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WestEd English Learners with Disabilities Training Evaluation

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Web survey powered by SurveyMonkey.com. Create your own online survey now with SurveyMonkey's expert certified FREE templates.

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Link to Zareta Hammond Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain 

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Link to Zareta Hammond Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain 

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Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain

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Home - Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain

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Planned and In-the-Moment Scaffolding Chart 

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Planned and In-the-Moment Scaffolding Chart 

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Our Nation's English Learners Interactive Information Website

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Our Nation's English Learners Interactive Information Website

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Language Acquisition versus Disabilities Chart 

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Strategies to engage students with complex text 

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Strategies to engage students with complex text 

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Consider this conversation overheard in the halls of an elementary school. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent):

Yolanda: The principal has said she wants all of us to incorporate differentiation into our instruction this year. I've got 6 English Learners (ELs), three of whom are really struggling this year. I'm trying to think how I can best help them.

Maggie: No problem. Here's a quick way to do it: Just pull the scores from your initial unit assessment, weekly quizzes, and benchmark assessments and create follow-up anchor activities: " standards-plus," " standards-grade level," and " standards-modified." Divide up your students and then, during project time, your students can work at the tasks that are at their levels. If there are special needs students like EL and/or students with disabilities, just have you or your aide add on the accommodations identified in their plans - or put these students in a one-on-one or small group off to the side. The language specialist or special education teacher can work with them there.

Yolanda: Er...I don't think that's what the principal had in mind when she asked us to differentiate. Won't that approach just widen the gap between the students in your class? I mean, the kids who are on or above grade level will get experience with standards-aligned activities, but if you limit learning demands to a point just above student competence, you'll have a group of kids that won't be ready at all because their daily work targets are easier, that is, focus on "watered-down" outcomes.

Maggie: So what then? Do you expect me to build a separate lesson for each student? I have a life, you know...

Differentiated instruction has many different definitions, but is most commonly associated with the work of Carol Ann Tomlinson. It has come to embody both set of principles, including application Universal Design for Learning principles, and a repertoire of instructional practices that are proactively implemented for the purpose of meeting the varied needs of all students.

In this posting, we suggest three steps to ensure differentiated instruction intentionally supports language learners. See Kronberg (2013) for related discussion around Utilizing Differentiating Instruction with English Language Learners with Disabilities.

Maggie is expressing what many teachers say and feel. She is trying to meet her students' needs, but there are only 24 hours in a day, and she needs to sleep, too. Unfortunately, as Yolanda points out, differentiation using reduced learning expectations is not helping to close the gap for students who need extra support. Language and/or disabilities support that's added on as a supplement to differentiation activities doesn't work well either. All too often students with the most needs are left to the aide or the specialist.

The "Can Do" Approach

During differentiation activities, how can educators intentionally support the needs of ELs, that is, language learners, especially those with disabilities or who may be struggling? By ensuring the approach to differentiation takes a "Can Do," that is, an assets-based approach, building on student strengths and interests, rather than targeting areas of weakness or struggle. The easiest way to remember, especially if your state is a member of the WIDA Consortium is to use the Can Do Philosophy and systematically seek out the positives about your students.

Here are three steps you can take to ensure you are using an assets-based approach when differentiating instruction for language learners:

Build a portrait of each language learner's strengths, interests, and cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Think about differentiation for language learners in terms of accessibility principles: Integrate support from the outset.

Provide feedback that builds on what language learners can do and that scaffolds, rather than rescues, learning.

Three Steps for Using a "Can Do" Approach

Step 1. Build a portrait of each language learner's strengths, interests, and cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

The Can Do Philosophy

...The more we know about language learners' cultural backgrounds, home environments and formative experiences, and the positive contributions these experiences afford our school communities, the more effective standards-based instruction will be... ( WIDA, 2014)

A foundational element of assets-based differentiation is the development of a multi-dimensional portrait of learner strengths, interests, assets, and interactions with others. Yet, paradoxically, with all the standards-related data available with school and district-based measures, it sometimes seems easier to develop a picture of what learners cannot do in relation to the standards, rather than what they can do. What positives can you leverage to support language and academic development?

All learners bring assets to the classroom. You get to be the detective and discover what those assets are.

Think of a language learner in your class and answer these questions, writing each description from an assets-based point of view - e.g., She is able to ...He is enthusiastic about... She is striving to...:

HOW does this student participate in the classroom [notice the focus is not IF the student participates, but how]?

What does this student like to learn?

What resources does this student bring from home?

