Use these discussion starters by responding to one or more of the prompts, or share a reflection or question of your own in the comments. If you use a quote from the book in your comment, be sure to include the page number.
Introduction: In a discussion about underserved students lacking cognitive resources, Hammond claims, “Boykin and Noguera (2011) said it best, ‘when such assets are not yet part of a student’s repertoire, educators must directly provide for their acquisition and use…’ (p. 114)” (p. 6).
Do you agree or disagree?
Chapter 1: How do you support struggling students to become independent learners?
Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain 
I believe establishing relationships and having a social-emotional connection is the basis for supporting struggling students to become independent learners. Unfortunately, the current approach to closing the achievement gap seems to be to set higher standards and increase high stakes testing. “Just increasing standards and instructional rigor won’t reverse this epidemic.” Hammond pg. 15. Instead, educators need opportunities for formative assessment involving students in establishing their learning goals and taking an active role in working toward those goals. Finish researcher, Pasi Sahlberg calls this small data. “I spent a lot of time then collecting small data, in and out of my classroom, to understand students’ own ideas about the mathematical and scientific worlds. Only after knowing what students imagine when they think about what mathematicians do (most of those are not positive images at all) I started to find better ways to make the world of mathematics accessible and understandable to students.” This kind of information can help us understand the learning gaps our students have and help us to determine the most effective way to close those gaps.
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ntroduction: I do agree that teachers should provide, and continue to provide, for students, instruction and structure in order to help them gain and grow in their “cognitive resources”. Some sections in Chapter 1 got me to thinking about how these skills might already be taught to the general ed population of students who enter kinder ready to learn. But for those entering school slightly behind their peers, they might be viewed as being in need of a pull out class like Title I or Learning Center, and thus might not be provided with this same cognitive resource instruction and instead are tracked to learn “the basics.” As I continued reading, Hammond refers to the often mentioned idea of the importance of “learning to read” by third grade, so that students can then move on to “reading to learn.” She ties this same idea into the building of cognitive processes and structures (habits of mind) in the early grades, so that they can then go on to do more complex thinking and independent learning (p.13). This seemed like a logical train of thought to me, but it wasn’t until I got a little further into the chapter that I started to tie this into what I see in my own school. Hammond states that “many children start school with small learning gaps, but as they progress through school, the gap between African American and Latino and White students grows because we don’t teach them how to be independent learners.” (p. 15) After that she goes on to list what happens to these learners: underestimation of intellectual capability, challenging/interesting work pushed aside until “basics” have been mastered and thus depriving students of meaningful or motivating context for their learning. If by pulling them out of the “Challenge Time” or “Extended Activities” areas of our day, then when will these missing skills be fostered?
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Ideally, all educators want, and will do their best, to provide every student with the tools to be successful. I believe most of us try and foster learning through various activities and from different perspectives trying to find each students strength and build on previous knowledge while pushing them to move from dependent to independent learners. Being a high school teacher, I feel somewhat at a loss as to how to effectively provide the students with these “cognitive assets” they do not possess. On page 2, Hammond remembered recognizing an achievement gap at the fifth grade level, “the difference I came to realize was I had been taught to use my mind well, process information effectively, and do analytical reading. From the first grade, students were being prepared to take on increasingly more rigorous content as we move toward six grade. We were taught to be independent, self-directed learner’s. This was not the case for the new kids that showed up.… The gaps in their knowledge and skill by fifth grade were too great for them to be independent learners without intense focus and support.” As Laurie states, it seems that higher standards and high-stakes testing is our answer. And as Sarah mentions, we use our “enrichment time” and “challenge periods” to do pull-out and remediation. When do these students catch up? On page 15, Hammond talks about “mindset” and students with increased brainpower “can accelerate their own learning… and improve their weak skills on their own.” I feel by using CRT practices (I now have a name for it!) and trying to understand the underlying student, and where they are coming from, the connections that will form can be powerful and from those connections, true learning can occur.
