Question 1:

My last semester in my intern classroom setting was my most

successful experience. I feel that I learned a lot from my mentor teacher and
became more culturally aware. For example, I believe I first grew the most in
sociocultural consciousness aspect of culturally responsive teaching.
According to the article, The Culturally Responsive Teacher, by Ana Maria
Villegas and Tamara Lucas, it states that sociocultural consciousness is,
the awareness that a person's worldview is not universal but is profoundly
influenced by life experiences, as mediated by a variety of factors, including
race, ethnicity, gender, and social class.1 From my life experiences this
semester, I was worried about going to this internship because the school I
was going to be in was a Title I school and I had never been in one before.
Coming from a middle class high school in New York, I was nervous about
how the students and school were going to be due to the socioeconomic
status in the neighborhood. However, the school was great. The students
were amazing as well as the staff. The school was so technologically
advanced and was more updated than my high school from home. This really
changed my perspective on Title I schools because the students are
knowledgeable and well behaved. I know now there was nothing to worry
about and I should not be judgmental about my future students. I am so
happy I got to experience this because it was an eye opener to not judge a
book by its cover.
Question 2:
I will incorporate culturally responsive teaching in my classroom in many
ways. I think being culturally responsive in any content area is very
important, especially in history. I want to use CTR by building community in
my class. I think this is one of the most important things to have in the
classroom because it will help the students as well as me to be more
comfortable with each other. I also want to use CTR in the class by
incorporating the students backgrounds into my teaching. If I happen to be
in a Title I school like I was this semester, I would want to make sure
students who are not as familiar with American history find ways to connect
with it through their own history. This will help the students who need it and
will also help the other students be more culturally diverse in their learning.
To embody the principle of academic achievement I want to have high
expectations for my students. I think having high expectations will help the
students in the long run because I believe they can meet the expectations
and I will hold them accountable.
Question 3:

1 Villegas, A., & Lucas, T. (2007, March 4). The Culturally Responsive
Teacher. Retrieved December 3, 2015, from http://worldview.unc.edu/

I will use professional competencies to drive relationships with parents,

students, and colleges in numerous ways. First off, my one goal is to try to
include parents in as much of the students school life as possible. It is
important for students to have a good support system at school as well as at
home. This will help both the students and the parents to be involved and
make a cohesive and collaborative class experience for the whole family. For
my students, I will attempt to make sure I am teaching them to the best of
my ability. I want them to receive the best education they can possibly get so
they can become adults in the real world. Lastly, I will use professional
competencies to drive relationships with my colleagues by being honest with
them and friendly. I want to push my colleagues as well to be the best they
can possibly be so we can help the students all together.
Question 4:
I want to include culturally responsive teaching into my everyday
teaching. My mentor teacher this semester does an excellent job of being
culturally aware of the students in his class. I want to model after him by
integrating the students culture into the history lessons to make them more
appealing and help them understand better. I am going to attempt to
incorporate culturally responsive teaching into my content area by using
information that pertains to the demographics of the area I am teaching in.
For example, if the neighborhood I am teaching in is primarily Hispanic, I
want to include information that is relevant to their lives and connect how
their lives relate to the history we are learning about. Another way I am
going to incorporate culturally responsive teaching into my classroom is to
relate to the students as much as possible. In my first year of teaching,
depending on the grade level I will be fairly close in age, so this may not be
that difficult. In the book, Create Success, by Kadhir Rajagopal, it describes a
perfect example of how I want to connect with my students. The author
discusses how connecting with students doesnt have to be based on certain
races. A good way to connect with the students may be through playing
music. Incorporating music that students like and connect with is an amazing
example of being culturally responsive. 2 I want to follow this example of
using music in the classroom to be culturally responsive especially when
students are doing independent work.

2 Rajagopal, K. (2011). Chapter 1: Culturally Responsive Instruction. In

Create Success (p. 5). Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision &
Curriculum Development.

References:
Rajagopal, K. (2011). Chapter 1: Culturally Responsive Instruction. In Create
Success (p. 5).
Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision & Curriculum
Development.
Villegas, A., & Lucas, T. (2007, March 4). The Culturally Responsive Teacher.
Retrieved
December 3, 2015, from http://worldview.unc.edu/