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Closing the Year

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To end the year in a culturally responsive way, I plan on writing cards to all of my families in their home language and mailing them out.  I want to acknowledge and thank them for the work they have done to support their students during our school closure.  Having a strong home-school connection is important for students and families to feel supported, especially during this time.  I also want to let them know that just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that they can’t reach out if they need to.  I am also going to send cards to each student, letting them know how proud I am of the work they have done, and that I miss them.

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To start the year off in a culturally responsive way, I plan on doing more student and family interviews.  This will be especially important to get to know our new families.  By collecting information on funds of knowledge I can be more prepared to serve them.  I also plan on sharing this information with their classroom teachers, specialists, and admin. 

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To end the year in a culturally responsive way, I could ask my EL students to teach me a few words in their first language. I also just want to end the year being connected to all families and make sure all families are feeling supported going into summer and 1st grade.

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To start the year off in a culturally responsive way, I will be doing WAkids meetings before we start school. At this meeting I will learn more about my students backgrounds and languages. I would love to learn 1-2 words in each students first language and incorporate that in my greetings and closings for the day.

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Beginning the New School Year

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As a mentor teacher, I am supporting teachers with reflecting on their practice during this remote learning experience. Many teachers have named that they have learned so much about families and the need to do a better job of partnering with families at the start of the year. I was able to help them name concrete ways they have been able to build relationships and get to know their families-teachers shared phone calls, letters and notes being mailed home, regular and frequent contact. The important thing that was named is that they found that they couldn't rely on one method, but rather had to find a way that worked for individual families. This connects with my learning from this course. Is that we have to be willing to partner with families, by getting to know both our students and families and use that information to support students growth and education in the classroom. I also think it is important for teachers to reflect on the implicit biases they bring to teaching and the classroom and how that shows up (beliefs they have about students and families and our willingness to support students). So as this year comes to an end, I am reflecting on how I need to self reflect and continue to have my teachers, so that we can work to get to know our students/families, build on their funds of knowledge and then work to intentionally plan how we will move forward.

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To open my year next year, I will support teachers with building family partnerships early. I will support them with resources and coaching conversations, because getting to know their students and families is the foundation for the learning partnerships Zaretta Hammond names. I also want to support teachers with building predictable routines at the beginning of the year (in remote learning and or in the classroom) because I want to support students becoming independent learners and creating an independent atmosphere from day one.

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As I'm closing the year, I'm starting a funds of knowledge inventory for each of the students I will have next year. I work with all the ELs, grades K-5, at my school so I know my of the families already. However, there is more I need to learn! I'll be doing some summer visits to student neighborhoods and hope to add to the inventory with what I learn being near their home.

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To open the year, I plan on meeting with parents, aided by bilingual staff, to demonstrate what online learning will look like. This year we really missed this do to the suddenness of it all. Our school closed without warning and families didn't have any idea how to navigate SeeSaw or Google Classroom. Teachers received trainings, yet parents were left out. Parents with more than one child in school got bombarded with notifications and emails. As a result, many just shut down and requested paper packets. I want to start the new year off fresh, viewing everything from the families' lens--how is online learning going to match parent work hours, how can parents support their children, how to ask for help, etc.

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One of the ways I'm closing the year is making sure my families have the resources they need. One of my families had both parents diagnosed with COVID last week so I've lined up rent assistance, financial support, and meals. My ELs will have their chromebooks all summer, so I'm recording more read alouds for them to listen to. I've been using a lot of culturally diverse books with positive messages and my list has grown recently with recommendations of more books addressing race. I'm really looking forward to Kendi's "Antiracist Baby" book being released next week.

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I don't have my usual ways of gathering info on the students.  So in addition to a personal inventory form, I am going to have the students come up with a "six-word summary" of themselves.  I recently did a book study where one of the strategies was to write a six-word summary of what they had read.  Students would be cognitively challenged to distill the reading into six words.  If I have the students do this for themselves, then I can teach them those six words that are relevant to themselves in the target language (I teach French, Spanish, and Japanese.)  

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I don't have my usual ways of gathering info on the students.  So in addition to a personal inventory form, I am going to have the students come up with a "six-word summary" of themselves.  I recently did a book study where one of the strategies was to write a six-word summary of what they had read.  Students would be cognitively challenged to distill the reading into six words.  If I have the students do this for themselves, then I can teach them those six words that are relevant to themselves in the target language (I teach French, Spanish, and Japanese.)  

