If You Only Do Three Things This September

By Ashley Coblentz and Jackie Moreno

The beginning of the fall is always hectic - teachers are frantically trying to finish bulletin boards, and parents are starting to pop into classrooms. In the midst of all this, the most essential systems of support are being established. There is a lot going on, but what are key steps that ESL and bilingual teachers can take early on that will make a difference for their students throughout the year?

Here are some ideas:

Make sure all teachers know about the language needs in their classrooms

One of the WIDA tools that we find the most helpful in the fall is the Can Do Name Chart. This chart is an at a glance resource that helps teachers better understand the language needs of students in the areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Share this valuable information with other teachers early on to help frame students from an asset-based perspective.

ESL and bilingual teachers are experts in differentiating lessons for ELLs, but in many schools students only work directly with these teachers for a small portion of their day or even week. If all teachers have a deeper understanding of what their students can do, it will have a greater impact on their daily instruction.

Be a central part of team meetings

Although working with small groups is very important, finding ways to co-plan and co-teach with other teachers can have an even bigger impact by helping make more content accessible to a wider range of language learners throughout the school day. ESL and bilingual teachers’ understanding of how students develop language is critical to their success, so make sure you have the chance to offer input and impact instruction during planning time.

Early on you can suggest to your team that collectively you might study your planning process and notice if the needs of ELLs are add-ons or if they are an integral part of how the team plans. From there you can have reflective conversations, make adjustments and set goals together as needed. Even though these conversations can feel a little uncomfortable at times, it is so much easier to have them in the fall from a proactive place then from a place of frustration later in the year. And of course, for the students the sooner this is in place, the better.

Place language learners in the center

When it comes to school-wide professional development, make sure that the needs of language learners are not an after-thought at your school. Be an advocate and ensure that the professional development prioritizes these needs.

For example, if your school is offering PD on technology, partner with the technology coach and focus on tools that serve as graphic, interactive or sensory supports for all students, but are particularly beneficial for ELLs.

The best part about the fall is that it is a fresh start for both students and teachers - take the opportunity to make this year the best yet!

Changing the Conversation: Rethinking How We Talk About Students

By Ashley Coblentz and Jackie Moreno

Minimal. Basic. Low. Why are these words used to describe children who are anything but? Reporting on a narrow set of skills (primarily reading and math), by using numbers reflective of achievement rather than growth, can make teachers feel complicit in a system that overlooks many students’ interests, talents and growth. Of course academic achievement is an important priority. However, when it becomes the singular focus at the expense of the whole child or acknowledging academic growth, it is problematic.

After spending countless hours nurturing a student's self-image in the classroom, what ends up being communicated to the family and the community about academic achievement often causes stress or disappointment. Conversations can easily become centered on what needs to be fixed.

If we just focus on math and language arts scores, what conversations are we missing, and how does this inform students’ beliefs about themselves?

Students celebrating their learning with their families

There’s a constant balance to be found with being straightforward with students and their families about academic achievement, while simultaneously celebrating academic and personal growth.

Although teachers find ways to highlight the positive, we inevitably find many of the conversations focusing around areas of academic concerns. These conversations are essential. However, they become problematic when they are expressed through deficit centered language. 

How do we help kids connect with their strengths while being real about core academics?

When we reframe the way we talk about kids, we reframe the way we think about them. Let's not deliver the same idea in a “nicer way,” but push ourselves to keep each child in mind as a whole person rather than reducing them to conventional metrics. This a huge temptation because these metrics dominate current educational discourse.

A Shift

One of multiple ways our school community is shifting towards asset-based communication about students is through holding quarterly student showcases - letting kids speak for themselves!

A student sharing his e-portfolio in preparation for a showcase

At our last quarterly showcase, hundreds of family members went into classrooms to talk with students about their learning. Students shared multi-media projects, presentations and other examples of their growth. It was refreshing to hear conversations that included statements of pride from students and families, kids articulating what they’ve learned, and students celebrating each others’ learning.

During the student showcases, our bilingual students are given a platform to share their ability to communicate and create in two or more languages, as opposed to conventional report cards and conferences that systematically frame students in terms of language deficits.

Although this might sound simple, there is a lot of societal pull to move in the other direction - to focus on oversimplified metrics. Instead of reducing the stories of kids and schools to numbers and rankings, let’s move towards a more meaningful narrative.

