Educators and instructional designers can foster inclusive, supportive, and culturally responsive learning spaces by recognizing students’ diverse cultural referents and lived experiences as assets to the learning environment. 

Effective and validating learning experiences value the whole student while acknowledging the diverse academic and personal backgrounds students bring to the classroom — including historical and contemporary impacts of systemic racism. 

Connect new information with students’ existing knowledge and let them draw on their own experiences and understanding. Create assignments that respond to students’ lived experiences and use assessment results to inform content delivery. 

Using cultural referents from students’ lived experiences to inform course content, curriculum, and teaching practices can empower students to engage more deeply in their learning experiences — intellectually, socially, and emotionally. 

Affirming students’ culture and knowledge — from traditions and language to communication and learning styles — can transform the learning experience to be more effective, inclusive, and meaningful. 

Get to know students and validate their cultures while creating environments focused on student-faculty and peer-to-peer relationships. Center student voice through student feedback and input. 

Use formative, low-stakes assessments to understand what students know and what prior experience they bring into the learning environment with the help of digital tools such as graphic organizers, concept maps, and learning grids. 

Assign research projects centering students’ identities and cultures and provide opportunities to engage in co-construction of knowledge in meaningful ways. Present lessons in multiple modalities to support student learning.