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-- Pamela Parks, Riverview School District

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After taking this course and keeping current events in mind my plan to close the year in a culturally responsive way has two pieces to it. First my plan is to continue to give my students the time, space and resources to process the current protests and the United State's history of systematic racism. Through discussions and targeted information it is vital that student are able to process what is going on through the historical context of today's current moment so that they can better understand the whys connected to what is happening now. The second part of my plan plays to what we have learned and discussed about translanguaging.  I plan to close out the year with information and further resources that are available for families and students to use over the summer as well as into next year that support their funds of knowledge as home language use.

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Closing the year will be difficult.  First, I decided that my last two classes are just going to be no-pressure, "Hey, how are you doing?  I miss you." sessions.  Today and yesterday went very well; students seem beaten down and just needed to vent.  Second, I've got two of my classes working on a family tree project.  I told them to make it whatever they wanted:  Does your neighbor act like a surrogate aunt?  By all means, put her in.  Do you never see your second cousin of your father's side once removed?  Leave him out.  I want students to  include only the people who are meaningful to them.  So far, it's going great.

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I would like to open up next year ( which at this present moment will be at least partially online) with really pursuing an understanding of my students' funds of knowledge in a fun and engaging way. Coming off of a drastically different school year I think it is vital that we as teacher are even more aware of what our students can do and what potential gaps exist. I think this starts with drawing out funds of knowledge. I hope to begin the year with a student biography project that gives them the space to share pieces of culture, background, and language. I hope to do this with student created videos!

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To close the year with a culturally responsive approach, I plan on leading summer learning professional development that includes a "launch form" that teachers will use to collect information on students and their families to help inform our support during the summer. A new purpose is to honor and gain understanding of the Funds of Knowledge that the students and families bring to the table. As a teacher leader that is part of planning and facilitating theses trainings, I see an opportunity to spread the belief in an asset-based mindset when building relationships with students.

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One way I plan to open the year is with a more intentional way of supporting digital learning for students and families that have been less active online.  With the possibilities of different re-opening models for school districts, I want to advocate for learners that are not connected to online learning opportunities.  One of the opportunity gaps that I fear will perpetuate achievement gaps for students of color is the lack of devices and connectivity to engage in digital learning that is being offered.  I will work with the schools that I support to systematically identify students that have been hard to reach or engage in the class' learning activities.  Then, we can identify an action plan with increased intensity based on the needs of the students.

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Asking families how they are doing and what they need. Making clear that I am still available to email with questions. My shipment of books with more diverse main characters just came in, so making some recordings and posting on Google Classroom. Trying to let my students know how lucky I was to be their teacher and how lucky their 3rd grade teacher will be.

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Not sure what our building will look like next year. In August start reaching out via Zoom to meet 1-1 and build relationships. Also learning what the culture is like in the student's homes and what support they will need when school starts.

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I am not too excited about the possibility of starting school online. I miss working with the students and building relationships with them. On the bright side I have learned so much during our 6 sessions. I definitely know that I will be able to share the information with my staff. Thanks for a great course.

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Family support - provide training and information events for families that are linguistically diverse
Student and families - building relationships take time when school starts to build the connections and make sure families and students have the resources, knowledge and training on what they need and how to do it for the year (advocacy, trust and information)

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To start the year, I will do a family take home home interview to determine the family's current level of art interest as well as in what areas.

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To close the year in the art room, I sent home all of the art work, art portfolios, and in process work that students had done over the year. I also created a slide show of work that students did over the at home learning time period. This gives the students some recognition for their hard work with at home learning.

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Raman Rekhi, ELL Teacher MS
I have learned so many new strategies from this course that I used in my remote teaching this year. I am using translanguaging and communicating with families more than before.  I am going to end the school year by doing the following:

o    The students will make a video on what they have learned during this remote learning that helped them for future. They will record it in both English and their native language. They will submit it using the Flipgrid app.

The students and families will submit a feedback form that I have created using MS Form and it has the option to translate it in their native language. I will email the families explaining them on how to do that in English and translated version in their native language using Google translator.
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My new school year will be based on the feedback that I will get from students and their families. I will consider more interaction with families and provide them with resources to support their child at home and ask them to be a part of their child’s education. I will be using both English and Native language while communicating with the families. I have noticed that I get a quick response when I email the families in their native language. I will assign some project that will need input from the student’s families that way they will feel connected
Raman Rekhi

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I will make sure to provide an opportunity for closure for my students that I have developed a relationship with this year.

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I plan to share with my staff the information learned from this course. If we are still doing distance learning, I want to be able to collaborate on lessons/instruction to support students engagement.

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For each of my courses, I framed the final online learning modules using essential questions with the goal of igniting students in inquiry/discussion

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To close the year I think it is important to give students a chance to reflect on the school year. This week I have an assignment that they can do that is optional (using student choice) for students to reflect on the school year using Google slides, docs, or FlipGrid. We also have a few zoom meetings planned as a class as well as a grade level so they can see each other and maintain the relationships established during the school year.