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I too agree that educators should provide for students whenever necessary in order for them to expand their cognitive skills and help end the epidemic of dependent learners. Hammond believes that “the quality of relationships between teacher and students are just as important as the technical strategies used to get students to perform at higher levels.” (p.8) One of the questions I had coming out of the workshop was how culturally responsive teaching practices could be better understood by educators in our community and how we as a community could correctly use these practices in the classroom. After reading the first couple chapters of Hammond’s book, I have learned that culturally responsive teaching has the ability to close achievement gaps through an interdisciplinary approach known as “Ready for Rigor.” The Ready for Rigor framework is designed to help teachers “operationalize culturally responsive teaching.” (p.20) My understanding of Ready for Rigor is that it is a framework that attempts to organize the tools every culturally responsive teacher should have at their disposal. Our primary goal as educators is to help students learn how to learn and in order for us to do that we must learn how to help students become independent learners by providing quality, multi-dimensional, empowering teacher student relationships in conjunction with methodological strategies.
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Biggest take away: how much I and my school is currently failing at culturally responsive teaching. Like all issues, however, we must first identify a problem in order to truly address it. I am currently working with 7th grade students, some of who are reading at a 3rd grade level, writing at a 4th grade level, and completing math at a 6th grade level. The resulting instruction then, is focused on those three categories, and achieving “measurable” growth. Often this means that the student loses an elective, or a science or social studies class, which could be challenging and of interest to the student. This chapter got me to thinking about the entire school system, and it got me to wondering about our priorities as educators, as well as our students’ priorities as learners.
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Ann, I so agree with you! Over the years our solution to close the achievement gap has been to stuff more basic skills down our underperforming students’ throats, and shut them out of all the exciting and enriching learning experiences that can motivate and engage them, like STEM, arts, social studies, etc. Zaretta’s story of her own childhood connects to this as well. I also think this is why the charter movement has gained so much traction with minority populations- they know if they want to get a “well-rounded: education it won’t be in their neighborhood school that is fixated on reading and math and test scores to the exclusion of teaching them to think and exposing them to the excitement of learning about the world. Unfortunately, after 38 years in education, I am not sure I see a big change coming…unless all of us make it happen!
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I think the quote …” educators must directly provide” is so rich in guidance. First, we MUST. I love the imperative. This is not a choice, it is a responsibility for us and a right for our students. Then the word “directly”. Being culturally responsive is not a program or a curriculum someone gives us and we use without understanding why – it is something we must learn how to create and practice until it is imbedded in our instruction and permeates our teaching.
It seems like educators who embrace culturally responsive practices do so intentionally with a positive outcome in mind. Too often we seem to use strategies and texts without a purpose except to teach content. Good education is knowing that we teach the student, not the text or subject. Culturally responsive education is knowing who the students are and then intentionally teaching in the ways they learn so that they become independent thinkers . .
I am excited to learn more about supporting educators in this work.
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As a first grade teacher, this chapter got me thinking about the K-5 classrooms in my building. In this chapter, I spent a lot of time looking and reading about the “dependent learner” versus the “independent learner”. Figure 1.1 is something that I would like to share with my workmates. I feel like we are really struggling with helping kids become independent learners. As the curriculum has gotten harder, we have added more scaffolding to assignments to help students get through it. I think that letting them struggle for a little bit is probably a good thing. In order to have independent learners, it isn’t just a shift in increasing standards or rigor – we as teachers need to work to help our students be complex thinkers and problem solve on their own. I am so guilty of this. I often times just let student mirror what I am doing, read along with me, copy my sentence frames off of the board, etc. I know that there is a lot of work to be done in the way that I teach and help these children be amazing, even at such a young age. The framework provided in chapter 1 will be helpful as I keep reading and think about what I can do as a primary teacher to help the epidemic.
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Carrie,
I was thinking about the same things and how it applies to our school and even our K-3 hallway. I try to help build skills to become independent learners, I don’t know about you, or other teachers, but I am seeing a lot of apathy in the effort, work product, and even consequences to behaviors. I wonder how much of this is a socio-economic problem, a culturally responsive problem, or a problem with society as a whole.
