Educating for Change^®

Bonnie M. Davis, Ph.D.

Research-based Classroom Strategies

to Improve the Academic Achievement

of Diverse Learners

Dear Educator:

As you read these strategies, think about how they might work in your school.  Each educational situation is different.  You know your students and your needs, and I am confident that you will modify these to best fit your students’ needs.  Expand, elaborate, and enjoy!

If you want concrete examples of these strategies and directions for implementing them, you can find them in the book, How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You: Culturally Relevant Teaching Strategies (2006).

1. Increase the Positive Visibility of Every Student

1. The Daily/Weekly Check-in

• Teachers greet their students at the door with a smile, using students’ names.

• Everyone in the building has a designated student they mentor.

• Teachers do an activity at the beginning of each class to connect with each and every student (The Check-in is a great one).

2. Pictures in the School Hallways (Role Models)

• Students see pictures throughout the school; these pictures are of non-stereotypical role models as well as students in a variety of roles.

• Culturally diverse photos of role models which represent the cultures of the students as well as other cultures are posted throughout the school.

3. Team pictures in School Hallways (Students/Teachers/Administration/Support Staff)

4. Equitable Representation in School Activities

• A staff member monitors extracurricular activities to ensure equitable participation by gender and ethnicity.

5. Texts/Literature that reflect Students’ Lives/Cultures

6. Student of the Week/Month

7. Activity/Work Roles for Students

• Teachers assign as many work roles as possible to students in the class.  Work roles build responsibility and classroom community.

8. Post Student Writing throughout the School

9. Post Student Art/Projects throughout the School

10. Hold Talent Shows, Poetry Slams, Project Displays

2.  Build Relationships with Students

1. Greet/Meet/Share

• Each teacher has a greeting ritual for greeting, meeting, and sharing with students on a daily basis.

2. William Glasser’s Two-minute Strategy

3. Building Community

• Teachers in the building share with colleagues the strategies they use to build a classroom community.

• Administrators share and implement strategies to build a school community.

4. “I Care” Strategies

5. Structure lessons to include Students’ Lives/Interests

6. Individual Conferences

3. Build Relationships with Caregivers/ Families / Parents

1. Positive Call Home before School Year Begins

• Staff is required to call each student’s home before school begins.  Staff members introduce themselves and welcome the family into the school community.

2. Family Resource Rooms

• School has a designated “family resource room” where family members can read, talk, have coffee, and share in the school community.

3. Family Intervention Strategies

4. Understanding Family Economic Cultures

5. Understanding the Family Racial/Ethnic Cultures

6. Hold School Events that Welcome Families such as Soul Food Dinners, Musical Events that Honor the Cultures of your Students/Families

4. Build the Relationships among Staff to Model the Behaviors you Want from Students

1. Staff socializes across Race/Gender/Culture and Department lines

• Administrators provide for deliberate social events that cross race/gender/cultural boundaries.

2. Staff is visible at cultural activities in the community

3. Staff uses interdisciplinary strategies to model work they want from Students

4. Staff increases their knowledge of other cultures

• Administrators provide for culturally relevant professional development for staff on an ongoing basis.

5. Staff understands and practices what respect looks like and means to all cultural groups in the school, including understanding “greetings”

5. Create Support Groups for Students

1. Homework Help/Tutoring Programs after school

2. Mentoring Opportunities

3. College Visits

4. Achievement Clubs

6. Teach Cognitive Skills to Students

1. Plan Backwards; Sequence Ladder, etc.

2. Build Cognitive Frameworks with Graphic Organizers such as KWL

3. Set weekly project goals, daily goals, and classroom goals—Use a 15-minute goal setting framework

4. Teach Students Self-Talk and Self-Assessment

5. Set “Dream” Goals

6. Agree upon and teach School-wide Graphic Organizers

7. Require that each student use a daily Planner

7. Increase Reading/Writing Across the Curriculum

1. Become a School of Readers and Writers

2. Start a Writing Club/Reading Club

3. Hold Writers’ Showcases

4. Hold Teacher Book Study Groups and Discuss with Students; Entire School reads the Same Book

5. All Teachers carry a Book with them/Same for Students

6. Aggressively enter Student Writing into competitions/publications, etc.

7. Publish a Staff/Student Literary Magazine

8. Increase Staff Knowledge about Body Language, Communication Styles, Cultural Differences, Gestures, Economic Class

1. Training on all the “ism’s”

2. Training in Cultural Proficiency/Beyond Diversity

3. Learn the Brain Research on Instruction

4. Learn about Cultural Barriers/Challenges Between and Among Cultures

9. Assess Student Achievement Levels often

1. Balanced Literacy

2. Individual Assessments

3. Critical Friends model—Look at Student Work Using Protocols

4. Reading Tests

5. Compare Student Work with Students from High-achieving Schools

6. Understanding by Design--
   Grant Wiggins’ Work

10. Take a Professional and Personal Journey as a Staff Member

1. Actively participate in a Professional Learning Community (PLC)

2. Keep a Journal of your Teaching/Interactions with Others

3. Read Books that Stretch you Intellectually, Emotionally, Spiritually

4. Stay Physically Active

5. Journal about a Student who challenges you  Consider sharing it with the student

6. If you are White, engage in Experiences/cultural events where you are in the Minority so that you can have Minority Experiences

7. Read the History of your Student Cultural Groups

8. Read the Literature of your Student Cultural Groups and of other Cultures that differ from your own

Email me with your suggestions and comments at the email or website listed above.  If I can support your work in any way, please contact me.

Check out my other books:

How to Coach Teachers Who Don’t Think Like You: Using Literacy Strategies to Coach Across Content Areas (2008)

The Biracial and Multiracial Student Experience: A Journey to Racial Literacy (2009)

Thank you!

Bonnie M. Davis, Ph.D.