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One thing that I am taking from this course in terms of opening the year is getting to know my students' families and their funds of knowledge better. I feel I connect with students and get to know them, but I would like to be more intentional in creating those bonds and having knowledge of their family. I think based on what next year holds, being intentional about teaching the online tools as well as connecting with families as much as possible will help. I am hoping we are in person as much as possible to help build those connections.

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I plan to close the year with an optional poetry reading for my students. We are wrapping up a poetry unit in my classes and I want to give students the opportunity to invite their families to join in to hear their children read poems in English and their home language. I've invited students to leverage their translanguaging capacities in the poem by including words in their home language and/or intermingling the languages in a way that resonates with them. I've also asked them to include academic language they acquired in their classes. They had the option of reflecting on the quarantine or the racial justice protests. Students who decide not to share live will have the option of sharing their Flipgrid or Abode Spark recordings.

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I look forward to establishing norms and thinking routines in both a remote and in-person context next fall (if we are following a socially-distanced hybrid model). What will be positive about this is we will have the opportunity to plan ahead to implement more culturally-responsive practices in an online environment. Our district will be using Canvas so it has been really valuable to have this course model for me what it is like to engage with Canvas in a culturally-responsive way as a student. I will look for ways to integrate the strategies modeled, especially the thinking routines, in my classes this fall.

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Dawn Boyden, Lake Stevens School District

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Dawn Boyden, Lake Stevens School District

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wIn my Zoom classes, I've found that when I demonstrate preparing a recipe that students would usually prepare in class, they're highly engaged. Students ask questions and respond to my inquiries. In this final week of class, I will continue to prepare food. This time it's another version of the first recipe we made in class in September. It should be a fun way to wrap up the year. When we have cooked together, only a few students have attended, but it's been a chance for us to get to know each other better and to have fun preparing the same food. It's given insight into their families, homes, likes, dislikes and more. Definitely worth the time and effort!

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In the Fall, there will be an increased emphasis on developing relationships with students and really getting to know them. It sometimes overwhelms me trying to learn about 180 students and takes a while. Next year with whatever changes we need to make, it will be even more necessary to understand my students and to find ways to assist them when we again need to have digital instruction. Especially with a student teacher, sometimes it's hard to make those bonds with students, but I will need to be more present so that I really know them. I also plan to determine their funds of knowledge at the start of the semester to determine what they can teach their peers. So excited to implement these plans.

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6th grade science, North Mason School District

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6th grade science, North Mason School District

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Reading everyone else's posts is inspiring to see what I could have done! I was asked to let our language learners focus on their EL coursework instead of science class, but still had a few students engage through the Remind texting app. We're having an end of the year Zoom call today (6/10) for students to see their friends one more time, but it's been discouraging to have so few students with the bandwidth to join synchronous streaming.

If the year had ended in the classroom, we were planning on ending with a robotics unit that uses barcodes as programming languages. In the past, this has been so empowering for our students who struggle to find the right words in the science context. I would love to empower students to use their existing language skills.
-LP

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6th grade science, North Mason School District

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6th grade science, North Mason School District

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My biggest takeaway from this course was the phrase: "Student's funds of knowledge have not been taken away." I am dealing with so much uncertainty about how next year will begin and obsessing over the structures and supports that may be taken away. It's a powerful reminder that students still have their funds of knowledge, regardless of whatever else is missing from a "normal year". I usually start the year with a family contact survey and contact all families within the first two weeks. I think this year will need more intentional conferencing to leverage family support and determine what additional supports the school can provide.

As students may not be in the classroom much (or at all) in September, I want to explore their peer relationship supports, too. Asking questions like "who do you talk to during the day?" Middle school is such a social time and I want to help facilitate social experiences to engage language learners with native English speakers, as possible.
-LP

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To close the year, I plan to give each student time and space to express themselves concerning the school closure, including the loss of attending school-sponsored camp this spring, and the current civil unrest in our nation. I will give options during live meetings, on FlipGrid, and in the Google Classroom stream.

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I want to open the year with an open-ended survey to gauge the funds of knowledge present in the students' families. I will present it as part of general get-to-know-you activities. I haven't heard how I will be teaching in the fall, on, off, or hybrid, so I haven't made very detailed plans as of yet.

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To close the year, I'm planning to have students reflect over the year by sharing or showing with others during our last Zoom meeting. I would like to hear students' thoughts or concerns about what learning might look like at the beginning of the new school year.

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To end the school year in a culturally responsive way, I am going to host Zoom Virtual field trips of places that my students are from, and activities they are interested in. I will then give time for students to share their funds of knowledge about those places and things.

