Using Adaptive Intelligence and African American Learning Styles to Improve Literacy of African American Students of Low Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

Standalone traditional approaches to administering education are quietly disappearing. Teachers no longer rely on traditional tools such as chalk, chalkboards, and flip charts to convey their ideas, thoughts or to teach lessons. Instead, they rely on an amalgamation of teaching techniques, which include, Adaptive Intelligent Techniques (AIT) coupled with traditional tools. Within the public elementary school settings in communities of low socioeconomic status, even with all that technology has to offer, few models exist that include African American learning styles. In these communities, African American students lag behind their White and Asian counterparts where literacy is a concern (National Center for Educational Statistics). They are failing city and state-wide examinations (Maryland Department of Education). In light of the literature on African American learning styles, this research seeks to demonstrate how hybridizing African American learning styles and AIT into the curriculum might encourage engagement, and thereby improve literacy. Moreover, merging AIT and African American learning styles will enable educators to respond to a community of students that have been historically overlooked and undervalued in the classroom and society. This research uses Action Research Methodology, which is a method of validation without physical implementation that will be used to develop, test and validate the new educational model proposed by this research. This model will be used to bridge the racial literacy gap among elementary school students. The main objective of this research initiative is to produce outcomes that scholars and practitioners of culturally sustaining pedagogy will embrace in the future.