Do You Have Something to Share?

Those aren't usually the words someone wants to hear in a classroom, unless you're talking about sharing a lesson plan!

Technology DOES make it easier to share, and now WIDA can help, with our Lesson Plan Share Space contest. Upload a lesson plan in WIDA’s Lesson Plan Share Space contest and be entered to win a $100 Amazon.com gift card, just in time for holiday shopping for your classroom, your family, or yourself! The grand prize winner will be chosen this Friday, December 6.

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

Image via Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveduarte/2817722169/

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! 

An Insider’s View on Being a LADDER Coach

 

Recently I told you about the LADDER project at WIDA. This week I wanted to share with you what it is like to actually participate in the LADDER training. Cathy Fox graciously offered to share her experiences with us. Cathy is a model ESL teacher at Veterans Memorial Elementary School in Central Falls, Rhode Island. During the 2010-2011 school year her district participated in a pilot program for LADDER.  At that time she was introduced to the LADDER cycle of analyzing data to identify target areas of need.  Her team worked with a WIDA coach to develop an action plan to improve their area of need. The following summer Cathy was trained to be a LADDER coach for her team.

Can you tell me about your role as a coach?

Michigan Adopts the ELD Standards

In mid-January 2013, the state of Michigan officially adopted the ELD Standards for use in their schools.  Like Utah and Idaho, Michigan will not be participating in other consortium activities.  But their teachers will be able to benefit by using the ELD standards in their lessons.  Speaking of lessons, be sure to check out the new lesson plan share space.  For those of us who have been in the consortium for years and are skilled at infusing the ELD standards into our lessons, this website will be a wonderful place to showcase our work.  For those new to teaching ELLs or new to the consortium, the lesson sharing site will be a wonderful resource.  If you upload a lesson between now and March 1, 2013, you will automatically be entered into a drawing for Amazon gift cards.  For more information on the contest, click here.

Written by: Tammy King

Image: www.wida.us

 

 

Share a Lesson and Be Entered into a Drawing for Amazon Gift Cards

Have your eye on some new supplies for your classroom?  Thinking about buying a new book?  WIDA is giving away one $25 Amazon gift card each week from now until March 1, 2013.  The grand prize winner will be drawn on March 1, 2013.  That person will win a $100 Amazon gift card.  So how do you enter this contest?

Tips for Using the CAN DO Name Charts

Looking for a way to organize and share your students’ English language proficiency data?  For years I have suggested to my workshop participants that they use the CAN DO Descriptors to contextualize their students’ ACCESS for ELLs® data.  That is, I have suggested that they write their students’ names or initials on the appropriate grade level cluster CAN DO charts.  But now we have an even better option! 

Four New Features in the Strands of MPIs

Recently I pointed out some of the similarities and differences present in the 2012 amplification of the ELD Standards.  Today I would like to share a little more with you about some of the new features in the Model Performance Indicator strands.  For additional background information on MPIs, click here. 

If you have flipped through the 2012 Amplification, you have likely noticed that the strands of MPIs look different.  There are more components and there is more information included with each strand.  Specifically, I am talking about:

Check Out the 2012 WIDA Video Contest Winners

Several months ago I told you about the WIDA video contest and encouraged you to submit a video. Over sixty of you grabbed your video cameras and answered the call.   

Everyone who entered will be receiving a copy of the 2012 edition of the English language development standards.  The top four entries (which included a tie) will receive cash prizes and a scholarship for the awardee and a colleague to attend a 2012 WIDA Professional Development Academy. 

Watch all of the winning videos here.

This year’s winners are:

Using the CAN DO Descriptors in Grades 3-5

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This month, teachers have been sharing ways that they differentiate classroom instruction and assessments for their ELLs.  In each post, they have highlighted the levels of a particular student and listed a corresponding CAN DO Descriptor before sharing their instructional and assessment ideas.  So far we have heard from preschool and high school teachers who work in ESL, bilingual and mainstream content area settings. As the school year winds down, consider how you can use these blog posts as a way to start conversations among teachers who teach the same group of ELLs.  How do we pass on what we know about our students’ strengths to next year’s teachers?  How can the CAN DO Descriptors help us contextualize our students' ACCESS for ELLs scores?   

For more information on the CAN DO Descriptors for PreK-12^th grade, click here.

This week we wrap up our series with some ideas from Soledad Rios.  Sol is a dual language teacher who works with students at various grade levels.  Here are some of her ideas for providing instruction in English that are matched to what each student can do at their level in each language domain. 

