The LEARN Book Series!

Learn to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps

With Dwayne D. Williams, PhD

Want to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices,
But Have no Idea Where to Start or What to Do?

Dr. Williams has coached thousands of educators on culturally meaningful practices, and he says many struggled to develop culturally meaningful activities because of 10 common challenges.

Following are the TOP 10 REASONS educators struggled to design culturally meaningful practices. Which challenges do you and your team members struggle with?

1

They did not have a solid definition of culturally meaningful teaching—and so were confused from the start.

2

They lacked knowledge of culturally meaningful frameworks, and so did not know what culturally relevant, responsive, sustaining, or other culturally meaningful practices were.

3

They had never been trained to pair culturally meaningful principles with instructional practices, and thus, got stuck before getting started.

4

They had never seen culturally meaningful teaching in action.

5

They lacked knowledge of and did not have access to culturally meaningful tools to design with; therefore, they continued to use resources that were insensitive to their students’ cultural values.

6

They felt that, because of their “White middle-class lens,” they could not design culturally meaningful practices.

7

They did not know how to pair evidence-based practices and culturally meaningful frameworks.

8

They lacked knowledge of their students’ cultural values, community practices, and lived experiences—and did not know how to gather this information without offending students or operating from stereotypes.

9

They thought of culturally meaningful teaching in fragmented ways, believing culturally meaningful and transformative SEL, MTSS, trauma-informed practices, and other practices were separate from each other; their MTSS processes were broken.

10

They burned out and discontinued the work because of trying all the wrong methods for consecutive years with ineffective results.

The LEARN book study transforms these challenges and coaches you through designing culturally meaningful practices in 5 steps!

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework - Book 1

LEARN:

A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices

In this book, Dr. Williams introduces The LEARN Framework for Practice, a 5-step framework for designing culturally responsive activities. This framework includes four essential tools he and educators used in his PhD research study to design culturally meaningful practices. The LEARN framework will guide you through designing culturally responsive practices in 5 steps!

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices

Thousands of educators across the country read popular books on culturally responsive teaching and attend hours of training on the topic, yet cannot design culturally responsive practices. Do you fall into this category? Have you read popular books or articles on culturally responsive teaching and attended hours of training on the topic but struggle to design culturally responsive practices in the classroom? Is this your experience?

Dr. Williams says educators struggle because most books and PD training sessions provide quick-tip technical solutions on culturally responsive teaching and abstract theories but fail to teach educators how to design culturally meaningful practices. He says most books and PD training on the topic do not offer relevant and practical tools that educators can use to re-imagine and re-design their work in culturally meaningful ways.

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices prepares readers to design culturally responsive activities in five steps. Each letter of the word LEARN is an action step that educators must take in the design process.

During his PhD research study, Dr. Williams and school-based practitioners co-designed the framework and used it to develop culturally responsive activities. In this book, he introduces the framework and coaches readers on using LEARNcomponents to design culturally responsive instructional strategies.

The LEARN Framework will help you

– Unpack culturally responsive teaching in a practical way,

– Identify your “why” when considering culturally responsive teaching,

– Employ culturally responsive frameworks as guides when planning for lessons,

– Design culturally responsive activities using practical tools,

– Avoid missteps that most educators take with culturally responsive teaching–and more!

The LEARN Framework highlights what you must know and do to design culturally responsive practices in five steps. It includes four practical tools that you’ll need to start designing culturally meaningful activities right away!

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This book covers EVERYTHING you need to know to be able to design culturally meaningful activities in your classroom! Dr. Williams outlines how to be a culturally responsive educator in a thorough and easy-to-understand fashion. He provides practical tools, gives specific examples, and guides you from start to finish on your journey. I went from not knowing how to design culturally responsive groups to independently running my own groups. I now coach staff members in my building after going through his training and reading this book. This book outlines all of his research and puts it together in an easy-to-understand format. I go back to this book when I feel stuck and need to re-examine my practices. I wish I had this book many years ago! -Kate Kokenes, Social Worker and Equity Coach

Want to Learn How to Design Culturally
Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps?

Learn How to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps! Two-Book Series

Want to learn how to design culturally meaningful practices in 5 steps? Join me and other educators in my 2-book series titled Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps. Check out the video to learn more about the book series and how it will guide you through designing culturally responsive activities. Click the “Download The Hero’s Journey! book” button below to download book 1 of the series : The Hero’s Journey – How Seven School-Based Practitioners Designed Culturally Meaningful Activities and How You Can Too!

The Hero's Journey - Book 1

The Hero's Journey:

How Seven School-Based Practitioners Learned to Design Culturally Meaningful Activities–And How You Can Too!