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“One of the goals of education is not simply to fill students with facts and information, but to help them learn how to learn.” (p.12) is a truism we as educators believe and structure our classrooms upon. Our desire is to instill facts, inspire curiosity, nurture confidence and allow our students to deepen their own sense of self motivation. Our current system of education would be much more effective, however, if all students arrived at school with common, equivalent cognitive resources. Therefore, I do agree with Boykin and Noguera, (2011) who said, “when such assets are not yet part of a student’s repertoire, educators must directly provide for their acquisition and use…(p. 114)” (p.6). The question then, becomes,HOW?. I agree with both Sara and Lynn that we attempt to close the gap by servicing students with pull out services, or providing Title l services. Our intention is to help these students learn to read, so they can later read to learn. Since we don’t want students missing core academics, they are then serviced when we are providing “enrichment time”, project based learning, and the more interesting and fun lessons that might engage these students and peek their interests to learn more. I am excited to learn more about how to synchronize the practices presented in the Ready for Rigor Framework to “create the social, emotional and cognitive conditions that allow students to more actively engage and take ownership of their learning process.” (p. 18), although I don’t know that I look forward to encountering my own “productive struggle” (p. 12) as I break away from my known and comfortable teaching methods.
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I definitely agree that we must provide cognitive resources for students if they don’t have them. As I was reading Ch. 1 Climbing out of the gap I found myself nodding and agreeing over and over with Hammond’s astute observations of teachers, “…we postpone the more challenging and interesting work until we believe they have mastered the basics.” p.15. The STEM trainings I have attended this year have allowed me to push beyond this in science, which has allowed me to see high level thinking in my students when given problem-solving tasks. Intentional grouping and open ended questioning has taught me a lot about the abilities of my ELLs.
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Question, Chapter 1: How do you support struggling students to become independent learners?
Response: I think this is a great question for teachers to take the time to understand how do we help students who may be struggling and help them learn and build upon the essential skills needed for higher critical thinking and success post high school. Essential skills that will allow them to remove their status within the achievement gap where due to their race, culture, or socioeconomic status has put them at a major disadvantage in school. I believe the majority of teachers try to create a positive learning environment/community within their classroom that aims to meet the diverse needs of all students. We might strive to achieve this but still fail to help those students who are not responding to the learning strategies and interventions teachers and schools are utilizing. Struggling students need more than motivation to become engaged within their own learning. They need more than teaching to the test, high standards, and engaging learning activities to realize their own potential and move from the dependent learner to the independent learner. I think creating a relationship of trust and understanding with students can be very powerful. Chapter One stated the importance of making sure to not change instruction in a way that ” the curriculum is less challenging and more repetitive. Their instruction is more focused on skills low on Bloom’s taxonomy.” (pg. 12) I think this was a great point the Hammond mentioned. It is important to make sure that students are being challenged, supported, and provided the same quality learning activities and instruction by “offering them sufficient opportunities in the classroom to develop the cognitive skills and habits of mind that would prepare them to take on more advanced academic tasks”(14). All students want the same opportunities to learn and learn creatively and critically.
I believe I have a lot to learn about how to help students who are struggling to become independent learners. Being a new teacher, I don’t know if I know enough about how to most effectively help my at-risk students. I am very excited to continue reading this book and have a better understanding of how to have a brain-based approach to teaching and having the tools and knowledge for culturally responsive teaching.
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I think this is a great question that I ask myself often. However, I think this is not something that can be answered easily and simply. Hammond talks about the four Practice Areas and the first one being “Awareness.” (page17-18) The first bullet says “Locate and acknowledge their own sociopolitical position.” This has really made me think about my own place in society and how I was raised and how that influences my teaching.
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We ALL have a lot to learn, but I think we are at least on the right road by reading this book in a thoughtful way and having these ongoing discussions!
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Wow, I am having a hard time of knowing where to start. Just in Chapter 1, there is a lot to digest and comprehend. As did some of my peers, I kept thinking about the independent vs. dependent learner. I like to think that I do a good job of helping my students with these skills, but I am questioning at how well I am doing it. I worry about the apathetic nature of my students, and of students school wide. I had the fortunate experience to be able to observe my peers today as part of a mentor program, and I kept asking myself if the school and my peers do a good job with culturally responsive teaching and I have to say that unfortunately, we do not. I have a lot to learn about this topic and am excited to learn more and bring back to my colleagues. I really like the fact that CRT is based upon neuroscience brain principles.
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