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To start next school year in a culturally responsive way, I'm going to adjust my Family Intake Questionnaire to focus on family funds of knowledge and student interests. Especially if we are going to start the school year virtually, I would like to schedule a one-on-one "Meet the Teacher" with each family to learn more about them, and build a strong partnership from the beginning.

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Genet Simone, Seattle Schools Skills Center: Careers in Education ~ Closing the Year with Rites of Passage Collage and Family "Toast"

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Genet Simone, Seattle Schools Skills Center: Careers in Education ~ Closing the Year with Rites of Passage Collage and Family "Toast"

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I explained to my students that a rite of passage has 3 phases: Separation, Liminality, and Incorporation. Their assignment is to create a collage with photos, a drawing or other piece of artwork, or selecting three objects -- to represent each of those phases. Separation = What are you leaving behind? Liminality = What are you experiencing now during this transition from junior to senior or as a high school graduate? Incorporation = How do you want to be incorporated (welcomed) back into your family or community, now that this school year is complete? (or what can you offer to your family and community now?) When students are finished sharing online with each other, family members are invited to join us by toasting the students and congratulating them for completing this school year. We will see how it goes!

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Next year I will start the year teaching World History, which is an entirely new course for myself and my building. I'm really excited to be able to have the time over the summer to design the course based off of my learnings from my students this year & this course. To build culturally responsive teaching and anti-racist teaching into the course, identify Tier 2 & Tier 3 vocabulary students will need to understand in order to engage in rigorous online/in-person discussions rooted in essential course questions, such as "how are systems of power created & maintained?" & "what is culture? how do we experience & value different cultures?"
I also want to work with our immersion teachers to create materials and opportunities for students to engage in translanguaging.

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Apologies--my Internet puttered out mid-posting yesterday. Let's try that again:

I think this question is asking for concrete steps I am taking, but if I am honest I think I am closing this year in a culturally responsive way by leaning into the discomfort of having unanswered questions. For example, since reading about individualism/collectivism in the classroom, I'm suddenly very aware of how individualistic my online teaching practices are. This has me wondering how I can change these practices to be collectivism and relationship-focused despite the limitations of access for class community members.

On a more practical note, this course helped me frame my final online learning modules using essential questions to "ignite" student interest. Previously I had struggled finding ways to bring in-classroom inquiry protocols to online learning, but this step helped me make the learning more responsive & relevant to student's lives.

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To end the year in a culturally responsive way, we plan to work with a paraeducator who speaks and writes in Chinese to communicate to our Chinese speaking families what resources are readily available over the summer for students to utilize.

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I would like to host 1:1 meetings with family at the beginning of the year is a great way to build connections and relationships. Rather than send some kind of survey home, it would be great to gather information about student's Funds of Knowledge from actual interviews with families. I imagine you would learn more about students, families and cultures by taking the time to have those conversations.

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Closing the Year - Krista Goudy-Sutterlict, Wapato HS

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Closing the Year - Krista Goudy-Sutterlict, Wapato HS

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So, we have 2 more weeks until this school year comes to a close. The amount of students that I am working with is little to none, so my focus will be passing on as much knowledge as I can with my PLC team. I have taken away a ton from this course and downloaded videos and articles that are extremely beneficial. I've requested time during our weekly PLC time to collaborate and share. I know that the PLC team that I work with will more than willing to do what's best for students.

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Opening the Year - Krista Goudy-Sutterlict, Wapato HS

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Opening the Year - Krista Goudy-Sutterlict, Wapato HS

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Asynchronous Video
Hopefully the more I do, the more comfortable I will become with it!

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Opening the Year: Jun 10, 2020 4:29 PM.webm

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I will end the year in a culturally responsive way by holding our last class meeting next week to be a space for students to choose how they want to reflect on the school year. I will be assigning them to prepare a couple sentences and choose one thing to "bring" to the meeting. I want to allow students to reflect on the school year in any way they want to—I am not pushing it to be a goal on just academics; it can be about distanced learning, COVID times, school before COVID, friends, family hardships, anything.

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I plan to start next year in a culturally responsive way by getting to know my students and their funds of knowledge from the very first moment. I will start with the basics and as we build trust, go deeper into each students' funds of knowledge, inviting them to present on their families, backgrounds, and cultures and inviting their families into the classroom.

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To end the year in a culturally responsive way, I plan to have a class meeting where students can reflect on the year and share concerns about summer and the fall. I also plan to write each student and their family a postcard in their home language that acknowledges their Funds of Knowledge and my thankfulness to them for working together. I want to share resources in their home language that can assist them in any learning they want to continue over the summer.

