Foster an inclusive classroom with culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning practices. Our professional development sessions equip educators with strategies to honor students' diverse cultural backgrounds and languages, enhancing engagement and academic achievement. Embrace the power of diversity to create a supportive and dynamic learning environment.
Classroom Strategies
Promote a culturally and linguistically responsive learning environment that validates and affirms students' cultural and linguistic identities while also building and bridging to academic success through a shift in mindset and a change in skillset.
In this session, learners will:
Define concretely what is cultural responsiveness and why it is necessary in our schools today
Build knowledge and create the context for addressing the needs of underserved students in terms of their sociopolitical and sociolinguistic relativity in the American educational system
Promote the focus on effective instructional strategies utilization in a way that validates and affirms underserved students across content areas and grade levels
Keynote presentations and webinars are facilitated in partnership with Dr. Sharroky Hollie.
Five Steps to Equity
In this motivating keynote, Dr. Almitra Berry, author of Effecting Change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners, prepares educators for traveling down the metaphorical Road to CARTI. It’s a journey through the five steps of her Culturally Appropriate Response to Instruction (CARTI) Framework.
In this session, learners will:
Outline the journey, describing why the framework must be taken as a sequential whole
Explain the key role of mindset and cultural connectedness in creating a culture of equity
Discuss the need to drive in both the lanes of school structure and culture to create a school built on equity for learners of cultural and linguistic diversity
Keynote presentations and webinars are facilitated in partnership with Dr. Almitra Berry.
A Culturally Relevant Guide
We recognize that the past few years have brought unprecedented challenges for educators, challenges that may persist in the coming school years. However, selecting the right read-aloud texts for instruction doesn’t have to be one of them.
In this session, learners will:
Conduct an audit of classroom books to better suit the needs of diverse learners
Analyze current research and trends to enhance literature selection and instructional practices
Promote a culturally and linguistically responsive learning environment that validates and affirms students' cultural and linguistic identities while also building and bridging to academic success through a shift in mindset and a change in skillset.
In this session, learners will:
Define concretely what is cultural responsiveness and why it is necessary in our schools today
Build knowledge and create the context for addressing the needs of underserved students in terms of their sociopolitical and sociolinguistic relativity in the American educational system
Promote the focus on effective instructional strategies utilization in a way that validates and affirms underserved students across content areas and grade levels
Keynote presentations and webinars are facilitated in partnership with Dr. Sharroky Hollie.
In this motivating keynote, Dr. Almitra Berry, author of Effecting Change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners, prepares educators for traveling down the metaphorical Road to CARTI. It’s a journey through the five steps of her Culturally Appropriate Response to Instruction (CARTI) Framework.
In this session, learners will:
Outline the journey, describing why the framework must be taken as a sequential whole
Explain the key role of mindset and cultural connectedness in creating a culture of equity
Discuss the need to drive in both the lanes of school structure and culture to create a school built on equity for learners of cultural and linguistic diversity
Keynote presentations and webinars are facilitated in partnership with Dr. Almitra Berry.
We recognize that the past few years have brought unprecedented challenges for educators, challenges that may persist in the coming school years. However, selecting the right read-aloud texts for instruction doesn’t have to be one of them.
In this session, learners will:
Conduct an audit of classroom books to better suit the needs of diverse learners
Analyze current research and trends to enhance literature selection and instructional practices
Dr. Sharroky Hollie is the author of numerous publications and professional resources and executive director of the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning, a non-profit organization dedicated to educators desiring to become culturally responsive. Shell Education is proud to have a partnership with Dr. Hollie in working toward the dual goals of making his theory of Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness (CLR) palatable for teachers in the classroom and creating exemplary classroom models for what CLR classroom instruction looks like. To that end, in collaboration with TCM's Shell Education division, Dr. Hollie has authored several best selling professional resources including Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning as well as the Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning resource to support it. Dr. Hollie also curated the collections of culturally authentic literature and informational texts found in TCM's Culturally Authentic and Responsive Texts. Dr. Hollie provides extensive professional development workshops and keynotes for school districts, administrators, and educators nationwide.
Almitra L. Berry, Ed.D. is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant on the topic of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in America’s K12 education system. Dr. Berry’s research focuses on equity and academic achievement for marginalized learners – particularly in majority-of-color, low-wealth, large, urban school districts. During her extensive career, Dr. Berry has worked with leaders and systems throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. She has presented at scores of national and international conferences on equity, leadership, curriculum reform, and meeting the needs of historically underserved and disenfranchised learners. She calls upon educators and educational leaders to evaluate policy, curriculum, instruction, supervision, and professional learning with a lens focused on equity. Dr. Berry is a graduate of the University of California, Davis holding a B.A. in political science/public administration, an M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction, and an Ed.D. in educational leadership with a specialization in curriculum and instruction. She is also host of the podcast Educational Equity Emancipation and author of the book Effecting Change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners, as well as numerous other articles addressing educational equity.