Teacher: _______________

Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Culturally Responsive Classrooms Coaching Tool

Learning Target: All teachers can implement, analyze, and reflect on culturally inclusive instruction in
the classroom.

Real World Story Problems and Diverse Texts/Materials

Self-Reflection
1) What is your level of comfort with creating real world applicable story
problems/selecting diverse texts?
2) What supports and resources can I provide to you as you embed real world story
problems/diverse texts/materials into your lessons?
Element Ideal State
Real World Problems & Students use their learning to make an impact on their community.
Diverse Texts
Setting the Stage
Teacher can…
• understand the purpose/research in support of real-world problems and diverse texts
• create Civil Discourse routine
• identify texts with multiple perspectives
• create teaming roles/routine
Instruction Phase 1
• Teacher provides texts with multiple perspectives or real-world problems
• Teacher and students analyze diverse perspectives together – students reflect on diverse perspectives in writing
using scaffolds
• Teacher defines/models civil discourse for students
• Teacher provides supports to help students to participate in civil discourse
• Teacher provides students with prescriptive teaming roles and instructions to analyze real world problems
Instruction Phase 2
• Students identify and discuss diverse perspectives with peers without teacher support or scaffolds
• Students apply civil discourse to discuss current events regularly with peers without teacher support
• Students identify biases and intersection of identity across content areas and can explain the intersection of
bias/identity to their peers
• Students team without prescriptive roles to create solutions to real world problems and model solutions-based
thinking orally during collaboration with peers

Teacher Action Steps to Achieve Desired Result:

Nicole Ellis, 2019

 Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Student Voice
Self-Reflection
1) What is your level of comfort with integrating student voice into your
classroom?
2) How might student voice impact student achievement?
3) What supports and resources can I provide to you as you embed student voice
into your lessons?
Element Ideal State
Student Voice Students provide regular feedback on what they are learning, what they want to learn, and
how they are learning.
Setting the Stage
Teacher can…
• identify topics that are relevant to their students’ lives and experiences
• articulate why student voice is important to achievement

Instruction Phase 1
• Students demonstrate their mastery of a skill using 1 prescriptive assessment
• Students respond to topics and instruction only when prompted by teacher
• Teacher relates the topic of the lesson to the real world but not the specific lives and experiences of the
population of students in the classroom
Instruction Phase 2
• Students choose from a buffet of tasks to demonstrate their mastery of a skill
• Students respond to topics/instruction regularly and without prompting as part of classroom routine
• Teacher chooses texts and tasks that are relevant to their students’ lives and experiences and embeds the topics
in daily lessons

Teacher Action Steps to Achieve Desired Result:

Nicole Ellis, 2019

 Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Social Emotional Skills & Student Self-Reflection

Self-Reflection
1) Which social emotional skills might be most important to teenagers’
development?
2) How might you embed social emotional learning into a task that you already
use with students?
3) How might social emotional learning positively impact your classroom culture?
4) What supports and resources can I provide to you as you embed social
emotional learning and reflection into your lessons?
Element Ideal State
Social Emotional Skills & Students reflect on their own emotional growth and development as learners, balancing a
Student Self-Reflection focus on process and product.
Setting the Stage
Teacher can…
• identify routines/procedures/tasks that will allow students to do some emotional learning/reflection
• reflect on their beliefs around classroom culture
• articulate their vision for their classroom to model reflective practices for students
Phase 1
• Teacher identifies current state vs. ideal classroom culture
• Teacher plans for social emotional learning in each lesson
• Teacher creates routine for student-led discussions around classroom culture
Phase 2
• Students analyze classroom culture in current state (current vs. ideal state and how to achieve it) to
peers/teacher
• Students provide ideas on how to strengthen classroom culture during discussions
• Students track their content knowledge and skills and social emotional learning, and can verbalize their areas for
growth without prompting

Teacher Steps to Achieve Desired Result:

Nicole Ellis, 2019

 Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Co-Generative Dialogues Around Instruction

Self-Reflection
1) What is your level of comfort with facilitating cogenerative dialogues?
2) Who is someone you know who already implements cogenerative dialogues?
3) How might cogenerative dialogues change your instruction? How will you
communicate those changes to students?
4) What supports and resources can I provide to you as you embed cogenerative
dialogues into your classroom?
Element Ideal State
Cogenerative Dialogues Students engage in meaningful dialogue that:
Around Instruction • builds a stronger bond between teacher and student and allows each to learn about
the other on a deeper level
• leads to continuous reflection on and improvement of instruction by the teacher
Setting the Stage
• understand the purpose and research in support of cogenerative dialogues
• observe/listen to a cogenerative dialogue with a peer
• identify key students who will participate in the dialogues using data to drive the decision
Phase 1
• Teacher sets up space/time for small groups of students to provide verbal feedback about instruction before or
after school
• Teacher sets up routine around student feedback for small groups of students
Phase 2
• All students regularly provide feedback to teacher during class around instruction without prompting
• All students articulate changes teacher has made to instruction based on their feedback from one lesson to the
next

