It has been a blast!

When I heard WIDA was hiring a blogger two years ago, I was eager to throw my hat in the ring. I applied and was thrilled when I got the job. Since then, I have enjoyed learning about the amazing things that educators across the Consortium are doing on behalf of English language learners.

My first month on the job, only 681 people read a post. But this blog quickly took on a life of its own and has surpassed my expectations. Now, over one hundred educators follow the blog and countless more have subscribed by email and RSS feed. In October 2013, over 10,700 people visited the WIDA blog.

But the time has come for me to pass this blog project on to someone else. I will still be around, conducting workshops for WIDA and the Illinois Resource Center. I may even return as a guest blogger from time to time. However, I will no longer be blogging weekly. It has been a pleasure, and I hope our paths cross again!



Written by: Tammy King

Image: freedigitalphotos.net 

New Resource to Understand Your Students’ Growth on ACCESS

  

 

There's something you might not know about me. I'm a data nerd. My heart skips a beat at the thought of pretty charts and bar graphs. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that WIDA was putting together some new resources to help districts and schools look at systems-level patterns in their ACCESS for ELLs data. I was even more excited when they let me take a sneak peak at the materials earlier this fall. I couldn't wait until they were released so I could tell you about them. So, here it goes. Buckle your data seatbelts!

Do You Have a Favorite Lesson to Share?

Hey, ELL Teachers! 

Win an Amazon gift certificate to purchase books or supplies for your classroom! WIDA announces the return of the Lesson Plan Share Space Contest.

The Lesson Plan Share Space is a community space where you can upload lesson plans or search for other example lessons to support your ELL students in language and content learning.

A few recent contest submissions include, "Inferring Feelings using the book The War With Grandpa" for 4th graders,  "Vincent Van Gogh: His Life and Artistic Principles in his Work," for grades 9-12, "Migration Stories" for grades 3-8, and "The Progressive Era," for the 6th grade classroom.

Upload a lesson plan and be entered into a weekly drawing to win a $25 Amazon gift card. A winner will be drawn each Friday and a final drawing for a $100 gift card will occur on December 6.

The Lesson Plan Share Space is located in the Get Involved! section of the WIDA website (www.wida.us/lessons).

Enter now, enter often! 

Welcome, Tennessee!

Last week Tennessee adopted the WIDA ELD Standards for use in their schools. We are excited to introduce the WIDA ELD Standards to Tennessee educators! 
 

There are currently three states that use the standards but not the ACCESS for ELLs test. Those states are Tennessee, Idaho and South Carolina.


If you are in Tennessee or are new to the standards, here are a few blog posts to get you started: