The Effects of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Personalized Learning to Close the Achievement Gap of Urban African American Males in Elementary School
Abstract
Public schools in the United States have undergone many educational reform efforts to address achievement discrepancies between African American students and their White peers, yet achievement gaps are still present. This study, interestingly enough, examined the academic gap that is present between African American female students and African American male students in an urban 3rd grade math content classroom. In this setting most African American males struggle with academic investment and their classroom behaviors consist of defiance, talking back, and physical aggression. Culturally Responsive instructional strategies and personalized goal setting were used to determine the affects on academic engagement and achievement of African American males. There is a natural connection between culturally responsive teaching practices and goal setting since students become more active participants in their learning when they learn to embrace their culture, acknowledge their strengths and self-regulate their behavior. The intervention strategies used were afternoon meetings, home visits or positive phone calls home and weekly goal setting. The results based on pre and post-intervention math scores indicated some academic growth for these African American males, but the achievement gap between them and their African American female peers was not fully closed. Data from post-intervention student perception surveys about goal setting and afternoon meetings indicated that students strongly agreed that creating weekly goals made them care more about my learning and that creating a classroom culture of sharing and caring developed a sense of community. Furthermore, results demonstrated drastic changes from low to high percentages of classroom engagement for all students after home visits or positive phone calls home were conducted. This study confirms that culturally responsive teaching strategies and goal setting can increase classroom engagement and improve the academics of African American urban males.
Abstract
Public schools in the United States have undergone many educational reform efforts to address achievement discrepancies between African American students and their White peers, yet achievement gaps are still present. This study, interestingly enough, examined the academic gap that is present between African American female students and African American male students in an urban 3rd grade math content classroom. In this setting most African American males struggle with academic investment and their classroom behaviors consist of defiance, talking back, and physical aggression. Culturally Responsive instructional strategies and personalized goal setting were used to determine the affects on academic engagement and achievement of African American males. There is a natural connection between culturally responsive teaching practices and goal setting since students become more active participants in their learning when they learn to embrace their culture, acknowledge their strengths and self-regulate their behavior. The intervention strategies used were afternoon meetings, home visits or positive phone calls home and weekly goal setting. The results based on pre and post-intervention math scores indicated some academic growth for these African American males, but the achievement gap between them and their African American female peers was not fully closed. Data from post-intervention student perception surveys about goal setting and afternoon meetings indicated that students strongly agreed that creating weekly goals made them care more about my learning and that creating a classroom culture of sharing and caring developed a sense of community. Furthermore, results demonstrated drastic changes from low to high percentages of classroom engagement for all students after home visits or positive phone calls home were conducted. This study confirms that culturally responsive teaching strategies and goal setting can increase classroom engagement and improve the academics of African American urban males.