In this book, Dr. Williams details 5 phases educators experienced as they unpacked and designed culturally responsive practices. He provides a framework you can use to explore your journey with culturally responsive teaching. Use this book to reflect on your journey with culturally responsive teaching, and learn a problem-transformation approach to resolving problems that prevent you from designing culturally responsive practices!

The Hero's Journey: How Seven School-Based Practitioners Learned to Design Culturally Meaningful Activities--And How You Can Too!

Learning to design culturally responsive activities does not happen overnight. Instead, educators go through multiple phases as they unpack culturally responsive education and develop culturally responsive practices.

In this booklet, Dr. Williams draws from The Hero’s Journey concept to illustrate five distinct phases educators experienced during his PhD study as they unpacked culturally responsive teaching and designed culturally meaningful activities. Practitioners went from implementing prescriptive, preplanned, and prepackaged curricula—practices that ignored the cultural values, community practices, and lived experiences of culturally diverse learners (Phase 1)—to abandoning traditional practices and designing culturally meaningful activities (Phases 4 and 5).

Throughout their journey, educators experienced problems, co-designed tools to transform those problems, and employed co-designed tools to develop culturally responsive and transformative SEL activities. From their journey, they became more knowledgeable, skillful, and confident in transforming prescriptive curricula in culturally meaningful ways.

By the end of this booklet, you will be able to

– Describe why culturally responsive teaching is a heroic journey with multiple phases,

– Articulate where you are on your journey with culturally responsive teaching,

– Describe the 3-Step Problem Transformation Process Dr. Williams used in his PhD study to transform problems and design culturally meaningful practices,

– Employ the 5-Phase Hero’s Journey Framework to reflect on your history—your journey—with culturally responsive teaching,

– Employ the 3-Step Problem Transformation Framework to transform obstacles that prevent you and your colleagues from designing culturally responsive practices!

This book is filled with self-awareness activities to guide you as you reflect on your journey with culturally responsive teaching. It provides tips on getting unstuck and untangled if you have fallen into a ditch along the way!

LEARN: The Workbook - Book 2

LEARN:

Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices by Pairing LEARN Principles and Evidence-Based Strategies

This workbook is a companion for LEARN: A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices. Using design principles from his PhD research study, Dr. Dwayne D. Williams shows readers a step-by-step approach to developing culturally responsive activities. He illustrates how to adapt evidence-based strategies in culturally meaningful ways.

During his PhD research study, educators commented that they could not design culturally responsive practices because they did not have a model to guide them, lacked the proper tools, did not know where to start in the design process, and had never seen culturally responsive practices.

Can you relate to these experiences?

Dr. Dwayne D. Williams solves these problems by coaching readers through designing culturally meaningful activities from start to finish. He provides four tools, including a design template, that you will need to create activities aligned with your students’ cultural values, lived experiences, and community practices.

Engaging with activities in this workbook will help you—

Unpack culturally responsive teaching in a practical way,
Employ tools to adapt instructional lessons based on your students’ lived experiences, cultural values, and community practices,
Pair evidence-based strategies and culturally responsive principles to design culturally meaningful activities—and more!

Dr. Williams creates opportunities for you to experience culturally meaningful lessons based on your identity as an educator, so you will know what they look and feel like in action. He illustrates ten common evidence-based practices teachers can employ in any classroom and pairs the strategies with culturally meaningful principles, demonstrating culturally meaningful activities!

Designing Culturally Meaningful

Practices In 5 Steps!

#1 New Release

MY PERSONAL GUARANTEE TO YOU . . .

My guarantee to you is that this book series will teach you exactly how to design culturally responsive practices from start to finish, no matter what your subject area is. I’m confident that if you read the books and apply the action steps, you will design some of the most engaging practices in your teaching career, positioning students as co-planners, co-designers, and co-facilitators.

The principles I include in the book series emerged from my PhD research study, where practitioners and I collaborated for 7-weeks to identify and transform problems preventing them from designing culturally responsive practices. Practitioners started the study lacking knowledge of culturally responsive teaching. By the end of the study, they were coaching each other on culturally responsive frameworks and designing culturally responsive practices. I now train educators on developing culturally responsive practices using the LEARN Framework we co-designed during the study.

If you are unable to design culturally responsive practices after engaging with the 2-book series, I, Dr. Williams, will offer free coaching to address barriers you experienced during the book series, and I will coach you through designing culturally meaningful activities. This is my guarantee to you!

Be sure to start with Book 1 The Hero’s Journey.