Using the CAN DO Descriptors in PreK Classrooms

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The WIDA CAN DO Descriptors are a wonderful tool for understanding what our students can do and express in English.  This week Martha Weisman and Hertha Ramirez share their ideas on how to use the PreK-K CAN DO Descriptors to plan instruction for two of their preschoolers.

Using the CAN DOs in a High School American History Class

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As a continuation in our series, Melinda shares her ideas on how to use the CAN DO Descriptors for grades 9-12.  Typically it makes sense to start the year by matching instruction and assessment to the students’ current ELP levels.  Then, as the year progresses, teachers can challenge students to work towards descriptors at the next level of language proficiency. 

Melinda Perkins, High School Social Studies Teacher

Using the CAN DO Descriptors in a High School Math Class

Image: Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

WIDA’s CAN DO Descriptors are one of my all-time favorite documents to share – especially with mainstream teachers.   They are a wonderful resource for understanding the language acquisition process and brainstorming ideas for differentiating classroom instruction and assessment.  Some of you know that I teach a graduate course on assessment of ELLs.  Recently I asked my students (in-service teachers pursuing their ESL or bilingual endorsements in Illinois) to choose one ELL that they currently teach.  Then I asked them to list the CAN DO Descriptors that correlate to that student’s current English language proficiency (ELP) level.  Lastly, I asked them to list ways they could differentiate their instruction and classroom assessments to better align with that student’s level of ELP. 

Common Assessments and ELLs

T. King, 2012

Last week I had the chance to work with a small group of local high school teachers.  Their district has been doing some extensive curriculum work, and they have now reached the assessment stage.  They wanted to know what they needed to do to appropriately assess their ELLs across several classrooms.  They hoped to learn about different types of assessment tasks that are appropriate for students at different levels of English language proficiency. Some even wondered if it was enough to just assess content area knowledge. (Hint: we also need to assess student’s academic language proficiency).  Ultimately the teachers will be working to create a balanced system of assessments that allows students to show what they know about content area knowledge and academic language over time.  With this information, the teachers can make decisions about future instruction, student placement and

Get those videos in by April 15, 2012!

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What would you do with $1,000 or $500 or even $250 in prize money?    Which WIDA Professional Development Academy would you go to -if it were free?  If you win, you could be faced with those very questions.  All you have to do is submit your entry for the WIDA video contest.  

WIDA is looking for short videos (5-10 minutes) of instruction or assessment of ELLs.  I wrote about a possible approach to this contest in a recent post.  The best news is that the deadline has been extended to April 15, 2012.  Now you can wait until your spring break to put the finishing touches on that video before you mail it.  Click here for more details.

If you have additional questions about the video contest, please e-mail Connie North (cenorth@wisc.edu).

Happy filming!

Written by: Tammy King

The Language of Math... and National π Day

For those of us that teach elementary school, we might have missed the celebration this week.  No, I’m not talking about the NCAA play –in games in Dayton Tuesday night.  I’m talking about the festivities on March 14^th – otherwise known as National π (Pi) Day.  You may remember from algebra that pi is the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter.  It is also a crucial part of many math equations.  For example, the area of a

“Off To Class” Book Review

Recently a colleague introduced me to a beautiful book called Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World written by Susan Hughes.  The book was written for children between the ages of 9-13.  But because of the splendid layout, the intriguing scenarios and gorgeous photographs, this book would be interesting to much older students (and adults).  It certainly kept my attention!

The content of the book is not light and fluffy.  The author, Susan Hughes, begins by stating that the United Nations considers education to be a basic human right.

What Do We Do With All of These Standards?

 It comes as no surprise to you that good instruction is grounded in standards.  But when it comes to educating ELLs, we are often talking about three or more sets of standards.  There are state content standards, Common Core Standards, and English language development standards.  If you also provide instruction in Spanish, you have the Spanish language development standards and Spanish language arts standards.  Often we are left wondering how these sets of standards relate to each other and how we could best use them to guide our instruction and classroom assessments.  For those of us living in states that have adopted the Common Core Standards, we need to set aside some time to understand these standards and begin to integrate them into our teaching practices.

Judy Sauri, principal of Edwards School in Chicago, recently expressed

Favorite Lessons

Image: farconville / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Since so many of the WIDA states are in the midst of testing right now, I wanted to provide you with a little break and share a lesson I was reminded of recently.

As you know, last week was Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so six more weeks of winter are on their way.   What a strange and uniquely American day! As I heard the reports of our favorite national rodent seeing his shadow, I was reminded of my days as an ESL/ bilingual teacher.  I was teaching in a suburban district in a building where the overwhelming majority of the students spoke a language other than English at home.  Collectively, our students spoke over fifty different primary languages.  Most of our students were born and raised in the United States.  But every year we had some students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade who were new to the country.  Every