We often think about teacher collaboration in terms of co-teaching. However, for co-teaching to be effective, we need to maximize co-planning. One of the most fruitful practices is to co-plan the assessment. In this interactive webinar, Tan will guide teachers to co-plan backward with a focus on content and language for multilingual learners (MLs).

Presenter Tan Huynh (@TanKHuynh) is a career teacher, consultant, and author specializing in language acquisition and literacy development. Tan has taught students from 5th to 10th grade in public, private, charter, and international schools. He has served as a language specialist and is currently a secondary social studies teacher. Tan shares teaching strategies on his blog and podcast with the hopes of celebrating teachers who answer the call to serve multilingual learners.

The lack of teachers who have the training necessary to effectively support multilingual learners has been plaguing school districts across the country for years. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem putting multilingual learners at greater risk. Panel members from school districts and organizations around the country will come together to discuss how they are responding to this challenge and the plans they have moving forward. Amaya Garcia from New America will moderate the panel and provide perspective on what the research data is telling us.

Presenter Amaya Garcia is deputy director of PreK-12 education with the Education Policy program at New America. She provides research and analysis on policies and programs related to English learners including dual language education, bilingual teacher preparation and career pathways, bilingual education, English language proficiency, and early education. Prior to joining New America, Garcia was a policy analyst at the DC State Board of Education and a research associate at the American Institutes of Research.

The integration of SEL competencies with language, literacy and core content instruction is essential in preventing and addressing the plight of LTELs. Instead of teaching SEL strategies in isolation, we can integrate them into language, literacy, and core content instruction throughout virtual or hybrid lessons. Margarita and Hector will have participants practice the integration of SEL competencies in teaching vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing in a virtual or hybrid learning environment. This session will share how to devise SEL opportunities that teenagers can appreciate.

Presenter Dr. Margarita Espino Calderón is a Professor Emerita/Senior Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University.  She currently conducts long-term professional development and coaching programs in several school districts. She has been an Educational Leadership professor at the University of Texas El Paso and Associate Professor of bilingual courses at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She began her career as an ESL and English literature teacher at a high school. She has over 100 publications. 

If classroom assessment is indistinguishable from instruction and multiple languages are synonymous with multilingual learners, doesn’t it make sense that multilingual learners should have access to the use of their multiple languages throughout the assessment process? This session offers teachers and school leaders opportunities to contemplate dilemmas associated with assessment in multiple languages with the intent of leveraging the linguistic and cultural assets of multilingual learners as part of their assessment practices.

Presenter Dr. Margo Gottlieb is the co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Starting her career as an elementary school teacher and bilingual coordinator, she served as the longstanding director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center.  In addition, she has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Santiago, Chile. In recent years, Margo’s scholarship has focused on designing language development standards frameworks, co-constructing linguistically and culturally sustainable curriculum, promoting student agency through assessment as, for, and of learning, and evaluating language education policy in K-12 settings. Besides co-authoring Beyond Crises with Debbie Zacarian and Margarita Calderón, Margo’s most recent books include Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for School and District Leaders and its companion, Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for Teachers (Corwin, 2021).

Educators must be able to support students whose lived experiences may be far different from their own, particularly if those students are newcomers. In this session, Dr. Jose Luis Zelaya will share tools and strategies educators can use to help build strong relationships needed to remove obstacles that trauma can create. Dr. Zelaya will draw on his own experiences as an unaccompanied minor as well as his expertise in working with school districts around the country.   

Presenter Dr. Jose Luis Zelaya is a Dreamer born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. At 13 years of age, he was obligated to flee Honduras and embark on a journey to the United States as an unaccompanied minor. A graduate of Texas A&M University Department of Education and the CEO of Dr. Zelaya Educational Consulting LLC. At Texas A&M, Dr. Zelaya pursued a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary studies, a master’s in education in Curriculum and Instructions, and a Doctorate in Urban Education. He attributes each of his academic accomplishments to his family, mentors,and community who have supported his dreams of educational progress.

Finding ways to address the specific social and emotional needs of multilingual learners is both a challenge and an opportunity for educators.  In this session, John Seidlitz will lead a discussion with multilingual students and one of their teachers, Pamela Broussard, on the social and emotional challenges they face.  Students will discuss what teachers do that helps them socially and emotionally and how things such as having been undocumented affected their emotions and school relationships.  

Presenter John Seidlitz is the co-author of Seven Steps to a Language-Rich Interactive Classroom.  He taught social studies and ESL, served as a secondary ESL program coordinator, and held the position of education specialist at ESC Region 20 in San Antonio, Texas. In 2005, Mr. Seidlitz founded Seidlitz Education which is dedicated to the mission of ‘Developing Language in Every Classroom’.

In this session we will share how reasoning routines - and the essential teaching strategies woven throughout them - support English Language learners to develop and communicate their mathematical thinking with increased precision. In addition, we will share strategies for leaders and administrators to support teachers in this work.

Presenter Amy Lucenta, co-founder of Fostering Math Practices, has extensive K-12 mathematics experience with a focus on developing mathematical practices in all students, particularly in historically marginalized students. A former middle school and high school teacher and elementary math coach, Amy has also worked with pre-service teachers as a secondary mathematics Clinical Teacher Educator for the Boston Teacher Residency Program. Amy is the co-author of Teaching for Thinking: Fostering Mathematical Teaching Practices through Reasoning Routines and Routines for Reasoning: Fostering Mathematical Practices in All Students, along with Grace. Follow Amy on Twitter @AmyLucenta

Presenter Grace Kelemanik, co-founder of Fostering Math Practices, is a former urban high school mathematics teacher and Project Director at Education Development Center. Grace has also worked extensively with new and preservice teachers through the Boston Teacher Residency program.  She is a mathematics education consultant and professional development provider. Follow Grace on Twitter @GraceKelemanik

This session presents a series of misunderstandings or perceived misconceptions that still prevail in many parts of the American school system. Unless we fully acknowledge our personal biases when teaching  Multilinguals (MLs) and develop a conscious awareness of these biases, educators will find them to be obstacles against setting high expectations for all students. As we become aware of our prejudices, we will be able to create supportive systems that will allow our students to become successful and productive members of society. 

Presenter Dr. Mónica Lara is a Senior Educational Consultant for Bilingualism and Biliteracy, Keynote speaker and author of ¡Toma la palabra!: Enlazando la oralidad y la lectoescritura and The Structure of a Reading Test in Grade 1: In Search of a Relationship with Reading in Spanish. She is also the co-author of ELLs in Texas: What Teachers Need to Know and ELs in Texas: What School Leaders Need to Know. She has been in education for over thirty years. Her roles in education include experience as a teacher, reading specialist, assistant principal, and educational specialist in the areas of dyslexia and bilingual/ESL education.  In addition, she assists districts in evaluating their Bilingual/ESL programs, and serves as an administrator and teacher coach/mentor, to ensure accountability and implementation of best practices for English Learners (ELs).