Culturally Responsive Pedagogy at Minneapolis College: An Intensive, Cohort Training

Minneapolis College

Background

Minneapolis College has created a year-long cohort training focused on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP). The training supports cohorts of faculty working together to shift their teaching practices so they more fully emody the tenets and practices of CRP. In addition to being grounded in CRP, the training also incorporates pedagogies of poverty and trauma response, as well as open educational and mindfulness of equity. The goals of the training are to increase student success and decrease the equity gap.

The training aims to increase student success and decrease equity gaps by supporting our work to:

• draw on the knowledge and skill our students bring into the classroom,
• create supportive relationships that allow students to take learning risks,
• investigate how our own biases and assumptions show up in our teaching practice, and
• create more equitable classrooms

The training incorporates:

• culturally responsive pedagogy
• poverty responsive pedagogy
• trauma responsive pedagogy
• mindfulness-toward-equity pedagogy
• open educational pedagogy

The work involved:

• Attend fourteen 3-4 hour in-person sessions
• Complete pre-work for each session (reading, watching, reflecting)
• Complete post-work for each session (1 project and 1 micro-action, aimed at helping us shift our teaching practices to engage more fully in equity pedagogy)

Training Learning Outcomes:

• explain to others the central tenets of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy,
• incorporate those central tenets into course outcomes, materials, assessments, activities, syllabi, and relationships,
  identify interconnections between implicit bias, microaggressions, trauma, structural racism, stereotype threat, and course success,
• use our increased skills at CRP to share with, support, and encourage other faculty learners to increase everyone’s skills at CRP,
• trace how our values have changed and/or deepened through engaging in cohort, and
• create a professional development plan for making next steps on the journey of culturally responsive teaching.

Type of Innovation Funding Received through Minnesota State

Large Seed Grant - $25,000

Sustaining Grant - $10,000