What is BCRM?
The Becoming Culturally Responsive Model (BCRM) is a self-observational framework designed to help teachers cultivate culturally responsive teaching practices in their classrooms. The BCRM draws inspiration from various observational and instructional frameworks, such as the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) (Pianta et al., 2008). However, unlike CLASS, the BCRM shifts the locus of control from external evaluators to the practitioner, thereby modeling an ethic of self-efficacy and teacher agency (Bandura, 1997). An added value of this approach is its accessibility—not only for teachers but for all educators, including instructional support staff and any school community member tasked with serving students and families.
Utilization
The BCRM is designed to integrate with other established tools that promote a culturally responsive school environment. In assessing the culturally responsive teaching (CRT) toolkit landscape, we identified an opportunity to contribute meaningfully to this discourse by developing a framework that targets the instructional core while embodying the foundational ethics of CRT (Gay, 2018).
The Process
The BCRM operates through a three-part process: pre-work, self-evaluation, and post-reflection. Each phase draws from existing culturally responsive literature and established frameworks for improving teacher practice
01
Pre-Work: Anthropological Excavation
The pre-work phase is inspired by the works of Muhammad Khalifa (2018) and Gholnecsar (Goldy) Muhammad (2020). This phase guides users through a process of anthropological excavation, encouraging them to gain deeper insights into the historical and cultural backgrounds of their students and communities. Muhammad (2020) emphasizes the importance of recognizing and leveraging a community's cultural and historical assets for improved instructional practice. To facilitate this, the BCRM provides a structured question set that helps users uncover key components of their instructional context.
02
Self-Evaluation: Centering Instructional Equity
In an interview on the Street Data Podcast, Zaretta Hammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (2015), cautioned that advocates of CRT often focus on systemic inequities while overlooking instructional equity (Safir & Dugan, 2021). This principle is central to the self-evaluation phase of the BCRM, which seeks to address instructional inequities by honing in on student-teacher interactions.
The BCRM builds upon the CLASS framework using student interactional data to drive self-observation (Pianta et al., 2008). However, what distinguishes the BCRM is its emphasis on self-observation: teachers record and code their own student interactions, rather than relying on administrator-led evaluations. This shifts the locus of control from school administrators to teachers themselves, fostering self-directed professional growth (Bandura, 1997). Additionally, the BCRM uniquely focuses on student interactions that provide opportunities for voice, choice, and leadership—key tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2018).
To support growth, the BCRM categorizes teacher progress along a spectrum of:
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Recognizing
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Initiating
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Exploring/Implementing
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This approach ensures that feedback is asset-based, rather than deficit-oriented
03
Post-Reflection: Critical Self-Examination
The final phase of the BCRM guides teachers through a structured post-reflection process, drawing on the work of Geneva Gay (2018). Users are encouraged to critically evaluate their observations and consider how well their practices align with CRT principles. Rather than serving as a value-added metric that assigns a static score, the BCRM is a dynamic, reflective tool that fosters continuous professional growth. It is a key component of the Becoming Culturally Responsive Model, which prioritizes teacher self-reflection, agency, and professional autonomy in the journey toward cultural responsiveness.
