10) Use students’ experiences to connect learning and life

Students enter the classroom with their entire lives, and leave the classroom to reenter those lives. Considering their experiences in your teaching can make the course more relevant and accessible, can support the value of students and their lived experience, and can create a positive link between educational experience and change in everyday life.

The Key to Success with this Strategy

Recognize students each have their own backgrounds

While there are overlapping experiences in the classroom, students come to class with lives that often are drastically different than their instructor. Students’ experiences are significant and may not be easily set aside when they enter their classroom. Educators can start by acknowledging the importance of student backgrounds, and realizing that they may be complementary to the curriculum.

Build in opportunities for students to share their experiences in class

If we consider and find value in students’ experiences and take into consideration their everyday life, the experiences in the coursework will be elevated to the students. Opportunities for students to share their experiences goes far and beyond the introductions and check-ins (though these are helpful starting points). Consider ways to evolve your activities and assignments so that students have the chance to share integrate their world into the class. Doing so may be difficult at first, as this level of instructional design requires an open mind and a curiosity that can support students who do share.

Build in opportunities for students to take class concepts with them into their personal life

Regardless of what students can share in the class, students are still going to return to their personal lives and their everyday life. Students will thrive and find additional meaning in their work if inspired to take their coursework with them and apply what they are learning to who and where they are. Consider the nature of homework and flipped learning experiences: students do not complete these in the void, but in their homes, neighborhoods, and communities. Learning about the contexts your students have shared with you should help you develop activities and assignments that can be integrated into those contexts.

Using this Strategy is Culturally Responsive because…

Students come from many backgrounds, and those backgrounds have significant meaning for each individual student. By starting with student experience, we are practicing a strong and multifaceted approach to culturally responsive teaching. Educators and students alike become more invested in who students are (and acknowledging they are not transported to the classroom in a vacuum). The educational environment will thrive as a teaching and learning ecosystem where indvidudals are learning from one another and the diverse plethora of backgrounds that make up the community.

Additionally, this strategy opens up a path for us to question our biases and preferences regarding cultural capital (see Yosso’s article, below), to recognize historical marginalization, and to explore a horizontal (deplatformed) approach to teaching and learning by showing that the educator’s background and success that led to their position of power is not the only background and success worth acknowledging.

The following articles provide significant coverage on the concepts described above:

• Abrahamson, C. (2011). Methodologies for Motivating Student Learning Through Personal Connections. Forum on Public Policy. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ969845.pdf (Links to an external site.)
• Albert, R. (2015). Teach Using the Lived Experiences of Your Students. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/teach-using-lived-experiences-your-students-rebecca-alber (Links to an external site.)
• Ferlazzo, L. (2020). Ways to Make Lessons ‘Relevant’ to Students’ Lives. Education Week. https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2020/05/ways_to_make_lessons_relevant_to_students_lives.html (Links to an external site.)
• Luukkonen, J. (2003). Relevancy in the Classroom: Bringing The Real World into School. Language Arts Journal of Michigan 19(1). https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1283&context=lajm (Links to an external site.)
• Schulten, K. (2012.) How ‘Real’ is Your Classroom? Bringing Students’ Lives and Voices Into School. The New York Times: The Learning Network. https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/how-real-is-your-classroom-bringing-students-lives-and-voices-into-school/ (Links to an external site.)
• Schulten, K. (2018). Making It Relevant: Helping Students Connect Their Studies to the World Today. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/learning/lesson-plans/making-it-relevant-helping-students-connect-their-studies-to-the-world-today.html (Links to an external site.)
• University of Wisconsin White Water Learn Center. (n.d.). Connect When Possible to Students’ Experience and Interests. https://www.uww.edu/learn/improving/aboutdiversity/approachdiversity/connecttostudents (Links to an external site.)
• Yosso, T.  (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education 8(1). https://thrive.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/Whose%20culture%20has%20capital_A%20critical%20race%20theory%20discussion%20of%20community%20cultural%20wealth_1.pdf (Links to an external site.)

How do I Implement this Strategy?

The following are a few options in bridging your students’ experiences with your course.

• Start with introductions. Create introductions to the course and to assignments that allow for students to provide insight into and discussion on where they see the classwork intersecting with their lives. Keep introductions open-ended to allow students to contribute what feels comfortable and safe.
• Tie classwork to current events and contexts. While every student’s background is going to be unique, there are still ways to connect to them in a way that is open and accessible. Find common ground with current events within the community or a shared context based on beliefs, values, or interests.
• Offer students space for feedback. As other strategies in this CRT guide describe, feedback is a great way to encourage voice. Build feedback mechanism into each activity and assignment that lets a student reflect upon the relevance of the activity or assignment.
• Design assignments that require integration of/reflection on students’ interests and experiences. While challenging, the creation of openly-designed assignments that intentionally focus on the student’s background can be a stepping stone to making challenging course content feel relevant. Assignments like these can be used at the beginning of the course to serve as scaffolding for more advanced topics and concepts. Assignments like these toward the end of the course can make teaching and learning feel relevant and directly applicable to a student’s everyday life.