for those who Support Teachers

3. Foundations for Culturally Responsive Practice

This section elaborates on the foundations for our instructional guidance in this series, including traditional Native American values, epistemologies, and educational strategies, and general principles of culturally responsive instructional practice.

Steps to complete this section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Answer the Exit Questions.
  3. Complete the Culturally Responsive Practice Inventory – either for teachers or for those who support teachers

Exit Questions | Culturally Responsive Practice Inventory for Teachers | Culturally Responsive Practice Inventory for those who Support Teachers

 

4. Where to Start: Initial Guidelines for Instruction

This section provides initial guidelines for providing culturally responsive instruction for Native students. It covers the areas of: instructional strategies, instructional activities, norms of social interaction, and teacher attitudes. It links these guidelines to specific, traditional Native American teaching and learning methods.

Steps to complete section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Answer the Exit Questions.
  3. Complete the Initial Guidelines handout – either for teachers or for those who support teachers.

Exit Questions | Initial Guidelines: Handout for Teachers | Initial Guidelines: Handout for those who Support Teachers

5. Going Further: More Guidelines

This section provides more guidelines for providing culturally responsive instruction for Native students. It covers the areas of: instructional materials, curriculum, and parent and community involvement. It links these guidelines to specific Native American values and epistemologies.

Steps to complete section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Answer the Exit Questions.
  3. Complete the More Guidelines handout – either for teachers or those who support teachers.

Exit Questions | More Guidelines: Handout for Teachers | More Guidelines: Handout for those who Support Teachers

 

6a. Pedagogical Implications for Math, Science, and Social Studies

 

6b. Pedagogical Implications for ELA, Native Language & Problem/Place-based Scenarios

This section illustrates what culturally responsive instruction for Native students looks like in English Language Arts and in Native languages. It also provides an in-depth example of culturally responsive principles in action in the problem/place-based scenario. This scenario is a student activity spanning many lessons. It is multi-disciplinary and engages the local community.

Steps to complete section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Answer the Exit Questions.
  3. Read the Kiowa story, San-Ko and Tahlee Tdahn by David Sullivan, to begin thinking about incorporating traditional stories into lessons.
  4. Complete the Kiowa story handout to reflect on the story’s message and how stories like these can be integrated into instruction.
  5. Review the Problem/Place-based Scenario Steps.
  6. Complete the Try It Out handout for teachers or the Observation Tool for those who support teachers. Note: you will use the Strategies by Subject Area handout to support your planning processes.

Exit Questions I Kiowa Story I Kiowa Story Handout I Problem/Place-based Scenario Steps I Try It Out I Observation Tool for those who Support Teachers

7. Developing a Culturally Responsive Practice

This section illustrates the six key steps teachers need to take to become culturally literate and competent for the purpose of providing culturally responsive instruction to Native American students. ​These steps include: 1) self-assessment, 2) inventory of cultural knowledge, 3) investigation of students’ culture, community, and language, 4) design and enact instruction based on this evidence, 5) reflect and repeat, and 6) moving forward.

Steps to complete section:

  1. Watch the course video
  2. Answer the Exit Questions.
  3. Complete the step-by-step handouts that will guide you on your path towards achieving culturally literacy and competency.

Exit Questions I Step 1 I Step 2 I Step 3 I Step 4 I Step 5 I Step 6

Literature on Culturally Responsive Instruction for Native American Students

Review this list of references and tools that informed development of this Spotlight.

Additional Resources

Formative Assessment for Improving Native American Student Learning and Language Development: A Series of Professional Learning Modules

This series addresses formative assessment implementation with Native students across content areas with a focus on language development, including academic English and Native language. Students’ levels of prior content knowledge and language development vary greatly from one to another. It is important that instructors know where each student is on their learning pathway, and then target instructional experiences that are matched to their levels. With formative assessment, teachers have the tools to do this work. It is only in connecting with students where they are on the pathway, that they are able to progress towards meeting their Learning Goals.

Formative Assessment in Action

The Formative Assessment in Action Spotlight aims to provide educators with resources that support learning about the formative assessment process. The spotlight includes classroom videos that showcase formative assessment in action, and opportunities to deepen learning about formative assessment with video viewing protocols. Educators can use the opportunities to analyze others’ practice with an eye towards incorporating new learning into current instructional routines. Note: you’ll see some of the same classroom videos that are in this professional development program, plus many more!

High-Leverage Principles of Effective Instruction for English Learners

New college and career ready standards (CCRS) have established more rigorous expectations of learning for all learners, including EL students, than what was expected in previous standards. A common feature in these new content-area standards is their emphasis on students’ use of language to articulate and convey understanding of the content. The heightened role that language plays in CCRS presents new challenges for EL students and their teachers by calling for improved instructional strategies that simultaneously address language and content-area learning.

The purpose of this resource is to provide teachers of EL students with effective, high-leverage learning and teaching principles that can be incorporated into daily instructional plans and routines.