Welcoming New WIDA Bloggers, Part 3: Ashley Coblentz, Sara Batesky and Jackie Moreno

Our third welcome blog features three educators from Madison, WI: Ashley Coblentz, Sara Batesky, and Jackie Moreno.

Last spring we found out we would be getting the chance to present at WIDA’s first national conference. Little did WIDA suspect that by accepting our proposal they were also inviting 28 fourth and fifth grade bilingual co-presenters and their families! However, when we floated the idea to WIDA prior to the conference, they went out of their way to welcome the students and their families. Consequently, when WIDA invited us to be a part of their family as monthly bloggers, we couldn’t wait.

We work together in Madison, Wisconsin, at Sandburg Elementary, a school at the forefront of innovative and transformative approaches to education. As Sandburg’s principal Brett Wilfrid explains, “In the last five years, our areas of focus have included character traits which are predictive of future success, interpreting the Common Core State Standards through the lens of WIDA's features of academic language, and expanding the school's offerings and partnerships (including a Community Learning Center after-school program and partnerships with the UW-Madison in a number of areas, such as hosting pre-service teachers pursuing ESL licensure, collaborating with researchers focused on the the achievement of language learners on standardized assessments, and consulting around our school-wide efforts to effectively integrate tablet technology).” 

At Sandburg, collaborative technology integration has helped us become more effective when it comes to formative assessment, meaningful project-based learning, providing language learners with appropriate scaffolds and giving students exciting opportunities to write and speak for authentic purposes. Collectively we have teaching experience that spans K-12 in ESL, DLI and bilingual settings. 

Our hope is that these monthly posts offer inspirational and practical ideas for cultivating rich opportunities for language learning that keep student creativity at the forefront. Although we are currently elementary school teachers, many of the ideas we will be sharing in the blog can be applied to secondary teaching as well. Our original intent in highlighting student voices at the WIDA conference and beyond was to allow the community to learn from and love our bilingual students as much as we do. Our wish is that they continue to have their voices heard through our monthly blog posts. 

Photo courtesy of Ashley Coblentz, Sara Batesky and Jackie Moreno

The Unquiet Classroom: Technology Integration and ELLs

Ashley Coblentz and Jackie Moreno share their vision of the "Unquiet Classroom."

What images come to mind when you imagine a classroom filled with kids using technology?

The Unquiet Classroom: Ashley Coblentz & Jackie Moreno 

A language rich environment or a silent room with students staring at screens? It seems like there is a divide around this issue in the teaching world right now. Recently, we heard a leader in the biliteracy community speak dismissively about providing ELLs with access to technology. Common misconceptions about one-to-one technology initiatives and ELLs include:

• Kids lose interpersonal skills
• ELLs do not get enough opportunities to produce oral language
• Districts purchase devices in a largely unsuccessful attempt to replace good teaching

Before we started using technology with our students, we had similar reservations. If you also have these concerns, rather, imagine:

• Instead of writing a book report, students become movie producers, bringing excitement to project-based learning
• Instead of just “publishing” one paper version of a story during writing workshop, students publish ebooks, accessible to hundreds of people, sending digital copies to all of their friends, teachers and family members, creating a digital library
• Instead of writing a simple reader-response journal entry, students compose original songs in GarageBand to demonstrate learning

Technology integration has helped us become more effective when it comes to formative assessment, meaningful project-based learning, providing language learners with appropriate scaffolds and giving students exciting opportunities to write for authentic purposes.

Our hope is that by sharing how teachers and students are using devices as tools for transformative learning, members of the ELL educational community concerned about potential misuse of of technology will see what is possible. At this point, we can’t imagine not advocating for other ELLs to have similar opportunities. If you are an ELL teacher wanting to make a case to your school’s administration or colleagues about the powerful ways technology integration can support language learners’ academic success, here are some talking points regarding technology integration:

• It promotes student collaboration 
• When used purposefully technology integration increases student talk, providing opportunities for oral language development and more accurate assessment 
• Teachers are able to provide more interactive, graphic and sensory language supports
• Student creativity is cultivated through project based learning

Ultimately, these ways to support ELLs’ academic success can be realized on a whole new level when technology integration becomes part of the story.

To see some concrete examples of how technology integration lives and breathes in a bilingual classroom, check out our students’ presentation to our district’s Board of Education prior to a 6-1 vote to pass a $27 million tech plan:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2547880

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.