**5. Defining culturally responsive education at a historically black college and university**

Culturally Responsive Education is the teaching-and-learning process in which students' different cultural references, home cultures, and previous experiences are taken into consideration by the educator, curriculum developer, and the environment

#### *Teacher Candidates Using Annotated Technology Foster Cultural Responsiveness and Ethics DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112310*

that hosts the learner. The goal is to meet the academic standards (CAEP, InTASC, and VDOE) and socio-emotional needs of students, promoting recognition of marginalized people in a manner that infuses their cultural perspectives and realities that foster awareness, tolerance, and advocacy of justice for those in the aforementioned populations. This expanded version of the concept utilized at a top 20 HBCU rests upon the research of Geneva Gay's [14] perspective on Culturally Responsive teaching and Aronson and Laughter's [15] research on culturally relevant education in terms of emancipatory pedagogies, as described by Joyce King in Michelle Foster's [16] Compilation on Readings for Equal Education. The expanded version of the concept also includes understanding the impact of cultural conflict on negating cultural relevancy in the classroom [17], and all of these ideas are incapsulated in the study of multicultural education [18].

## **6. Competencies to be addressed for cultural responsiveness**

Culturally Responsive Education has its foundation with researchers, teachers, and advocates within the social, educational, and global realm of policymakers. The evolution of the concept of CRE evolved from a more simplistic understanding of best practices for diverse learners. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, multicultural goals identified by Gollnick and Chinn [19] characterized the EPPs. Candidates were prepared to help all students to: 1). learn basic skills; 2) acquire knowledge of the historical and social background of society to understand racism, sexism, and poverty; 3) overcome their fear of differences that lead to cultural misunderstandings and intercultural conflicts; 4) function effectively in their own cultural and other cultural situations; 5) value cultural differences among people and to view differences in an egalitarian mode rather than in an inferior superior mode; and 6) understand the multicultural nation and interdependent global society in which they live. To this current date, the text Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society by Gollnick and Chinn [19] is still used to examine socioeconomic and cultural conditions that impact educational achievement of diverse learners. They are reflected in the revised course syllabi in varied courses to support the infusion of multicultural education. CRE is not only crucial to educational preparation programs but is also supported by current research and resources and assessed through a variety of methods from case study assignments to quantifiable field experiences during preservice field teaching placements. **Table 1** depicts the standards that infuse the concept of cultural responsiveness.

Developing a culturally diverse training curriculum includes historical considerations as well as contemporary developments. Acknowledging past failures to provide teacher candidates quality education on how to work with children from diverse backgrounds is necessary as well as sharing how to correct these issues [20]. Through the years, updated perspectives on multicultural education have been developed with the ever-changing education population in mind. These updated perspectives on multiculturalism to include ethics have been reflected in universities and colleges' educational preparation program curricula [21].

With the current global events indicating an increase in racial assaults and discriminatory behaviors of non-Christian religions, and immigrants, universities need to stay in constant communication with teacher candidates and their cooperating teachers to explore the most relevant cultural practices for their given placements. For teacher candidates to understand its meaning at a top 20 HBCU using a digital platform, the

goal is for those teacher candidates to be able to: 1) demonstrate the knowledge of different value systems and the ability to analyze and evaluate their influence on behavior; 2) use relevant information and materials of various cultures for developing curriculum content; 3) understand different patterns of human growth and development within and between cultures, 4) recognize potential cultural and linguistic biases in the development, administration, and interpretation of assessment instruments; 5) demonstrate the ability to provide a learning environment that meets students' diverse needs; and 6) demonstrate knowledge of various cultures and philosophies and an interest in expanding one's knowledge. These attributes have been reviewed over the duration of the university's education preparation program and have remained relevant for more than a decade. To evaluate teacher candidates' present understanding of culturally responsive practices with national and state standards, their culturally responsive educational behaviors are assessed within the video-annotated system to note the progress in supporting their learning and modifications of their practices as needed. The notion that one-size-fits-all is inexplicable, given cultural relevance is a humane element relevant to the development of technologies and ethics in education and particularly the growing use of educational technologies. Thus, the use of technologies in education must be inclusive of cultural relevance, in that cultural relevance must be a fundamental element to identify and measure cultural relevance.
