My stellar padlet by Eleanor Hartle

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:13:38 UTC

My teaching philosophy is that the students in my class, no matter what, deserve to have the opportunity to learn something within my classroom. With ELs they deserve to have both the resources and ability to learn under the conditions that they require, and if that requires me to get my lessons translated and to create accommodations or modifications for them, than so be it. I want my students to have the opportunity to learn something, even if I'm only able to help them learn a new word a day, a new sentence, or a whole new concept, all of those are a step in the right direction!

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:20:34 UTC

My specific content area is Biology. In biology there are quite a few words and concepts that are new to all students, and some that require some review before starting to build on top of thar knowledge. Developing content related vocabulary is very important to the field of science, biology is a subject that builds upon itself, if someone has trouble with the building stones, then they will have trouble with the concepts that build on top of those. Which is why it's important to me that the students are able to understand something and get the assistance they need or the help they require when they need it, not after they need it.

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:22:41 UTC

Some supports that would be amazing to have in a science classroom I think are; the differentiation strategies of the content, choices in the assessment, sentence starters, discussion groups, hands on activities, and guided notes for certain topics. I will talk about each of these italicized portions in their own section.

Differentiation Strategies

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:22:56 UTC

I think that having options to give the students the ability to have knowledge in different formats is a great way to help them individually and give them the time it takes them to absorb that new information. The different formats include lecture, videos, writings, or audio recordings about the subjects. These can also be given in the form of different kinds of discussion, some might enjoy talking with the whole class, others might prefer smaller group discussions. Each of these strategies should take into account the individual person and how they learn, not how we want them to learn.

Choices in assessments

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:27:10 UTC

Assessments in a science classroom are mostly given in the form of tests over knowledge that the students should memorize. But with this support in the classroom the students are able to choose between different formats of assessments over the same topics. Such as for the topic of cells, the students could create a diagram of a cell pathway of a certain process such as; photosynthesis, glycolysis, or protein synthesis, or another cell process that interests them. They could instead choose to do a lab, either hands on or virtual that they will write a lab report of, with the help of paragraph/sentence starters for the formation of scientific writing.

Sentence Starters

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:34:23 UTC

Sentence starters were mentioned in the section before this, but they are much more than just a tool for a lab report. These can be sentence starters for papers and reports, or discussions. The students can use sentence starters for academic language that they don't know how to format to discuss concepts or words, within an experience that gives them the feeling of being within a professional setting. These sentence starters can also help classes who might have trouble with discussing differing opinions respectfully, by giving them sentence starters, you're giving them the opportunity to say what they think in a respectful way.

Discussion Groups

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:41:13 UTC

Discussion groups are a huge way to support ELs. Mentioned in the "LTC 4460 GROUPING STRATEGIES FOR ML"(Metro. 2020.) it is shown that there are many different ways to position MLLs in discussions that both allow them to be involved in the discussion and to be learning. One positioning technique for groups of four is "Heterogenous Language Groups for Intermediate or Advanced MLLs"(Metro. 2020.) which allows two primary English speakers to be paired up with 2 Advanced or Intermediate MLLs which allows them to be challenged just a level above where they are comfortable at in their speaking or writing skills. This is a hypothesis of how second language acquisition works as discussed in Peregoy and Boyle.

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 22:41:35 UTC

Metro, R. (2020). LTC 4460 GROUPING STRATEGIES FOR MLLs.

Peregoy, S., & Boyle, O. (2017). Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL. Pearson.

Hands on Activities

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 23:00:20 UTC

Hands on activities can be anything from a lab to a where they are observing something, to a field trip where they are observing animals, to a demonstration where the students are the ones in an experiment. These activities are something that can help bridge a language gap, because the students can communicate in other ways than speaking. The students can use actions in the lab experiments to demonstrate the technique needed or the object needed next. Labs can also have photos to show what they need to do next, instead of written instructions.

Guided Notes

eahbgp — 2025-07-28 23:04:41 UTC

Guided notes are notes for lectures that they teacher has taken specific words, phrases, or diagrams out of the printed version where the students are able to fill in the gaps while they are learning via power point, lecture, or video. I think that these are a great way to help the students stay engaged within the lesson plan and also give the ELs the assistance they need to understand newer topics that they might be learning for the first time, or if they have trouble understanding the teacher, they can look back at these notes.