Access and equity

Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching

Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching (CLRT) principles emphasize validating and valuing students’ cultural and linguistic heritage and creating positive and nurturing learning environments so that learning is more effective. Amplify Science’s engaging projects, hands-on and interactive experiences, collaborative learning experiences, and frequent student-to-student discussions provide opportunities for all voices to be included. Students are encouraged to express themselves using the language in which they are most comfortable, while also adding science disciplinary language to their language repertoires. For example, during student-to-student discussions, teachers are encouraged to allow students to discuss their ideas frequently with a peer, as it simultaneously enables them to focus on learning science concepts and learn from their peers. Teachers are also encouraged to invite students to share ideas in their primary languages (if they wish) during discussions, which is validating for students and promotes extended science talk.

In addition to inclusive class and group work, throughout the program, students encounter ethnically diverse people in Amplify Science’s books, articles, and other learning materials, and are inspired by scientists and engineers from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds who represent diversity with respect to gender, sexuality, and disability.

For example, in the kindergarten unit Sunlight and Weather, students consult a reference book called Handbook of Models, which shows a diverse collection of real scientists who use models, including an African-American man, Asian-American men, a European-American woman, and an Arab-American woman. In the grade 3 unit Inheritance and Traits, students read Scorpion Scientist, a nonfiction book that follows arachnologist Dr. Lauren Esposito, a Latina woman, as she discovers a new species of scorpion.

Amplify Science’s additive, asset-based approach to the consideration of diversity in the classroom supports culturally and linguistically diverse students in developing a positive sense of self and in being able to move flexibly between different cultural and discourse communities. While Amplify Science includes many opportunities for teachers to enact CLRT principles, every classroom and every student is different, and teachers will need to understand their students’ unique ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and experiential backgrounds in order to ensure that learning is relevant and responsive to them. The following figure can support teachers as they create a welcoming, inclusive, and culturally sustaining science and engineering classroom for all of their students.

Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching principles

Develop an awareness about your students’ cultural and linguistic heritage and communication styles. Exude and model a positive disposition about the science-related cultural frameworks and experiences students from diverse backgrounds bring to the classroom. Promote positive dispositions toward diversity among all of your students, and convey the idea that diversity offers opportunities for multiple perspectives, creativity, and innovation in the science and engineering classroom.
Learn about your students’ lives. Seek out the science-related cultural and experiential knowledge and interests your students bring to school. Make connections between your students’ backgrounds and new STEM learning. Use books and other materials that feature scientists and engineers from your students’ ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Invite students to share their experiential and cultural knowledge in science and engineering lessons, and address issues of social injustices related to science that have affected people of color, immigrants, and the poor.
Convey the message that all languages and dialects of English are equally valid and useful in science and engineering. While students should be encouraged and supported to develop the language of science, the language they use during discussions, group projects, and other group work (such as lab experiments) should be accepted so that the focus is on science and engineering learning. Code-switching and incorporating home languages into discussions is natural and a reflection of language flexibility. Make transparent for your students that being bilingual and/or bidialectal (being proficient in multiple dialects of English) are assets in our increasingly global society.
Support students to develop the language of science and engineering by ensuring that all students have frequent opportunities to engage in intellectually rich and interactive learning where they can use disciplinary language in meaningful and authentic ways. Also, make transparent to students how the language of science works by highlighting the purpose and audiences authors have for writing different science text types (for example, information reports, explanations, arguments). Help them understand how these texts are organized, the language used in them, and the effect this language has on readers, and provide ample opportunities for them to apply this knowledge of language. Observe students in conversations and examine their writing closely in order to provide useful feedback on language.