Abstract
To effectively teach the increasingly diverse students in United States public schools, educators must be aware, acknowledge, and be sensitive to the skills, culture, interests, and experiences our varied learners bring to the classroom. Furthermore, educators must connect students' cultural knowledge to academic knowledge to relate the concept to students' lives in meeting students' academic expectations. This pilot study explores teachers' experiences engaging in culturally responsive teaching to bridge the gap between cultural and academic knowledge to increase students' conceptual understanding of science topics. This ethnographic case study research examines the issue of race using the lens of Critical Race Theory (Culturally Relevant Teaching) as the theoretical framework to make quality education accessible to all students, irrespective of students' cultural background. This study uses a purposive sampling technique to include two secondary school science teachers in a Northeastern United States of America public school with more than five years of teaching experience. Teachers’ reflective journals and two rounds of semi-structured interviews would be analyzed thematically by categorizing data using similarities and relationships between data into themes. The examination of teachers' experiences incorporating students' diverse cultures into their curriculum will provide insight into strategies they have applied successfully. Also, it will serve as a rubric to inform professional development for pre-service teachers.
Author Information
Emmanuel Ekpu, St. John's University, United States
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