Teacher Actions to Achieve Desired Result:

Nicole Ellis, 2019

 Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Student Collaboration & Students as Co-Teachers

Self-Reflection
1) What does collaboration look like in your classroom?
2) How might you identify the cultural wealth that students bring to your class?
3) How could you set up routines to help students to become the teachers?
4) What supports and resources can I provide to you as you embed collaboration
and student co-teaching into your lessons?
Element Ideal State
Student Collaboration & Collaboration:
Students as Co-Teachers Students depend on each other to complete a rigorous task.

Students as Co-Teachers:
Students utilize their own knowledge and experiences to facilitate learning for their peers
both in small groups and whole class.
Setting the Stage
• set routines/procedures for collaboration and student teaching students
• identity cultural wealth from individual students using Yosso’s Cultural Wealth model
• plan to monitor – how/what will you be looking for from students to know that they mastered the skill?

Phase 1
Collaboration:
• Students articulate the routine/purpose of collaboration
• Students collaborate with support from teacher

Co-Teachers:
• Students articulate the routine/purpose for co-teaching to their peers
• Teachers identify knowledge and experiences that students bring to the co-teaching routine

Phase 2
Collaboration:
• Students collaborate with their peers to solve real world problems and discuss diverse perspectives without
scaffolding

Co-Teachers:
• Teachers monitor facilitation of learning and use it as a piece of evidence
• Students can articulate and use their cultural wealth to teach their peers new skills related to the content

Teacher Actions to Achieve Desired Result:

Nicole Ellis, 2019

 Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Rigorous Tasks
Self-Reflection
1) What does a rigorous task look and sound like?
2) What is your comfort level with designing rigorous tasks?
3) How might your PLC or department support you in designing rigorous tasks?
4) What supports and resources can I provide to you as you create rigorous tasks?
Element Ideal State
Rigorous Tasks Students regularly and autonomously interact with cognitively complex and authentic tasks
that align to the learning goal.

Setting the Stage

Teacher can…
• identify the key target/skill/criteria for helping students to engage in cognitively complex tasks

Phase 1
• Teacher identifies and then plans for the application of the skill in the classroom using this framework:

Is the task cognitively complex?

Does the taxonomy of the target align to the task?

• Teacher posts and breaks down the daily target with students to develop common understanding
• Students articulate how the task aligns to the target to their peers
• Students interact with some analysis level tasks but mostly complete tasks that are at the comprehension or
retrieval levels (knowledge regurgitation vs. knowledge production)
Phase 2
• Teacher takes the target beyond analysis to knowledge utilization for the tasks for all students
• Students break down the daily target with their peers without teacher support
• Students explain the task and target alignment for every learning goal
• Students interact with their peers without teacher support at the analysis level or above for all classroom tasks

Teacher Actions to Achieve Desired Result:

Nicole Ellis, 2019

Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Glossary of Key Terms/Ideas:

Civil Discourse: Structured conversations to provide students the skills to maintain

objective understanding of topics that typically elicit passionate responses

Cogenerative Dialogue: An interactive and informal conversation that occurs

between teacher and small groups of students to gain student feedback and voice to

improve instruction for all learners

Cultural Wealth: Yosso’s model of the knowledge and lived experiences that students

bring to the classroom with them – there are 6 types: aspirational, linguistic, familial,

social, navigational, and resistance

Culturally Inclusive Practices: Relationship-building, empowerment, and integration

of interactive instructional strategies that support students with diverse knowledge

and experiences to participate in authentic learning

Colorblindness Belief: Treating individuals as individuals but not recognizing their

various social identities – maintains a white cultural framework as the model for

normal

Deficit Thinking: Using deficiencies within an individual or group to explain their

academic performance

Microaggressions: Everyday verbal and non-verbal slights and insults (intentional or

unintentional) that communicate hostile or negative messages to an individual based

on their participation in a marginalized group

Nicole Ellis, 2019

Teacher: _______________
Collaborator: _________________
Date: __________________

Scaffolds: Instructional strategies and supports that help move students toward

independent mastery of skills

Nicole Ellis, 2019