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Opening the school year, I would like to spend time building a foundation for my relationship with families and students. Figuring we will probably continue online learning, I would like to navigate a way to do one on one Zoom meetings with families to establish that I want to learn about them and how we can work together this year using their assets. Building trust is so important and I want this to be my primary goal.

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To close the year in a culturally responsive way I will host a class meeting celebrating everything students have learned during distance learning. I plan to emphasize the cultural and family learning that has taken place. I also will translate my report card comments into families' primary languages and encourage the specialists I work with to do the same. Finally, in my comments I will include encouragement to families to keep speaking their primary languages with their students because strengthening their home language over the summer is a great way to support them come the fall!
-Ande Martin

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To end the year in culturally responsive way,I plan to guide students in a reflective conversation to describe the year, identify ways they have improved throughout the year, and set goals for how they will grow during the summer. I am working on a choice board to help students  in setting those goals. I also want to encourage them to make those decisions from the choice board with his/her family since many of those choices will involve engaging family time,

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I will start the new school year at a different school as EL Teacher with higher number of EL Students. Getting to know my new students' funds of knowledge and building a trusting relationship will be my priority. I am feeling hopeful, confident and inspired by the resources and tools shared in this course. which will give me a headstart toward this effort. I really liked the type of information outlined in the "Multilingual English Learner Continuos Learning Plan. There is a placeholder for student's strengths, domain goals and stage of language acquisition to inform and document instruction. I want to collect all this information in one place for each student in my caseload. If all goes well we will also have purchased the technology tool to help us enter this information as well as access for all educators serving those students. As for my own teaching practice I want to refine my understanding of each stage of language acquisition and better align with tier questioning strategies. I think that will improve how we assess and monitor incremental growth from the start of the year.

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As this year comes to an end, my instructional para and I plan to include a little note to each of our EL students to include with the last delivery of school materials from teachers.  I plan to review the lessons that were completed before we were sent home to include in my thinking for next year.  I'm very excited about all of the new and revisited learning along with so many great resources!

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I have noticed that although I have attempted to send out questionnaires to get to know families funds of knowledge that these forms have been in English and not culturally responsive. This year I want to replace this form with a one on one meeting with each family (in whatever format is possible next year). I hope by removing the barrier of written English I will be able to connect more deeply with families and learn more valuable information about their families' funds of knowledge. I also want to support translanguaging by using multilingual resources (like a multilingual word wall) in the classroom and encouraging student use of their home language at school. Finally, I want to incorporate CTR like see, think, wonder from the beginning of the year as ways to engage students in content and as formative assessments that are more culturally responsive.
-Ande Martin

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Over the next week, I would really like to check in with my families I feel have had a lot of challenges with distance learning. I would also like to check in with those whose students need the greatest amount of support. I think it is vital that the transition for their students from 1st to 2nd grade go as smoothly as possible, particularly when I reflect upon the beginning of the year and the time spent on establishing learning behaviors, classroom expectations, and most importantly, trust. I think it would be tremendously beneficial to do what I can to support my students’ teachers for next year in knowing important information about them and their families. I would like this to look like facilitating communication and introductions so that the first day of school is less of a shock. I also want to ensure that I am conveying to my students that I will continue to be a person they can talk to, come to with questions and that will be checking in on them as they head into a new grade. Finally, I want to consider how I can provide opportunities for my students to reflect upon the successes they had in first grade and to celebrate their accomplishments and hard work. In doing this, I want to make sure they are aware that this is what we will be doing in our next class meeting this week, so they have plenty of think time before sharing with the whole class.

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I would like to immediately start off by seeking out more opportunities to represent students’ home languages and cultures within the classrooms and opportunities for them to see themselves operating within the context of academics (pictures of them, multiple languages represented, etc.). I also want to work on implementing some of the strategies I learned when getting my ELL endorsement (increasing visuals, translanguaging, etc.). I also want to try to be more thorough about utilizing continuous learning plans to help myself track students’ development and progress. Finally, I want to think about how I can be intentional about positioning students L1 and culture as assets. I’d specifically like to highlight this in a way that positions parents as experts because they speak multiple languages.

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I am ending the year with providing students with a “Tic-Tac-Toe” choice board to demonstrate their understanding of our final math unit. This will give them choice in which activities they want to complete.

In the past I have given end of the year surveys during the last week of school. I am going to continue to do this by transferring it to a Google Form and I am going to revise the questions to be culturally responsive.

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I want to start the year by providing both families and students (both ELL and non-ELL) with a survey to identify funds of knowledge. I already have students fill out “get to know you” surveys on the first day of school, however, I would want to include questions that more specifically identify funds of knowledge. If we start the school year online, this survey will be huge in trying to get to know students and building relationships with them.

