SupportEd Online Courses

A culturally responsive school climate is integral to the work of educating multilingual learners (MLs) and fostering positive relationships with their families. However, knowing what steps to take to strengthen culturally responsive teaching practices in classrooms and schools can be challenging. This course, specifically designed for teachers, administrators, and support staff working with MLs and their families, will provide you with a toolbox of strategies that you can implement in your context to foster culturally responsive teaching. 

The course facilitators will collaborate with you in an online, interactive, self-paced course in which we’ll explore the meaning of culture and its implications for teaching and learning. You’ll have an opportunity to assess your school’s strengths in the implementation of culturally responsive teaching practices and set attainable goals for improvement. Over the three course components, you will have opportunities to discuss and apply strategies to:

• Understand the role of culture in the education of multilingual students
• Explore five guiding principles for culturally responsive teaching
• Apply advocacy strategies to foster culturally responsive teaching in your context

As in all of SupportEd’s popular twelve-hour online courses, this course includes facilitated Professional Learning Community (PLC)-based discussions and application activities. Through these discussions and activities, you will be able to try out and reflect on the strategies that you learn about in the course, share your expertise with colleagues, and learn strategies others are successfully using to build a culturally responsive climate in their schools and classrooms.

The six-week guided online course offers you:

• Three flexible learning components that you can work on at times that are most convenient for you
• 12 hour professional development certificate for you upon satisfactory completion of the course
• Interactive, facilitated PLC discussions that provide opportunities for you to apply strategies, share recommendations, and develop new ideas
• Authentic video clips of EL strategies in action in the classroom
• Practical application activities for you to apply course strategies and tools to your own contexts
• Resources and tool sharing to foster your implementation of strategies in your classroom
• Guiding and reflective questions in a note-taking guide to provide you support throughout the course