How does this student interact with others?

With whom does this student interact?

How does this student use language to learn?

These types of questions are meant to spark more questions and help you begin looking at what the learner can do. They help add dimensionally to your learners and these questions are doubly important for learners with disabilities - who are so much more than the monolithic label of "struggling learner" ( Meyer & Rose, 2005).

Step 2. Think about differentiation for language learners in terms of accessibility principles: Integrate support from the outset.

Accessibility focuses on proactively improving learners' opportunities to learn the curriculum by integrating Universal Design for Learning principles into lessons and activities from the outset in order to meet the needs of a greater range of learners. Accessibility requirements can be found in legislation (e.g., the Assistive Technology Act, IDEA, Civil Rights Legislation for ELs, and ESSA) and in professional testing standards such as the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA...CME, 2014).

Accommodations are individualized adjustments to instruction and assessment which remove the effects of extraneous or unrelated factors without changing the construct or learner learning expectations (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). Accommodations are generally added on after instruction has been designed.

Modifications are individualized adjustments to instruction and assessment which make curriculum easier or lower learning expectations (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). Overuse of modifications may result in equity concerns (i.e., lack of equal access to the curriculum.)

Think about differentiated support in terms of accessibility, not only accommodations or modifications. Integrate support for language learners as part of the initial task or lesson rather than adding in on afterwards.

Here's an Accessibility/Universal Design analogy you can use to help explain to colleagues why it's important to build in instructional support for language learners from the outset:

Have you ever thought about how a sidewalk is made? First the construction crew pours a beautiful new sidewalk. Then, before anyone uses the sidewalk, the team removes the corner square. They carve out and then pour a curb-cut which allows people with wheelchairs, prosthesis, etc. to access the sidewalk. [Random historical fact: the first curb cuts were installed in Kalamazoo, Michigan in a project spearheaded by a disabled World War II veteran who also happened to have been a dual language learner.]

The same curb-cut provides access to more people than those with disabilities; the benefits extend to baby stroller pushers, delivery service workers, bicyclists, and anyone with pushing or pulling something down the road. In the same way, by supporting learners with intensive needs as you design and deliver your general instruction, you can also support a wider range of learners in your classroom.

There are all sorts of ways you can help all of your learners acquire knowledge and skills in the lessons and tasks. Plan from the beginning to provide multiple means of representing content (i.e., multi-modal support).

...and guess what? If you take the initial step of integrating multi-modal instruction into content instruction, researchers have found that it's easier clearly identify language objectives. Why? Because you've done the harder work of thinking about what you're trying to help students learn (your content objectives), it's easier to identify the associated language students will need to develop (Lundgren, Mabbott, & Kramer, 2012).

Use the information from the student portraits you built in Step 1: Think about different ways to engage your learners by tapping into their interests, strengths, and cultural and linguistic backgrounds, challenging them, and motivating them to want to learn. Think of different ways learners can express what they know. Say "NO" to task modifications, which by their very nature decrease learning expectations (Ellis, 1997). Say "YES" to providing equitable access to grade-level activities from the outset.

Think again about your language learner you selected in Step 1. Consider an activity you are planning to do in your class this next week and ask yourself:

What are the essential concepts and questions that this learner should know, ask, or be able to do?

Is there a way to integrate multi-modal support which might help more of my learners?

Am I maintaining the purpose of my learning objective or just providing "easier work?"

What can I do to engage this learner based on the learner's assets and/or interests?

Step 3. Provide feedback that builds on what language learners can do and that scaffolds, rather than rescues, learning.

Scaffolding: Temporary support with part of a lesson or task so that the learner can achieve the learning objective intended for all learners in the class. This support should be responsive to the current level of the learner, yet fade as the teacher intentionally transfers responsibility to the learner...

If your language learners are participating in grade level activities rather than modified activities, you'll most likely need to scaffold their participation.

When working with a language learner one-on-one during a differentiation activity, consider how you can connect to and build on student assets. Rather than intervening with the answer, pause for a moment. Identify and describe to the learner the parts of the task the learner can do. Help the learner use think-aloud strategies to isolate any misconceptions or challenges they might have encountered.

Avoid the temptation to rescue your learners ( Thompson, n.d.). This can be a real challenge! When learners are confused, take a deep breath and step back. Sometimes the most powerful guidance occurs when teacher and learner don't look at the text or paper, but at each other. An important part of an educator's job is to teach and help your learners to figure out how they might get to the answer by themselves.