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In order to build a sense of classroom community and give a sense of closure, I will have students do flipgrid reflections of the trimester. Some prompts I will give them will be:

In this class, I appreciated it when . . .
This class helped me think about . . .
One thing I learned how to do well this year was . . .
I enjoyed learning about . . .
This group helped me overcome . . .
Thanks for . . .

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Because the brain seeks to minimize social threats and maximize opportunities to connect with others and because positive relationships keep our safety-threat detection system in place, I will:

·       Call or visit students the week before school starts to introduce myself and check in on family’s basic needs. I will also give students a personalized welcome to the class.

·       Prepare a FAQ for families and have it translated into their home languages or made available in video format, with plenty of visual aids

·       Send out a family and student survey to determine funds of knowledge

·       Organize Zoom meetings for my ELL families across common languages, with interpreters available, in order to build a sense of community and safety among same-language students, as well as to explain school logistics

·       Request priority for our rising 9th grade ELLs to receive their laptops early so that they can attend these Zoom meetings. We are also offering a face-to-face summer “jumpstart” week for our ELL and SPED students in order to teach them how to use Canvas and other common learning platforms, and give them an orientation to the school and its expectations and procedures.

Because students come to us with their own funds of knowledge, I will:

·       Send out student and family surveys, asking what is something that they can teach the class, show or share with their classmates?

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Celebration of our learning by Toni Harmer

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Celebration of our learning by Toni Harmer

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To end the year with CRT in mind, I asked students in small groups of 4-5 to name positive attributes of their peers.  We went through a list of every student in the class.  Then, I made each student a word cloud with their words & created handmade bookmarks for them.  This is culturally responsive because I had mostly white students & only three students of color.  I want those students in particular (my students of color) to see how they are viewed by their peers.  Their words include things like "trustworthy, athletic, funny, kind, cooperative, good friend."  These students played together a lot at recess and during choice times and I think it will bring joy and a sense of belonging to hear how others view them.

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One thing I've really realized after this course is the importance of visuals/ pictures with academic language and vocabulary for my ELL students.  This is not something I did well during this year.  I'm going to work on this over the summer so my cards are prepared and can be used for Science and Math.

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This year has been so eventful, but as it's coming to a close I plan to make sure I email and let parents know how thankful I am for having patience and understanding through this rough time. I will email parents in their native languages and also. let them know that they can contact me for whatever questions they may have in the future.

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I went to my classroom today and thought about how I would start out the year that is coming up. So many things may seem different, but I think as long as there is open communication with parents, it should go smoothly. I hope to learn about where parents are from, whether in this country or another. Last year I had parents bring a picture of each student. I might extend that and put up a world map that shows where each family is from, so that sense of geography is not lost.

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To close the year, I'm planning to have students reflect over the year by sharing or showing with others during our last Zoom meeting. I would like to hear students' thoughts or concerns about what learning might look like at the beginning of the new school year. Also I intent to share with students the different models or possibilities for school next year. My older ELs they want to know what is going to happen with school. I would like to give them the opportunity to ask or reflect over these unknowns.

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I would like to open the new school year with the focus on students and their families. This will be a challenge since the model for school openings will be different than previous years. My hope is to create a better system to teach a hybrid model- teach in-person and use technology for some lessons.

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To end the year in a culturally responsive way I plan to check in one last time with all of my intermediate newcomers and their families to make sure they have what they need for the summer. I’ll also ask them to tell me their hopes for next year and what they hope will be the same or different from these past few months. 

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Professional Learning for Next year- Kelly Pruitt

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Professional Learning for Next year- Kelly Pruitt

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I've felt compelled to support teachers in their efforts to create a racially equitable classroom. I"m developing a schoology course that will help participants investigate race, white privilege, and equitable teaching practices. I've placed many of these resources in that course. It's helping me process this information as well as all that is going on in the world right now.

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To begin next year in a culturally responsive way I will focus on relationship building and getting to know my students and their families and their funds of knowledge. We will focus on social and emotional needs as well as making sure everyone has what they need in terms of technology and supplies.

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To close the year, I actually recorded myself reading a children's book for my students, but it really good for any age.  I read "Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia" to my students.  I asked them to consider what some of their family pictures look like/would look like and think about some of their favorite traditions or experiences with their families.  They shared these on our discussion board and were able to ask each other questions about what was shared.  It was a positive experience for all of us!

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Since it is very likely that opening the year will be at least partially online, I want to include activities that can be done online that will really build our classroom culture and allow my students to get to know each other and to know that their funds of knowledge are valued. Since we just had some really good training on using Padlet, I would like to use that with my students and allow them to share about themselves with the other students. I am fortunate that some of my students already know me, so it will be easier for them to open up. I am hopeful that this will make it easier for my new students to do this as well.

