In this discussion, you will apply your knowledge of culturally relevant pedagogy to examine the degree to which a specific place-based experience implements culturally relevant strategies. Please review this week’s Instructor Guidance for detailed assistance on preparing for and completing this discussion.

Initial Post: For this post, you will complete a rubric to determine the degree to which an instructional experience incorporates culturally relevant pedagogical principles. Based on your knowledge about culturally relevant teaching, you will add two more criteria to the rubric below and then use it to evaluate one of the place-based lesson stories shared on the Case Studies: Shared Stories on Place-Based Education. http://semiscoalition.org/shared-stories/ web page. Then, using the rubric below, with your results from your evaluation, summarize how well you think your selected place-based experience addresses cultural relevance.

You can copy the rubric below into a Word document, complete the rubric, and then copy and paste it into the discussion forum along with your summary. You can also save your Word document with your completed rubric to your computer and attach it into the discussion forum.

This the Instructor Guidance

Discussion 1: The first discussion this week; Creating an Evaluation Instrument for Cultural Relevance in the Classroom involves developing an instrument that you will use to evaluate the quality of culturally relevant approaches observed within place-based educational programs.  Reflect on the readings for this week, including Wardle (2013) Chapter 4, and the Ladson-Billings (1995) article, the  video overview of culturally relevant pedagogy. https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/an-introduction-to-culturally-relevant-pedagogy (Tolerance.Org, 2010), and the Irvine (2009) Relevant: Beyond the Basics   article from this week’s required resources list.  In Wardle (2013), pay particular attention to the Analyzing Curriculum and Pedagogy for Cultural Responsivenesssuggestions included near the end of the chapter prior to the chapter summary.  Next, recall that an effective example of culturally relevant approaches to instructional experiences can be found in place-based education, which is grounded in structuring learning experiences designed to actually help communities by using students and school staff to identify solutions to community problems.  Place-based education recognizes that local communities are one of the primary resources for learning. If needed, review Promise of Place’s (n.d.) overview of place-based education  For example, one evaluation question might address equity: “How well does the lesson implement strategies to promote equitable experiences for a diverse population of students?”  Three criteria that might be used as possible answers to this question might include the following:

· Advanced: The approach supports multiple learning styles, a combination of cooperative group and individual activities, and multiple means of expressing learning within the assessments.

· Proficient: The approach does allow for some individual choices and/or means of assessment, but more could be done to support individual learning styles.

· Basic: The approach is homogenous, expecting all students to experience the same instructional material without personal input in the experience from start to finish (including assessment).