Dr. Williams book, LEARN: A 5 Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices, is filled with a feeling of honest reflection from teachers and Dr. Williams himself. In addition, there is a consistent vibe that we are in this together. This book brings accessibility to Culturally Meaningful Practices that make up Culturally Responsive Education. Readers are pushed with love to learn the history of CRE, understand the theories of Ladson-Billings, Gay, and Paris, challenge/problematize their practices, and explore their cultural values/practices compared to their culturally diverse students. In turn, teachers are able to recognize historical and cultural practices that have limited the untapped and abundant skill-sets of black, brown, and other culturally neglected groups. LEARN is an action oriented piece that encourages teacher agency and empowerment. It emphasizes tools, methods, values, and reflection techniques that can be used right away. Most importantly, LEARN brings student voice to the forefront, energizing student participation in the development and implementation of their education. Teachers using this book will benefit from gained historic, theoretical, and introspective knowledge, along with actionable practices and a clear view on how community collaboration with peers and students can lead to essential vulnerability, growth, and a chance to create change.
-Mathew Khaler, K-12 Teacher

Dwayne D. Williams, PhD, is a school psychologist, interventionist, and equity coach. As an equity coach, Dr. Williams helps organizations design and redesign educational practices. Specifically, he helps teams create culturally meaningful, inclusive, and equitable programming that integrates instruction with students’ cultural assets and lived experiences. Additionally, he provides training to school districts on how to design problem-solving models, multi-tiered supports, restorative practices, social and emotional learning, and trauma-informed groups—all from a culturally meaningful lens.

Dr. Williams is the CEO of the consulting firm Begin with Their Culture, an organization that helps districts redesign educational practices in ways that pair issues of race, culture, and equity with instruction. He is the author of the book An RTI Guide to Improving Performance of African American Students. He has used his curriculum, Like Music to My Ears: A Hip-Hop Approach to Addressing Social and Emotional Learning and Trauma in Schools, with hundreds of students, and he coaches practitioners through designing activities that integrate SEL, cognitive-behavioral principles, and hip-hop cultural elements as methods of employing culturally meaningful practices for students who embrace the arts.

Dr. Williams earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he studied curriculum and instruction. His scholarship focuses on redesigning educational programming in ways that consider the cultural assets and lived experiences of culturally diverse learners. Dr. Williams lived in housing projects as a child in Springfield, Illinois, and often speaks on the need to connect with students, parents, and community leaders from underrepresented backgrounds to improve educational conditions for underrepresented groups.

Tier 1 Education

The LEARN Book Series!

Learn to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps

With Dwayne D. Williams, PhD

Want to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices,
But Have no Idea Where to Start or What to Do?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework - Book 1

LEARN:

A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices

Want to Learn How to Design Culturally
Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps?

Learn How to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps! Two-Book Series

The Hero's Journey - Book 1

The Hero's Journey:

How Seven School-Based Practitioners Learned to Design Culturally Meaningful Activities–And How You Can Too!

The Hero's Journey: How Seven School-Based Practitioners Learned to Design Culturally Meaningful Activities--And How You Can Too!

LEARN: The Workbook - Book 2

LEARN:

Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices by Pairing LEARN Principles and Evidence-Based Strategies

Can you relate to these experiences?

Designing Culturally Meaningful

Practices In 5 Steps!

#1 New Release

MY PERSONAL GUARANTEE TO YOU . . .

Dwayne D. Williams, PhD

Researcher-Practitioner | Creative | Problem Solver

Tier 1 Education

Tier 1 Education

The LEARN Book Series!

Learn to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps

With Dwayne D. Williams, PhD

Want to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices, But Have no Idea Where to Start or What to Do?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework - Book 1

LEARN:

A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices

LEARN: A 5-Step Framework for Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices

Want to Learn How to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps?

Learn How to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps! Two-Book Series

The Hero's Journey - Book 1

The Hero's Journey:

How Seven School-Based Practitioners Learned to Design Culturally Meaningful Activities–And How You Can Too!

The Hero's Journey: How Seven School-Based Practitioners Learned to Design Culturally Meaningful Activities--And How You Can Too!

LEARN: The Workbook - Book 2

LEARN:

Designing Culturally Meaningful Practices by Pairing LEARN Principles and Evidence-Based Strategies

Can you relate to these experiences?

Designing Culturally Meaningful

Practices In 5 Steps!

#1 New Release

MY PERSONAL GUARANTEE TO YOU . . .

Dwayne D. Williams, PhD

Researcher-Practitioner | Creative | Problem Solver

Tier 1 Education

Want to Design Culturally Meaningful Practices,
But Have no Idea Where to Start or What to Do?

Want to Learn How to Design Culturally
Meaningful Practices in 5 Steps?