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Funds of Knowledge

Funds of Knowledge is an approach that values the knowledge and skills that students gain from their daily home routines. It rejects the idea that poor or culturally diverse families cannot provide rich learning experiences. Instead, it recognizes family expertise. Teachers visit students' homes to understand how families use language, literacy, and math in everyday life. This informs curriculum design that connects school and home. When home visits are not possible, parents and teachers discuss subjects like math and share real-world activities. The approach empowers parents and changes teacher-parent relationships to be more collaborative.

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77 views7 pages

Funds of Knowledge

Funds of Knowledge is an approach that values the knowledge and skills that students gain from their daily home routines. It rejects the idea that poor or culturally diverse families cannot provide rich learning experiences. Instead, it recognizes family expertise. Teachers visit students' homes to understand how families use language, literacy, and math in everyday life. This informs curriculum design that connects school and home. When home visits are not possible, parents and teachers discuss subjects like math and share real-world activities. The approach empowers parents and changes teacher-parent relationships to be more collaborative.

Uploaded by

Jennifer Ponce Cori Sjl
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Funds of Knowledge

Global Family Research Project


Follow
Apr 1, 2019 · 6 min read

Household knowledge is a source of teaching and learning in


classrooms.

Approach Category: Build Relationships

What it is

Funds of Knowledge applies the knowledge and skills of


daily household routines to create meaningful and innovative
approaches to classroom teaching and learning. This approach
rejects a deficit model, where poor and culturally diverse families
are presumed to be incapable of offering rich learning experiences
at home for their children. Instead, educators recognize and value
family expertise. The approach creates a platform for co-creating
knowledge from school to home and home to school. As one
parent says, “though we may not have a certificate in hand, we are
also teachers.”¹

How it works

The Funds of Knowledge approach has its origins as a researcher-


teacher collaboration to improve instructional practice among
Latinx students.² Trained and guided by the researchers, teachers
assume the roles of researchers and ethnographers as they visit
their students’ homes and establish rapport with parents. They
become learners as they observe the home context and interview
family members. Teachers come to understand the ways that
students and their families use language, literacy, and
mathematics in the home and community. In turn, the data help
teachers develop a curriculum that is based on what families
naturally do — their “funds of knowledge” — and teachers find
opportunities to bring parents into classrooms as experts to
demonstrate their skills.

There are a number of ways to use this model when teacher home
visits are not possible. For example:
 Parents and teachers can get together and talk about a
subject like math and discuss not only the content of
problems, but their values, and the reasoning behind
them. Facilitators structure these conversations as co-
equal teaching and learning activities.

 Parents and teachers can join together in workshops that


focus on the connection between academic subjects and
real-world activities.

What changes

In the Funds of Knowledge approach, teachers participate in study


groups with researchers and conduct home visits. This experience
makes them aware of the home as a learning environment and
equips them to be more sensitive to individual students and to be
able to personalize classroom learning.³ Teachers also change the
nature of the discussions in study groups and explore not only how
school math is taught, but also how to connect everyday and
academic mathematics.

In math workshops for parents, shifts happen in the ways teachers


and researchers develop relationships with parents. Parents are
not passive recipients of information from experts but active
learners who share how they solve problems. When parents
facilitate math workshops for other parents, they gain confidence
and make parents feel that they are contributing equally to
learning. Parents in these workshops form relationships with one
another and their conversations change to include not only the
lives of their children but also mathematical content.⁴

Approach in Action

Readiness Through Integrative Science and


Engineering
The RISE (Readiness Through Integrative Science and
Engineering) project develops a curriculum for young children
through a home-school collaboration. Designed by a group of
researchers, the project builds on the knowledge and practices of
families and teachers. It entails dialogue, joint activities, and
meaningful learning experiences that result in a continuously
evolving curriculum.

Teachers participate in professional development workshops on


science and engineering content. They receive individualized
support in coaching sessions and take part in professional learning
meetings, where they connect with other teachers. Teachers also
develop relationships with families through joint science-focused
activities and parent-teacher discussion groups.

At the outset, the researchers engaged parents and teachers both


separately and together to promote trust building and reciprocal
dialogue. Prior to a joint activity with parents, the researchers
facilitated a session to create teacher awareness of the need to let
parents initiate dialogue. The researchers also structured
opportunities for parents to take the lead, asking them to plan
routes for neighborhood walks and take photographs of these
spaces. The activity enabled teachers to understand children’s
classroom construction of blocks, buildings, and ramps. Both
teachers and parents also worked together to create scrapbooks
showing children’s learning experiences based on home
observations, classroom documentation, and neighborhood walks.

Once a more balanced relationship between parents and teachers


was formed, both groups began to co-plan future joint activities
and discussions on their own. These activities enabled teachers to
draw upon families’ funds of knowledge when designing the
curriculum. Parents, in turn, became empowered to share
experiences and to be active co-creators of their children’s
curriculum.

Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as


Between 2004 and 2012, the Center for the Mathematics
Education of Latinos/as (CEMELA) developed an integrated
model to connect mathematics teaching and learning to the social
and cultural contexts of Latinx students and to increase the
number of mathematics educators and teachers with this
integrated knowledge. The model had the following
characteristics:

 Define a clear goal: A consortium of four universities and


their school partners sought to promote Latinx
mathematical performance by strengthening the
instructional strategies of teachers and preservice
teachers. The universities in the consortium were the
University of Arizona; University of California, Santa
Cruz; University of Illinois at Chicago; and University of
New Mexico.

 Begin with families: The consortium’s approach began


with understanding family strengths and “funds of
knowledge” about the practical application of
mathematics. Teaching and learning strategies
incorporated community knowledge and the creation of
linguistically and culturally responsive learning
environments. Teaching and learning sought to bridge
formal school instruction and everyday math.

 Create continuity of pedagogy: At the preservice level,


the center developed teaching modules that incorporated
research-based ideas from language and culture into
existing mathematics content and pedagogy courses for
preservice K–8 teachers. Field experiences exposed
students to K–12 classrooms taught by CEMELA-trained
teachers. Professional development opportunities
included courses of study, study groups, and summer
institutes. Faculty and teachers worked together to design
the curriculum that brought together mathematics,
language, and community and cultural knowledge.
 Create a feedback loop: Family perspectives were
integrated in teacher preparation and continuing
education. Family math programs based on the funds of
knowledge approach focused on strengthening family
skills and empowering families to promote Latinx math
achievement. At the University of Arizona, parents took
math courses and discussed their views about teaching
and learning. They participated in study groups and their
ideas contributed to the CEMELA modules.

The principles and lessons learned from CEMELA are sustained in


new projects such as Hablemos de Matemáticas. In this pre-K–3
project, teachers and parents work together to learn from each
other toward the common goal of increasing children’s
opportunities to learn mathematics. Teacher home visits, parent
and teacher leadership development, workshops, community
walks, and parent visits to mathematics classes create
opportunities for two-way dialogue and bridge the home-school
contexts for early math learning.

https://medium.com/familyengagementplaybook/gfrp-funds-of-knowledge-4d193579c60f

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