Teacher Timesavers Reimagined

by Jackie Moreno and Ashley Coblentz

What if students took on more of the “teacher workload” and in the process became more engaged and invested in school?

Instead of running around crazily as stressed-out adults, why not invite students to be a part of the essential work that happens at schools, such as having a say in how schools spend money, plan events, and communicate with parents? We have been thinking about this a lot this year, especially in the midst of new demands placed on educators.

At Sandburg Elementary our principal has branded 2014-15 the “Year of the Student.” This is all about teachers working together to create opportunities for student leadership and ownership of learning. 

Third-graders writing the morning message

"Whoever does the work does the learning" is often said in education. Here are some Sandburg teacher inspired ways to bring this to life in the classroom:

• Instead of rushing to school early to write a morning message, pass the markers to the students.

• Instead of hurrying to finish a newsletter on a Friday, have students do it by writing about what they learned that week.

• Instead of stressing about planning school assemblies, let students take charge. For instance, Sandburg’s fifth grade students lead whole school assemblies where teachers are in the audience and students are front and center.

• Instead of coordinating field trips, empower student leaders to plan outings by contacting organizations, writing permission slips, and setting up transportation.

One of our students’ favorite experiences this year has been spending thousands of dollars on books for their classroom and school libraries. Due to high poverty, our school is eligible for Title I funding. Historically adults have been in charge of figuring out how this money is spent, but this year each child in our school was in charge of spending fifty dollars at Barnes and Noble to shop for books to fill their classroom libraries. Additionally, students created surveys to determine how the school library budget would be spent.

Before the trip students surveyed their current classroom libraries; created online wish lists within their budgets; and graphed the genres of books selected to decide if their choices supported a balanced classroom library. This culminated in a joy filled day they will always remember and left them with a personal investment in how they care for and engage with their refreshed libraries.  

Turning over the book selection to students connects to reading research around student choice improving academic outcomes and saved teachers hours of time that would have been spent paging through catalogs and placing orders. And after all, the best experts on what kids like to read are kids themselves.

Inviting students to participate in these practical, fun tasks incorporates standards into authentic learning experiences, allowing students to understand how school applies to everyday life, while helping teachers save time. What could you subtract from your to do list, that your students could take on?

Scenes from an Unquiet Classroom

by Ashley Coblentz and Jackie Moreno

Do our students help write the script for learning or do they sit in the audience?

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This is a question we regularly ask ourselves, and although we definitely want to say the former, the true answer is found in how we use our time. As we count down our last days of first quarter, we are at the perfect time of year to take a close look at our daily schedule, to see if the value we place on student-driven learning is truly reflected in our day.

Today we’d like to share one of our favorite projects that fosters student choice and empowerment, student created book trailers! They are multi-media projects that encourage students to take on the roles of writers, actors and directors of learning.

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A Spanish language book trailer created by a third grader.

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Creating in the Classroom

Together teachers and students define which standards will be addressed. Once students demonstrate they clearly understand the purpose, the creative direction of the project is primarily up to them. For example, students might choose the theme, tone, script, etc. Next enters joy and engagement as they compose music, act, illustrate, read and write about what’s most compelling to them. In other words, students decide how they will prove they have learned what they set out to.

In Writing Workshop 2.0, in addition to publishing their narratives digitally, students might print them as well. Then QR codes leading to student-created book trailers advertising their books are placed on the copies. Other QR codes featuring a student read audio book version are placed on the print copy as well. 

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Joy is found not only in the creation; it expands further as they get to share their writing and book trailers with the whole school. This is incredibly powerful for them since it creates a sense of authentic purpose for writing. By creating the trailers and books, students have more access to texts that reflect experiences of other students “like them”. This is a particularly powerful opportunity for ELL students to tell their stories and the stories of their families, especially given mainstream portrayals of immigrant communities.

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How To

1. Students write and publish narratives.

2. The book trailer concept is introduced, and students are given a descriptive rubric. Students use the rubrics to evaluate professional or other student created book the trailers before creating their own so that they know exactly what the CCSS learning goals are and what is expected from them.

3. Students then use iMovie to create book trailers about their stories. Students use the rubric to make sure their trailer includes all of the key components.

4. After that, students use Voice Record Pro to record themselves reading their narratives. They then convert their voice recordings into QR codes so that other students can hear the stories read aloud.

5. Place the books with the QR codes on them in the school library so that students throughout the school can read the print versions and scan the QR codes to access the book trailers, as well as audio versions of the books.