CULTURALLY EFFICACIOUS TEACHING OLIVER 1

Culturally Efficacious Teaching and Pedagogies Reflection

Emily J. Oliver

The University of Texas at San Antonio

“Teachers cannot control how students show up. Teachers can control, however, their

(professional and personal) response to how students show up” (Warren, 2018, p.170). Cultural

efficacy instruction has many definitions, but to me it means having the mindset that every

student will be successful, regardless of their background, and having the willpower to support

that. In the following sections, I will be sharing what I have learned about being culturally

efficacious and how I feel it is best applied within the classroom environment, the content and

how students receive it, and within differentiated instruction.

Before instruction can even begin, students must feel safe in their learning environment.

To me, the word “safe” is an umbrella term that encompasses students well being physically,

cognitively, developmentally, and academically all of which have cultural factors playing a key

role. In the book “Crafting Culturally Efficacious Teacher Preparation and Pedagogy”, it

discusses the Culturally Efficacious Observation Protocol (CEOP) and strands that attribute to

the model. The 6th strand, which looks at culturally safe classrooms, states the educator should be

“aware of personal style of authority; adapts individual and group behavior to situational and

contextual classroom events; allows students to take risk and learn from mistakes” (Bustos et al.,

2018, p.11). Throughout the field experience and research I have conducted, my idea of a safe

learning environment has shaped into what I believe to be a culturally efficacious perspective.

“Teacher efficacy is the perception of the teacher’s capability to bring about desired outcomes of

student achievement through engagement, learning, and motivation” (Ford et al., 2014, p.57).

Engagement involves student collaboration, culturally relevant resources that students can relate

to, and opportunities to get up out of their seat and use kinetics. Learning involves using multiple

medias (e.g. books, videos, anchor charts) for students to learn from, self-evaluations and goals,

being able to use their hearing, writing, reading, and speaking skills, and being allowed to use
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their rights as a learner. Lastly, motivation involves supporting students and peers supporting one

another, having a reward system, and continual positive feedback. The three elements of

engagement, learning and motivation along with nurturing and cultural respect towards one

another is what a safe environment should encompass.

Once the beginnings of a safe environment have been established, the next step in

creating culturally efficacious instruction is the content of the instruction. The fifth strand of the

CEOP states that the content being provided should “acknowledge students’ cultural knowledge,

build home and school relationships; encourage exploration of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic

background and knowledge from multiple perspectives and world views” (Bustos et al., 2018,

p.10-11). The content needs to not only address state standards and be interdisciplinary, it also

needs to be culturally relevant so that students are able to build on their funds of knowledge in an

authentic manner. “In the United States, … teachers often prefer to assume the color-blind

concept where everyone is taught in the same way” (Ford et al., 2014, p.57). During my time at

UTSA, I have been taught the importance of equity over equality. As an educator, we are in a

room with students who all come from different backgrounds and it is vital that we learn about

their life’s outside of academics so that we can help attribute those factors to their success or

struggles and be able to guide them based on their individual needs. “Often administrators expect

teachers to scope and sequence with predetermined deadlines, without considering the learner’s

acquisition process or providing opportunities for self-evaluation” (Bustos et al., 2018, p.79).

Being a culturally efficacious teacher means providing students with that self-evaluation and

providing multiple modes for students to express the knowledge of the content. It means standing

up for your students’ rights as learners and providing them with multiple opportunities to be

successful in the content standards through both formal and informal evaluations.
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With content standards comes the creation and presentation of it. The 7th strand of the

CEOP model states that educators should “incorporate learner differences, recognize and respond

to students’ perceptions, interpretations, or misconceptions to content; engage students in

evaluating content from diverse cultural, social. and political perspectives and interpretations”

(Bustos et al., 2018, p.11). When creating lessons and activities, you must keep a culturally

efficacious perspective in mind so that you are reaching all your students during instruction.

Some ways to do this is by “purposefully reading fiction and nonfiction books by authors

representing the cultural and linguistic diverse students in the classroom, creating visual displays

and multimedia materials that reflect diversity and promoting conversations with individual

students about their culture, as well as obstacles they face” (Ford et al., 2014, p.58). Other

effective techniques I have seen throughout my field experience is using labels around the

classroom in multiple languages, word walls containing vocabulary words, definitions and

pictures, and the use of anchor charts to help summarize meaningful information. Too many

times, I have seen teachers make one cultural reference and they then think that they are being

culturally relevant within their classroom when in reality it is so much more. With the amount of

experiences and culture that students bring into the classroom, educators should be applying that

knowledge within their everyday classroom environment to create meaningful, authentic

experiences. Another way to prepare students for success is by creating a daily schedule.

Wanting to be an early childhood educator, I will be expected to touch all subject every day of

the week and the most effective way to do so is to set out time for each discipline to create

normalcy for students. Working in my full year placement I saw the benefits of having a set

schedule and the ease it puts on students for them to know exactly how long they have to achieve

their objectives.
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As mentioned previously, students have the right to be a learner within an equitable

setting. They should be allowed to use their voice, share their beliefs and opinions without

judgment, respond to questions incorrectly and be able to learn from those mistakes, and in

whole, be who they are without fear of recrimination. When discussing assessment, strand 8 of

the CEOP model states that the teacher should “use multiple methods and approaches; encourage

students to use self-monitoring techniques to evaluate personal growth; use student performance

to assess own approaches to learning and teaching” (Bustos et al., 2018, p.11). Differentiated

instruction is also vital to creating culturally efficacious instruction because of the equity it

provides the students. All students learn differently and the background knowledge, both

academically and culturally, is going to affect how their growth progresses. By having an

efficacy that strives to meet the learning needs of all students individually, teachers and students

alike can monitor personal growth as the school year progresses. I think it is also important to be

working with your colleagues when trying to assure your instruction is differentiated while

yielding growth. Each teacher should be “engaging in in-depth conversation with colleagues and

improving opportunities to share knowledge and experiences with other teachers on

differentiated educational approaches” (De Neve et al., 2015, p.38). When you have an

opportunity to collaborate with like-minded professionals to try and create learning activities for

students to thrive from, you are helping set up your students for success.

When it comes to perspective, I strive to “react as the ‘someone’ in some else’s situation”

instead of “reacting as ‘yourself’” (Warren, 2018, p.174). All students come to the classroom

with a plethora of knowledge and it is up to the educator to apply it all in a meaningful, authentic

manner. By having the mindset of creating culturally efficacious instruction, I can create an

equitable learning environment suitable for student growth.

References

Bustos Flores, B. D., Claeys, L. D., & Gist, C. D. (2018). Crafting Culturally Efficacious

Teacher Preparation and Pedagogies. Lexington Books.

De Neve, D., Devos, G., & Tuytens, M. (2015). The importance of job resources and self

efficacy for beginning teachers’ professional learning in differentiated

instruction. Teaching and Teacher Education, 47, 30–41.

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Ford, B., Stuart, D., & Vakil, S. (2014). Culturally Responsive Teaching in the 21st Century

Inclusive Classroom. Journal of the International Association of Special

Education, 15(2), 56–62.

Warren, C. (2018). Empathy, Teacher Dispositions, and Preparation for Culturally Responsive

Pedagogy. Journal of Teacher Education, 69(2), 169–183.

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