Reminders (Guidance): "Remember in the whole group lesson how we....? Where would you go/look to do that?"

Resources (Supports): "Is there a model you could use (hanging on the class wall, in a book) to help you?"

From there, keep building on what they can do. Look for ways to help the learner connect with reminders and resources that they will eventually use independently to do that task. (Think of a writing check list, a word wall, etc.) Take a moment to connect back to the assets you described in the student portrait created back in Step 1.
Think about how you might scaffold a learner response while keeping the learning outcome the same:

Begin by breaking down the task into steps or components: Identify which parts of the task the learner can do without assistance, and tell them.
Use the phrase "I noticed..." and explicitly state what the learner can do. (Sometimes learners just need more awareness of what their assets are. Also, it is nice to be positive, rather than pointing out what's wrong.)

Early on in an activity, work together to find resources the learner can use independently.

At the end of your interaction with the learner, jot a note on the paper that describes what the learner did when the student was successful. (As appropriate, share the observation with the learner, your co-teachers, parents/guardians.) "You got it! You just realized you could..."

Final Thoughts

Taking an assets-based approach to differentiation is an important step toward meeting the accessibility needs of a wider range of learners in your classroom, especially students who are language learners. Think of all the things we can do by focusing on learner assets!

1. By using assets-based portraits of learners, we can shine a light on the different resources learners bring with them each day.

2. By offering accessible instruction from the start, we can use Universal Design for Learning principles to meet the needs of a wider range of learners.

3. By focusing on the parts in the tasks that learners are able to accomplish, scaffolding their strengths, and guiding them toward independence, we can support learner growth more effectively.

More video from these experts:

Related videos

See more differentiation videos in this series from Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski:

About the authors
Lynn Shafer Willner is an EL Accessibility Researcher on the WIDA Standards Team. Previously, she taught ESOL in the Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools. She developed and researched state EL accommodations guidelines while working at The George Washington University and then led the development of the ELPA21 ELP Standards while working at WestEd. Mira Monroe is an Accessibility Specialist on the WIDA Assessment Team. Previously, she taught Special Education in several Colorado school districts and worked on the Colorado Department of Education Assessment Team as the Special Education Consultant.

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Using a "Can Do" Approach to Ensure Differentiated Instruction Intentionally Supports the Needs of Language Learners

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Consider this conversation overheard in the halls of an elementary school. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent): Yolanda: The principal has said she wants all of us to incorporate differentiation into our instruction this year. I've got 6 English Learners (ELs), three of whom are really struggling this year.

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Identifying ELs with disabilities--WIDA article 

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Identifying ELs with disabilities--WIDA article 

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EL specialist and special ed specialist collaborating together

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EL specialist and special ed specialist collaborating together

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The relationship between special education and ESL

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Finding Time for Collaboration and Doing it Well 

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Finding Time for Collaboration and Doing it Well 

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The frustration regarding limited time for collaborative teaching partners to meet and plan instruction are high on most lists of co-teachers. Within the past five years, there have been many articles written about the necessity of quality planning time. As a result, many principals have made certain to build into their master schedules a planning opportunity for grade level teams or department/subject area teams. They also recognize that two individuals who share the responsibility for teaching the lesson must have some planning time to prepare their lessons, determine what materials are needed, and to decide on the roles each will play throughout the lesson.

We will address the two questions related to the topic of planning:

How do we find the time to meet for planning our lessons and instructional delivery?

How can we use the planning time we do have to our best advantage?

To answer the first question, let us begin with a basic understanding about the complexity of the issue of finding quality time for joint planning. This is one decision that:

Rests with the principal or his or her administrative designee;

Involves the master schedule that must accommodate a mind-boggling amount of detail and often very inflexible conditions.

For example, master schedules often will be dictated by the limited availability of a specialized science lab or an elective course that is taught by an itinerant teacher who shares his time across two or more schools. And finally,

May require our own flexibility and ingenuity to find planning time that meets our needs as collaborative teachers.

As challenging as the need for quality planning time is, however, there are some very creative options for you to consider and if appropriate, to share with your principal or assistant principal. In other words, you can influence the decision regarding planning time and we will provide the information you will need to do so. For those of you who are fortunate to have your planning needs met at this time, celebrate! If you are in need of additional planning time, continue on this path with us.

Okay. You are in the group that doesn't presently have sufficient quality planning time with your partner in order to regularly meet to discuss upcoming lessons and the roles each of you will play in the process.

