Biography-Driven Culturally Responsive Professional Development

Biography Driven Instruction (BDI) is a communicative/cognitive method for providing culturally responsive pedagogy that guides teachers to maximize each learner’s potential for language acquisition and content learning by drawing upon students’ sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and academic resources.

• Reflects standards of effective pedagogy and learning
• Promotes engagement, motivation, and learning
• Provides research-based strategies

BDI Power 6: Strategies in Action

1. Linking Language
2. Vocabulary Quilt
3. Foldables
4. Extension Wheel
5. UCME – (Uncover, Concentrate, Monitor, Evaluate)
6. DOTS – (Determine, Observe, Talk, Summarize)

Resources Available!

To learn more about the power of BDI strategies for your classrooms, see the links below.

Accelerating Literacy for Diverse Learners: Classroom Strategies That Integrate Social/Emotional Engagement and Academic Achievement, K–8

Completely revised and updated, this bestselling resource speaks to the social-emotional needs of learners and helps teachers accelerate literacy, language development, and academic growth for students in grades K-8, particularly for English language learners. The authors present best practices, aligned with reading and content standards, and tools for developing academic talk and instructional conversations in the classroom. Special emphasis is placed on using student culture and language as a means for promoting meaningful relationships among communities of learners. The text includes tips for using the strategies to gather knowledge of the student’s background and to promote social-emotional learning.

 

Biography-Driven Culturally Responsive Teaching

Crossing the Vocabulary Bridge: Differentiated Strategies for Diverse Secondary Classrooms