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As part of the closing of the school year, we are collecting feedback from our EL families through multilingual surveys and focus groups.  As we evaluate our program and consider how to improve for next year, I will be sharing with my team many of the strategies discussed in this course on how to make our work with ELs more culturally responsive and effective.

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I really like the idea of partnering more with families.  I also like giving students more choice in how they respond to learning.  From this week, I am excited to learn that ALDs are available in many of our home languages (No Russian, though?) and I'm already thinking of how we can send those out to parents with our continuing service letters.  On our parent feedback survey several parents said they were unsure about what their child's ELD goals were; this would make that clearer.

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In order to close the year out with a culturally responsive way, I hope to continue connecting with families using multiple formats or ways to reach them because some prefer texting, or phone calls with translators or even "porch visits" at their homes and I feel it's important to reach ALL families no matter how much effort it takes on our part. 

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In order to close the year out with a culturally responsive way, I hope to continue connecting with families using multiple formats or ways to reach them because some prefer texting, or phone calls with translators or even "porch visits" at their homes and I feel it's important to reach ALL families no matter how much effort it takes on our part. 

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I ended the year by giving a Choice Board that let all students explore the idea of  "What is my passion?"  I used the categories of Ignite, Chunk, Chew and Review.  Each activities asked kids to use their home language, so two students wrote their responses and final poem about their passions in Spanish.  I asked that they use a translation app to translate their poem from Spanish to English.  I really liked that they tried the assignment.  I also asked some questions which encouraged kids to ask their parents/guardians about their passions and pursuits.  Each column and row asked kids to use the Frayer model to define key vocabulary words, asked kids to list words using some of the modules' apps, and kids were asked to view videos about people  discussing their passions.  I could find one version of a video in Spanish and I offered that link.  I really liked the idea of translanguaging.  So, I tried to follow some of the principles found in that module.  I really enjoyed producing this Choice Board.

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I am now a part of a new committee in our district that will explore our inclusion of ELL students into the regular classrooms and the regular ELA classrooms.  This new ELD committee will explore all of the work I completed in these modules.  I can now discuss the inclusion issues with some critical knowledge.  The one idea that I really appreciate is the discussion of translanguaging and the discussion about asking the appropriate level of questions to all students.  I am wondering how I can better network with our ELL teachers (2) to get critical information about our ELL students.  Our coordinator showed the committee members how to access the ELPA21 date, so that was helpful.  But, I need to further investigate the proximal levels of our ELL students.  We discussed how ELL students can be a part of the regular ELA class with instruction and still receive some extra practice in language acquisition in the regular ELA classes.  One strategy I know I will be using at the beginning of the year is the Choice Board Thinking Routines.  This is a great way for kids to explore what they are interested in, and at the same time achieving the goals of the lesson.  I appreciate that I need to be very intentional and explicit with the directions and activities.  I will also conduct more small group instruction before a lesson to scaffold some critical vocabulary and information necessary for students to be successful in the day's lesson.

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I created a series of math lessons summarizing everything that we covered since leaving school on March 13th.  The purpose of these lessons was to assist my ELL and ASL students grasp the most important Algebra I topics that they will see as they progress through additional math topics throughout their high school career.

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I am starting out with the assumption that we will be back in school and meeting with our students in person versus over Zoom....  With that assumption, I am going to open the school year focusing on the unique characteristics of all of my students, gaining knowledge of their backgrounds, dreams, and future plans.  Not only is it important to hear the voices of my ELL students, but it will be good to hear the voices of all my students and for all students to hear the voices of all their classmates.  We will then dive into the math curriculum.

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I closed the year with a choice board for my students that focused on funds of knowledge. All of the options were for them to teach ME something, whether it was something about their family, a topic they are passionate about, their favorite thing they learned in middle school.

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At the beginning of the year I get information about Ell students and families. I will collect information about their needs and availability of resources. I will create a welcome video which includes a list of school supplies that students may need, include information about how families will receive technical support in their preferred language and during distance learning. I will share the information collected with other high school teachers as well.

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I loved this course. I am looking forward to getting to try out what I learned. I have sent all my staff cards for the end of the year. I am excited to get back to school and continue to build relationships.

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I am going to close the year by calling all of my families to ask them to reflect on the school year and to let them know how much I have enjoyed working with their student and family.  I am going to provide them with some resources specific to their child that can be used over the summer break and let them know that I am still available to answer their calls and e-mails throughout the summer.