If you are a special education teacher who is coming into the general education classrooto co-teach a lesson this lack of planning time may mean that you find yourself unprepared when you enter the classroom. You must look to your general education teaching partner for directions, often in the middle of instruction. As a result, many co-teachers find that their roles are generally those of the type paraeducators might be assigned, such as individual or small group student support with inequitable sharing of responsibilities.

If you are a general education teacher, you may feel as though the partnership without prior planning results in unclear roles, inequitably shared instruction, and even perhaps, lost instructional time in the classroom. No wonder this concern is so frequently the first one mentioned when co-teaching teams discuss the effectiveness of their partnerships.

Let's look at two important terms so we can begin discussing options for shared planning time. They are common planning time and protected planning time.

Common Planning Time

Common planning time is the time that is scheduled for the same time every day or every week. Common planning time is reflected in the master schedule for the school and you and your partner will have the advantage of meeting together at the same time on the same days and in the same location week after week.

For example, Sue co-teaches a 7th grade math class with Mary for three periods each day. Their principal wisely scheduled Sue, a special education teacher, with the 7th grade math team for their common planning period each day. One every day but Friday, they plan their weekly instructional lessons with the team but on Friday, they meet apart from the group to assign specific instructional roles for each of the planned lessons and to review the progress of their partnership and any problems or opportunities that have emerged during the previous week.

Depending on the size of your school and the staff, you will want to:

1. Encourage your principal to assign special education teachers as members of either grade level or subject area team rather than to a 'special education' team. This opens up great possibilities to schedule each special education teacher with the grade or subject area team they work with for most of the instructional week.

2. When this is not possible, ask the principal to consider creating a common planning time for the special education teacher with one team every other week and with a second team on alternate weeks. This reduces the total amount of common planning time for the special education teacher with the same teacher or teachers but does provide a predictable planning time with those teachers whom she or he works to provide in-class support through co-teaching.

3. If you use the second option, it is important that each team recognizes that one or more designated days of the week must be extremely focused on planning the collaborative teaching lessons and roles as your time together is more limited.

If you are lucky and your stars are aligned, this will be the solution to your need for collaborative planning time. For many teaching teams, however, this doesn't completely solve the problem. In this case, they must turn to options for Protected Planning Time.

Protected Planning Time

Protected planning time is time derived from one or more creative options for locating a reasonable block of time that may or may not be on a regular basis but can provide time that is set aside for you and your partner to plan together. Both partners must be creative and flexible and committed to using the time you do have in the best way possible.

For example, Jim is a special education teacher in a small school and provides co-teaching services across three different teachers in three different subject areas. It simply is not possible to attach to a single grade level or subject area team for a common planning period. Unless he and his three partners can think of something creative and are willing to be somewhat flexible, time for planning may be restricted to accidental meetings in the hallway. Not - of course, in keeping with standards for quality teaching partnerships.

Here are some creative options for Protected Planning Time.

Use Substitute Teacher planning time. Most schools use the services of a substitute teacher fairly often and yet they may not require the planning period that is assigned to the teacher they are 'subbing' for that day. The office secretary should maintain a sign-up sheet for the occasions when a substitute teacher will be working in the school.

Now when a substitute is scheduled and the teacher who will be absent has a planning during 2nd period, the school office will notify both Sue and Mary and they can either:

Accept the planning time and send the substitute to Mary's class so she can join Sue during her planning period or, „

Decline because it is simply not a convenient day due to the complexity of lesson Mary is teaching that day or any other reason that would preclude leaving the class with a substitute for that period.

Think about the fact that many schools have teacher absences that require a substitute for as many as 50-150 days each year. This option does not offer predictability but is often used by teaching partners for some protected time to plan and work together.

Regularly schedule a substitute teacher to relieve the special education teacher to provide protected planning time. This option is predictable and is one that principals may rely on if there is simply no way for the master schedule to accommodate a common planning period for every co-teaching team. In this case, the substitute is contracted for each week or every other week to provide the opportunity for co-teachers to plan together. The same substitute may also provide the same opportunity for other teaching pairs in the school who have a similar need.

Utilize the same planning period each week if the students served by the special education teacher do not require daily in-class support. For example, if the four students receiving assistance from the special education teacher during the same period do not need her services every day, the teacher would be free to meet with another co-teaching partner during his or her planning period once each week. If the classroom teacher provides instruction in the school library every Wednesday and has the assistance of the librarian and his or her library clerks, the special education teacher would be able to schedule a regular planning time with a different co-teaching partner.

