Applying a Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Framework to Design and Evaluate Classroom Performance-Based Assessments in Hawai‘i

ABSTRACT

Previous writings focus on why centering assessment design around students’ cultural, social, and/or linguistic diversity is important and how performance-based assessment can support such aims. This article extends previous work by describing how a culturally responsive classroom assessment framework was created from a culturally responsive education (CRE) pedagogical framework. The goal of the framework was to guide the design and evaluation of curriculum-embedded, classroom performance assessments. Components discussed include: modification of evidence-centered design processes, teacher and/or student adaptation of construct irrelevant aspects of task prompts, addition of cultural meaningfulness questions to think alouds, and revision of task quality review protocols to promote CRE design features. Future research is needed to explore the limitations of the framework applied, and the extent to which students perceive the classroom summative assessments designed do indeed allow them to better show all they know and can do in ways related to their cultural, social, and/or linguistic identities.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my colleagues, Drs. Jeri Thompson & Chris Brandt, from the Center for Assessment. Their thought partnership has improved the quality of this work and reminds me of how much further we still need to go. And to the professionals at the Hawai‘i Department of Education—particularly Brian Reiter, Dianne Morada, Kelsie Pualoa, Paul Dumas, and Karen Tohinaka—thank you for your hard work and dedication to improving assessment systems in Hawai‘i. And, finally, to the K-12 educators involved in the first years of the Hawai‘i Performance Assessment Development Initiative. It is a joy to serve alongside you and learn from your experiences. I’d like to thank the reviewers who challenged my thinking and implicit biases. I acknowledge my own positionality towards this work and the role I attempt to fulfill as an ally who seeks to identify my Western ways of thinking and being in the world without imposing them on others. All errors of in this work (or in its conceptualization) are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Culturally responsive education (CRE) is delineated from other terms such as culturally sensitive, relevant, or sustaining. Culturally sensitive is awareness that cultural differences and similarities between people exist without assigning value to them. Culturally relevant means that there are intentional linkages between students’ heritage and community cultural practices and the learning that takes place in schools (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Teachers link students’ cultural identities with their academic identities when they act as cultural bridge builders and translators between students’ everyday lived cultural experiences and the intended learning targets. Culturally responsive is focused on adaptation (Gay, 2018). Schools should adapt to students’ cultural and social identities. Students have many assets that can be leveraged, and schooling can be adapted to the students who walk through the classroom doors. Culturally sustaining is about extension where students’ heritage and community cultural practices are resources to honor, explore, and extend (Paris & Alim, 2014). See Aronson and Laughter (2016) and Taylor (2022) for additional clarification of these terms.