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I am going to create a better system for welcoming new comers to our school. I am going to review the resources provided in the last module, adapt them for use at my school and share it with our staff.

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Closing the year. Reflection for both me and my students.
I set up a flipgrid to gather any information students would like me to have. I have picked up the Hammond book and Tamisha Williams' Summer WORKbook for educators. I am gathering resources in addition to the resources at the end of each unit. (VI there were many GLAD strategies) and resources in multiple languages.... But, the thing that I have been working on the most this past week and into next will be the items in Module III: processing of information and thinking practices. In all that I do this summer that will be the lens I use with AVID digit and KICKSTART etc... In what part of the learning cycle are we, what questions am I asking, what choices do the students have and so on. I gave the students two games this week to play "5 dice" and "entrapment" and then when we zoomed I really worked on allowing their thinking to lead the problem solving.

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We want to start the 2020-21 school year more organized. I want to have the images/vocabulary cards ready to go for the year on tier 3 words and tier 2 words picked out for each unit.  We want to have thought about the learning cycle for each of the 24 larger concepts that are the CCSS for math and have the tools and resources "tried out" and streamlined for the learners.
We will continue to build on funds of knowledge, but recognize now that is only the first part of the model as rigor must be added to it. We will use brain science to guide the activities and the chunking of the material with revisiting for putting it into long-term storage.
We will work towards building a cross-content collaboration.
We will work with our district to find out more about our students and their ELPA21 scores, to better notice their needs, but to also celebrate their growth.

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During last small group Zoom meetings next week, I plan to tell each student how special he/she is (i.e. positive quality, growth mindset, progress in learning, etc).

I watched parts of our district’s alternate high school virtual graduation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwPqY2jHkWo last week and although I did not know the students, I was so touched by the genuine and mutually respected relationships between teachers and students. The teachers told each student how special he/she was and the student was either beaming with pride or getting emotional. It was apparent that the teachers knew the students at a personal level and students were so appreciative of the teachers as they shared their high school experiences.

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I definitely want to continue working on activities to give my students and myself closure. This year was challenging due to the pandemic and at times I felt my students slipping away from me. I'm going to try to show my kiddos how much I care and how I'm there for them as we close.

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I am very excited about the opening of the school year. I want to see my new students and I'm going to work at establishing relationships with my parents and students even before the first day of school. I am going to work hard at building and maintaining connections even if we have to go to a hybrid model. I am going to interview students and parents and have both digital and paper get to know me activities.

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Anticipating that schools may reopen with a hybrid model or remote learning again, I will be creating resources (welcome videos, informational videos, resources for newcomers such as important staff list with photos) for new families. As an EL teacher, I usually meet the new families before school starts for testing, but if that is not possible, I will arrange to meet them via Zoom within the first two weeks of school.

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Anticipating that schools may reopen with a hybrid model or remote learning again, I will be creating resources (welcome videos, informational videos, resources for newcomers such as important staff list with photos) for new families. As an EL teacher, I usually meet the new families before school starts for testing, but if that is not possible, I will arrange to meet them via Zoom within the first two weeks of school.  

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When I think about closing the school year in a culturally responsive way, I truly struggle. I struggle each week even just making contact with each of my students and/or families. At the end of each year, we normally have an awards ceremony and family is invited to come. This awards ceremony will now be over Zoom. I attended one such session for seniors, and they did a good job of translating much of the ceremony, both verbally and also in the chat box. But it was only translated into Spanish. For our awards ceremony (10th and 11th graders), we were asked to record a video of ourselves presenting one of the awards, and it will be compiled into something families can watch during a synchronous Zoom or during another time, if they can’t make it. I suppose this type of ceremony falls into the category of creating a caring community for our students and families. Upon reflection, perhaps it would have been something we should have co-created with families, rather than have it be something that they will simply come watch.

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When I think about starting the next school year in a culturally responsive way, I first think about making genuine connections with my students and their families. My district has told us that the new school year will most likely be some kind of combination between in person and distance learning. I am interested in doing a survey with students and families about what they hope to get out of distance learning, what they see as the pros and cons – areas that will work for them and places where they will struggle - and I hope to incorporate the students’ authentic lives into their learning. I imagine we're going to have to re-envision seat time. I don't know entirely what OSPI is saying about the matter, but I am interested in knowing how I can work with students and their families and incorporate what they're already doing in their lives into the learning they're doing to meet and exceed standards.

I am also looking forward to doing more intentional work around academic vocabulary and academic language. I've never really used word walls successfully, but I strive to incorporate word walls and translanguaging into my social studies units.

Overall, I'm kind of nervous to start the new school year with so many things that are still unknown, but I believe that this course has given me a lot to chew on and to think about, especially in this time of Covid-19.