Discuss the possibility of an assistant principal, department chair, curriculum coach, or other certified educator taking over the special education teacher's duties for a specified time each week. In this way, the special education teacher and his or her co-teaching partner could schedule their joint planning session during this class period on the same day each week.

These are just a few of the creative, and out of the box, options for finding protected planning time for co-teaching partners who are unable to have a common planning period assigned each day with one or more of their teaching partners.

Now, it's time for you to think out of the box. Think about your school and one option that may exist for creating protected planning time for two teaching partners. If one of the options above will work, think about how you envision it would be applied in your school.

Using Planning Time Well

The second of the two challenges we will address in this article is: When we do find time to plan, we often do not use the time effectively. By the time we have identified the topics we need to discuss - the bell rings! How can we use the planning time we do have to our best advantage?

While it is really challenging to find ways to increase the amount and quality of time for planning, the other equally challenging task is to use found time well. We can find multiple ways to increase planning time and if we do not protect this time and use it effectively and efficiently, we still will not have meaningful collaboration in our schools and for our co-teaching partners.

So, how can we use our planning time more effectively? Here are several suggestions that are from the fields of business as well as education.

Identify prime meeting time for partners and groups. In other words, don't schedule planning time at the end of the school day if possible. Your ability to focus and be creative as often significantly reduced when you are tired.

Time should be a sustained interval. Don't look for small increments of time for planning. Ten or 15 minutes of planning time is typically a waste of energy. You should find a minimum of 25 minutes of uninterrupted planning time or more if possible. This means that you and your partner should quickly go to your planning location and begin to work.

Provide training and models for collaboration. Seldom do teachers have any formal training in how to facilitate or participate in effective meetings. This could be a very valuable professional development topic. Suggest this to your principal or take advantage of several quick and inexpensive resources for effective meetings. Here are several links for using planning time well.

Establish and periodically review group norms. This is really important. We have found that this small step can transform ineffective planning sessions to highly effective planning opportunities. Here is a good way to set planning norms for you and your teaching partner or a planning team. Ask the question: How can we use our planning or meeting time more effectively? Together let's list the behaviors we think would significantly improve the value of our planning sessions and our own satisfaction with the results. (Use either a flip chart or a plain paper that you can laminate for use every time you meet.)

Here is a short list one group we recently worked with prepared:

1. Be on time

2. Bring the materials needed with you.

3. Use an agenda and stick to it!

4. No side conversations.

5. Be fully present in the meeting.

6. Cell phones off.

7. Make a list of assignments if we have agreed to accomplish some work on our own prior to the next meeting.

8. End every meeting with 5-10 minutes remaining for personal breaks or rest.

It is a good idea to post your meeting norms where you typically meet. At the end of each planning session, check to see if you or your partner violated any of the norms. Discuss how you will return to them for your next meeting. Hold each other accountable.

Protect the time you have created! So often, teachers will feel pressure to spend their protected planning time on other tasks, such as completing a faculty survey, writing a note to a parent, etc. If you allow this to happen you will soon notice that you are experiencing the same problems associated with insufficient planning time and the cycle will start all over again. Protect your planning time!

One strategy that helps collaborative teaching partners make the most of their planning time is to have a set agenda for each meeting. One teaching team told us they address only three questions when they meet to plan. They are:

1. What are we teaching next week?

2. Who will do what? (E.g. what roles will we assign ourselves?)

3. Do we have a student or students that are struggling in class and what will we do about it?

Each time they planned together, this list of questions kept them on target, used their planning time to best advantage, and after a few months, they found that they were really skilled in instructional planning and more satisfied with the impact they had in the classroom. Perhaps every teaching team would do well to identify the three or four questions each planning session should address. This is an automatic agenda and prevents the meeting from drifting along as partners look for a starting point.

"The quality of a collaborative teaching partnership is in direct relationship to the quality of the collaborative planning that preceded it."

-Stetson & Associates, Inc.

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Finding Time for Collaboration and Using it Well

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The frustration regarding limited time for collaborative teaching partners to meet and plan instruction are high on most lists of co-teachers. Within the past five years, there have been many articles written about the necessity of quality planning time.

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Link to Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni 

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Link to Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni 

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Skip to main content

The Ideal Team Player

By Patrick Lencioni

$25.00

In his classic, best-selling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking new approach for attacking the dangerous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here, he turns his focus to the individual member of a team, revealing the three indispensable virtues that make some people better team players than others. The Ideal Team Player presents a powerful framework and easy-to-use tools for identifying, hiring and developing ideal team players in any kind of organization. Whether you're a leader striving to create a culture of teamwork, a human resources professional looking to hire real team players or an employee wanting to make yourself an invaluable team member, this book will prove to be as practical as it is compelling.

