Culturally Responsive Teaching

The term Culturally Responsive Teaching is buzzing among teachers and district leaders.

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.

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.

The DBQ Project, like so many others, is conducting an audit of our lessons to ensure that our lessons and our language reflect the perspectives of our diverse population. We are committed to making changes where necessary.

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.

It takes years for students to master a new language. Teaching students grade-level academic work and a new language at the same time is challenging! The DBQ Project aims to support all the teachers and students we can.

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

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.

Beginning in March 2020 and continuing through the school year, students' school experience has been irregular. Many of our Partner Districts are concerned about the academic gaps that have opened among students. Social inequality has amplified these gaps. School leaders are rightly preoccupied with finding ways to limit the damage.

Students living through the pandemic are unlikely to recover all the lost content from the disruptions of this year. But they don't have to lose the skills.

The DBQ Project proudly advocates content-rich inquiry teaching that emphasizes skills in reading, thinking, speaking, and writing. Although the content in our lessons is supplementary, the skills students practice doing our lessons are anything but. In addition, our lessons, taught with our recommended instructional strategies, are high-interest and engaging.

Let our professional development experts help you and your teachers focus instruction on the skills that matter in closing these gaps.

Even before the pandemic, many of our Partner Districts used DBQ Project lessons for Baseline and End-of-Year exams. This year, more and more of our partners are working with us to construct plans to do the same. Unlike other exam prep, preparing students do a DBQ and then assessing and calibrating the essays (or other end products) does not cut into instructional time. Using DBQs as the assessments to evaluate work students are already practicing in a familiar format is fair and revealing. District leaders can reserve lessons for assessments and teachers can use lessons with different content for instructional purposes throughout the year. Learning targets are transparent to teachers, families and students. Data gathered from scoring student work helps monitor student growth and inspires teachers to improve instruction.

Curious? Read about how Capistrano Unified has used DBQ as authentic district-wide assessments.

We work with districts nationwide to train teachers on writing and using strong rubrics and helping them find common ground as they calibrate student work against those standards. Talk to us about how we can help you too! We can connect you with school leaders all over the country who will share their experiences.

It is a well-established point that teaching reading and comprehension strategies out of context is inefficient and ineffective for most students. Though the importance of learning to read in a context is well-documented, many teachers and school leaders continue to emphasize intervention strategies that do not build the content knowledge students need to move forward.

Elementary students with rich social studies instruction score almost 25% higher on literacy exams than their counterparts (CCSSO). Robert Marzano repeatedly emphasizes the importance of social studies instruction for building strong vocabulary. Students with strong social studies and science backgrounds score higher on the SAT and ACT than students who lack that knowledge.

Curious? Watch this quick video to learn from Dr. Laura Bacon and Sabrina Buggs about what happened in Aiken County a couple of years ago. Did you say scores increased 9.6%? In secondary? Yes. That happened.

The current public health crisis has created extraordinary challenges for educators and students. Now, more than ever, there is a need for engaging and rigorous remote instruction. The DBQ Project is here to help address these challenges head-on through our digital curriculum and distance learning professional development.

The DBQ Project Approach

For years, the DBQ Project has been designing high quality content literacy lessons for social studies and English language arts. All of our lessons are inquiry-based and student-centered. As students grapple with a compelling question, they read and analyze a series of documents. Ultimately, students draw their own informed conclusions about the central question.

• Our Six-Step Method breaks down what is normally a complex process into manageable, concrete steps.

• DBQ Online includes the DBQ Project's curriculum in an interactive digital format.

• These self-paced courses familiarize teachers with The DBQ Project Method. Teachers will learn how to make the DBQ process engaging and powerful for students. Participants will work through the steps of The DBQ Project Method at their own pace, pausing to reflect and practice along the way.

  
  

  The Basics

  • DBQ 101 is equivalent to our DBQ Full Day Introductory Workshop.
    
  • Courses are available at no charge to DBQ Online districts, throughout the pandemic.
  • This self-paced course takes between 5-6 hours to complete.
  • Courses will be open for 30 days after launch.
  • Courses will launch on February 25, April 1, and May 6.
  • Participants will receive a certificate of completion when they finish the course.

Our workshops help districts provide the sustained support teachers need to help their students be successful. The DBQ Project is committed to helping teachers accelerate their students at a pace everyone can understand. Students need strong reading and communication skills to succeed personally, in school, and at work. 21st century teachers need information and support to boost critical thinking skills and close racial and socio-economic gaps in student achievement.

Check out our professional learning options HERE.

Beth Montgomery

Co-Director of Professional Development and Partnerships

beth@dbqproject.com

720-878-5078

Email: info@dbqproject.com
Website: www.dbqproject.com
Location: 1234 Sherman Avenue, Evanston, IL, USA
Phone: 847-475-4037