Culturally Responsive Teaching is About Teaching AND Content
Structuring schools and classrooms in a way that encourages students' individuality is crucial. Helping teachers find new ways of teaching will help us reach this goal sooner.
Teachers need to involve students in their own learning more. Teachers need to talk less and ask more. Teachers need to facilitate and coach students to think more deeply instead of delivering information that students memorize and process. None of this is really new but the urgency of getting teachers and school leaders on board is greater than ever.
The DBQ Project materials can help.
The DBQ Project Method is a research-based, practical, step-by-step approach to helping students discover new information in a collaborative and engaging way. Presented with a question, students work through a series of activities that helps them find clues to answer the question. Our questions are authentic and engaging. They are demanding but differentiated.
Our approach keeps teachers and teaching at the center of the process but from a facilitating and coaching perspective. Rather than being the fonts true of knowledge, teachers become lead learners, helping students keep on track to find evidence and explanations to answer the question.
Teachers work to get and keep all the voices in the room. Teachers ask students probing questions to get them to think more deeply. Teachers work to create a classroom atmosphere where everyone wins if the question is answered well. They acknowledge that their students sometimes view the world differently and they celebrate that since it helps deepen everyone's thinking. If students' observations are reasonable according to the evidence, they are valid, even if those observations are new to teachers.
Our 6-Step Method helps teachers remember to be the teachers they want to become in order to be more flexible and more responsive to the different ways their students know and understand the world.
Culturally Diverse Materials and Content Matter
The structure and content of lessons communicate volumes about how welcome student voices and perspectives are in a classroom.
The DBQ Project is proud that our 6-Step Method is embedded in the content of every question we publish. Teachers do not have to reorganize our materials to teach in a culturally responsive way. The Hook Exercise is meant to build confidence and excitement about the question. The Background Essay provides context that helps level the playing field. Students who have less information going into a lesson have the tools they need to address the essential question with sophistication. All through the lesson, teachers and students encounter activities that promote collaboration and critical thinking that help deepen students' responses. Our lessons are open ended, evidence-rich inquiries. Students are invited to answer the question using evidence with the reasoning they derive from their own experience and knowledge.
We are proud that we have published so many questions that address perspectives not always taken into account elsewhere. Examples include Confined and Controlled: How Did the Mission Indians Resist? and Globalization at the Border: Did NAFTA Keep Its Promises to Mexican Workers? Even topics that are more conventional like Alexander the Great or Athens and Rome take on a new life with How Great Was Alexander the Great? and Citizenship in Athens or Rome: Which Had the Better System?
In the Fall of 2021, we will be adding over 20 new American History Mini-Qs to our library. Lessons on The Chinese Exclusion Act, The Bracero Program, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and Women in WWII are among the lessons teachers can look forward to sharing with students.
The DBQ Project Spanish Translations Support Language Learners
Since research suggests that teaching English Language learners important content and concepts is best done in context with a flexible approach. The same 6-Step Method that supports native English speakers supports language learners too. Building interest, providing background knowledge, building vocabulary, and collaborative, discussion-oriented exploration of a clearly stated question supports language development.
Additionally, we published Spanish translations of our Elementary, World and American History, and State History binders. Spanish translations are integrated into DBQ Online and can be used as supports for ELL students with just a click.
Language support is an option. That means teachers can provide support some of the time and withhold it at other times. All student supports including guided essay outlines, scoring guides, and rubrics are translated to support Spanish-speaking EL students. Our mission is to help teachers help students maintain their cognitive level and thinking skills as they learn to speak English.
Curious? Read more about our Spanish DBQs
Keeping Teachers Out of Politics
Teaching with document-based questions can help teachers limit bias in their classrooms. When students read primary and secondary sources on their own to answer a question, the student becomes the historian. Instead of the teacher sifting through the sources to present his take on historical events, the student examines the evidence to determine which evidence stands out. The student decides whether evidence suggests that the United States’ war with Mexico was justified or whether Hammurabi’s laws were just. Instead of being taught to worship or demonize leaders like Andrew Carnegie or Cesar Chavez, students evaluate the actions of these famous people and decide for themselves how their history should be written.
It is true that even choosing documents to answer a question involves choices that may reflect historical bias. However, encouraging students to read and write with the intention of forming their own opinions diminishes a teacher’s political sway in the classroom. Whichever spot on the political spectrum a teacher occupies, placing documents at the center of the discussion keeps an intellectual tradition of free inquiry alive and teaches children to distinguish propaganda from logical, evidence- based arguments. Teaching with documents teaches students to hold and support their own perspectives.
Contact Information
Co-Director of Professional Development and Partnerships
720-878-5078
Email: info@dbqproject.com
Website: www.dbqproject.com
Location: 1234 Sherman Avenue, Evanston, IL, USA
Phone: 847-475-4037