Purchase from our website or your favorite retailer:

Pat Lencioni Has a TEDx Talk!

Are You an Ideal Team Player?

The Concept

An ideal team player embodies three virtues: humility, hunger and people smarts. The power this combination yields drastically accelerates and improves the process of building high-performing teams.

HUMBLE

Ideal team players are humble. They lack excessive ego or concerns about status. They are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow to seek recognition for their own. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collectively rather than individually.

HUNGRY

Ideal team players are hungry. They are always looking for more-more things to do, more to learn, more responsibility. Hungry people rarely have to be pushed by a manager to work harder because they are self-motivated and diligent. They are constantly thinking about the next step and the next opportunity.

SMART

Ideal team players are smart. They are emotionally intelligent and have common sense about people. They tend to know what is happening in a group situation and how to effectively deal with others. They have good judgment and intuition around the subtleties of group dynamics and the impact of their words and actions.

*What makes this model so powerful and unique is the required combination of all three attributes together. If even one attribute is missing in a team member, teamwork becomes significantly more difficult and sometimes even impossible.

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Skip to main content By Patrick Lencioni $25.00 In his classic, best-selling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking new approach for attacking the dangerous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here, he turns his focus to the individual member of a team, revealing the three indispensable virtues that make some people better team players than others.

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TED Talk 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation 

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TED Talk 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation 

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Celeste Headlee: 10 ways to have a better conversation | TED Talk

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When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations -- and that most of us don’t converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. “Go out, talk to people, listen to people,” she says. “And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed.”

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Most people instinctively avoid conflict, but as Margaret Heffernan shows us, good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counterintuitively) how the best partners aren't echo chambers -- and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree.

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The 4 Essential questions for collaborative conversations about student learning 

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The 4 Essential questions for collaborative conversations about student learning 

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WIDA develops and provides proven tools and support to help multilingual learners, and their educators, succeed.

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Unlocking Research on Instruction for English Learners 

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Unlocking Research on Instruction for English Learners 

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2015-2016 Support Documents

ELA Developmental Progressions

Georgia Classrooms Live! - Videos for K-12 Instructional Practices for ELA

K-12 Georgia Standards Documents

The K-5 Standards define what students should understand and be able to do by the end of each grade. Fundamentally, students in grades K through 5 are focused on developing comprehension strategies that will enable them to manipulate grade-level texts of appropriate complexity, and communicate effectively both in writing and in speaking. Students will begin to anchor their inquiries and responses firmly to the text, whether literary or informational, using increasingly specific and relevant evidence to support their claims and inferences. Students' analytical skills will extend to identifying main idea/theme, understanding character and plot development, and evaluating the impact of word choice. Additionally, students will identify structural elements in text such as scenes and chapters, distinguish narrative voice, understand the impact of aesthetic elements, and make logical connections. A key component of the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE) is the expectation of appropriate grade level complexity in text choices. Complexity levels are assessed based upon a variety of indicators.

The K-5 standards are organized in the following Domains and Strands and include identical categories across grades. Use the blue box on the right to locate the full text of the standards for each grade level.

Speaking and Listening (SL)

* Comprehension and Collaboration:
SL1, SL2, SL3

* Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:
SL4, SL5, SL6

Language (L)

* Conventions of Standard English:
L1, L2

* Knowledge of Language:
L3

* Vocabulary Acquisition and Use:
L4, L5, L6

Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year's grade-specific standards, to retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in previous grades, and to work steadily toward meeting the more general expectations described by the Standards. Although the Standards are divided into Foundational Skills, Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language strands for conceptual clarity, the processes of communication are closely connected. For example the Writing Standards require that students write about what they read. Likewise, Speaking and Listening includes the necessity of presenting findings from research. The Standards use individual grade levels in kindergarten through grade 8 to provide useful specificity but allow schools and districts flexibility in course design. Teachers are free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards. ​​​​

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Georgia Classrooms Live! - Videos for K-12 Instructional Practices for ELA The K-5 Standards define what students should understand and be able to do by the end of each grade. Fundamentally, students in grades K through 5 are focused on developing comprehension strategies that will enable them to manipulate grade-level texts of appropriate complexity, and communicate effectively both in writing and in speaking.

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WIDA Can Do Descriptors Web Page--by grade level 

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WIDA Can Do Descriptors Web Page--by grade level 

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WIDA develops and provides proven tools and support to help multilingual learners, and their educators, succeed.

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CCSSO Guide for Principals on Inclusion 

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CCSSO Guide for Principals on Inclusion 

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About the Advancing Inclusive
Principal Leadership State Initiative

CCSSO's Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) State Initiative is designed to help state education agencies develop and implement a plan to advance the preparation and practice of effective inclusive principal leadership anchored in this online guide. Through this initiative, four states-Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio-are refining their school leader preparation and development efforts to ensure an intentional focus on supporting the academic and social success of each learner, with an emphasis on those with disabilities.

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CCSSO Inclusive Principals Guide - CCSSO Inclusive Principals Guide

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CCSSO's Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) State Initiative is designed to help state education agencies develop and implement a plan to advance the preparation and practice of effective inclusive principal leadership anchored in this online guide.

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Quality of English Language Proficiency Assessments of ELs with Disabilities PPT 

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Quality of English Language Proficiency Assessments of ELs with Disabilities PPT 

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Key issues in Lit English learners with disabilities report 

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Key issues in Lit English learners with disabilities report 

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Quality of English Language Proficiency Assessments of English learners with disabilities report 

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Quality of English Language Proficiency Assessments of English learners with disabilities report 

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National Center on Intensive Intervention 

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National Center on Intensive Intervention 

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Explore all

Educators

Find tools and resources to support general and special education teachers, interventionists, school psychologists, school counselors, and other school-based personnel working with students with intensive academic and behavioral needs.

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Explore all Find tools and resources to support general and special education teachers, interventionists, school psychologists, school counselors, and other school-based personnel working with students with intensive academic and behavioral needs.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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Below is an excellent video explaining the SAMR model in 120 seconds. SAMR is a framework through which you can assess and evaluate the technology you use in your class. The goal is to help you make informed decision regarding the rationale and utility of the technology you integrate in your teaching. This SAMR poster walks you through the different components of the SAMR model.

Is technology providing an added value to your teaching or is it simply replacing the old and traditional ways of doing the same thing? If it is adding value, define this value awhat can of value? The SAMR model will help you answer these and these and several other questions regarding your pedagogical EdTech practices. Bottom line, from a pedagogical perspective, technology is more effective when it leads to transformative learning experiences.

For those of you new to the SAMR concept, the video below shared by Candace M provides a great introduction to this concept. It explains in simple ways what SAMR is all about and provides concrete examples of its usage. Here is how it explains SAMR's four levels:

In a substitution level, teachers or students are only using new technology tools to replace old ones, for instance, using Google Docs to replace Microsoft Word. the task ( writing) is the same but the tools are different.

Though it is a different level, but we are still in the substitution mentality but this time with added functionalities. Again using the example of Google docs, instead of only writing a document and having to manually save it and share it with others, Google Docs provides extra services like auto saving, auto syncing, and auto sharing in the cloud.

This is the level where technology is being used more effectively not to do the same task using different tools but to redesign new parts of the task and transform students learning. An example of this is using the commenting service in Google Docs, for instance, to collaborate and share feedback on a given task task.

If you are to place this level in Blooms revised taxonomy pyramid, it would probably correspond to synthesis and evaluation as being the highest order thinking skills. "Redefinition means that students use technology to create imperceptibly new tasks. As is shown in the video below an example of redefinition is "when students connect to a classroom across the world where they would each write a narrative of the same historical event using the chat and comment section to discuss the differences, and they use the voice comments to discuss the differences they noticed and then embed this in the class website".

Watch the video to learn more about SAMR

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Below is an excellent video explaining the SAMR model in 120 seconds. SAMR is a framework through which you can assess and evaluate the technology you use in your class. The goal is to help you make informed decision regarding the rationale and utility of the technology you integrate in your teaching.

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Common Sense Education provides educators and students with the resources they need to harness the power of technology for learning and life. Find a free K-12 Digital Citizenship curriculum, reviews of popular EdTech apps, and resources for protecting student privacy.

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EdSurge - Education Journalism and Research

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A nonprofit newsroom reporting on the powerful forces, fascinating people and innovative practices shaping teaching and learning.

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Understood--resources to understand and support students with disabilities 

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Understood--resources to understand and support students with disabilities 

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Understood - For Learning and Thinking Differences

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Understood.org is the resource that helps the 70 million people with learning and thinking differences anticipate the challenges, barriers, or opportunities in life and confidently reach their potential.

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Ideas and resources for challenging students with engaging math 

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Ideas and resources for challenging students with engaging math 

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Use math journals and interactive notebooks to help students learn and practice their skills. Increase the amount of time in these to help students "show your work." Here are some interactive and foldable ideas to make journaling and notebooking interactive to use for showing examples in different ways, illustrating a concept and defining math terms.

Give math practice to students that is meaningful and reflects their learning by using these tips on your Common Core curriculum. Have another way to show math work? Tell us by uploading your tip to the Teach Junkie community. We can't wait to see your lesson ideas.

When you use pieces that move, expand, fold, etc... you are creating a novel set of materials and adding function. Students will remember the way specific foldables work and use those to associate memories and content with, increasing the likelihood of applying what they've learned!

Swivel Book - Take this swivel book for example. It's a great way to illustrate a multi-step process. In this photo, the teacher uses it to illustrate the order of operations, but you could easily adapt the idea to even how to solve word problems. When students create the steps, they are engaged in breaking down the process of figuring out the math skill.

Pockets - Use paper to create built-in pockets right into a math journal. These are exceptional ways for older students to keep small materials at hand and keep it interesting. When they help create the pocket and what goes inside they take ownership over showing their work.

Be Choosy - Use Portions of Worksheets

You don't have to use every inch of a worksheet. When you find a great example, illustration or diagram - use it! Use difficult drawings or exact models when measuring from a worksheet, but don't define the way they use it by limiting their space to show their thinking with the rest of the worksheet.

Symmetry - Use this example of free symmetry worksheets. You could easily cut portions out and paste them into a journal. Students could fold and glue half of the shapes down, illustrating the lines of symmetry with folding. Then use the space surround their shape in their journal to write about why both sides are symmetrical. Most often, worksheets don't include a lot of room to write or explain in a way that makes sense to the individual student, so give them the freedom (and expectation) to do so in their journal around the worksheet pieces. {Free downlaod}

We all learned in our first education class that there is value in divergent thinking. So, get your students showing their thinking and work using a variety of ways in their journals.

Showing Examples in Different Ways - Here is a sample of how you could give the expectation to your students of illustrating a concept in 4 different ways. Create a master example or anchor chart and then let them use one page for each, or turn this into a foldable that will be memorable related to the concept you're teaching. Keep it glued in next to other examples or in-class examples that they've used to refer to and use as their own personal anchor charts.

Funtcionality is key for math journals. The types of foldables you can include are endless. Don't just choose a foldable to make a foldable though... choose one that adds function and helps explicitly teach your concept.

"Types of" Foldables - This tri-fold foldable is a good example of how to use a foldable when trying to illustrate "types of." It allows you to display up to 6 sections of information and can become a go-to resource for students. These examples include teacher created pieces, but you can always release it to students during group work, paired activities or during small group work.

Thanks to these fantastic teachers for sharing their printable and cootie catcher lesson plan ideas. They are fabulous! Feel free to grab the "I'm a Featured Teach Junkie" blog button as your creations are definitely worth the shout out.

More Math Journal Ideas

More Math Activities

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How to Make Math Journals Interactive - Teach Junkie

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Use math journals and interactive notebooks to help students learn and practice their skills. Increase the amount of time in these to help students "show your work."

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XP Math Games - XP Math Games Arcade - eXPerience

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Factorize quadratics and other expressions using the difference of two squares where the first term has a square coefficient other than 1. e.g. (ax)² - (by)² including removing a common factor from each term first.

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Guide your boat to the finish line by navigating via x,y coordinates that you enter. You'll need to pick up all buoys to complete a level while avoiding boats and the shore. If you run out of time you'll need to retry the level. Complete all 10 levels to win the game.

Click on the "+" and "-" signs in the control box to adjust the x,y coordinates. Then click on the Move button to get your boat to move to that location. Pick up fish to get extra bonus points. To complete a level you must pick up all buoys on a level and get to the finish line. Note: some levels don't have bouys.

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Guide your boat to the finish line by navigating via x,y coordinates that you enter. You'll need to pick up all buoys to complete a level while avoiding boats and the shore. If you run out of time you'll need to retry the level. Complete all 10 levels to win the game.

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ABCya! * High-Stakes Heist - Learn Order of Operations

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Your mission, if you should choose to accept it, is to help Kit Foxtail get the townfolk's money back that was taken by the evil Duke Von Wolfington. In order to complete your mission, you will need to crack open some safes using your knowledge of the Order of Operations.