The purpose of the TEAMS USA professional development is to grow equity in the education of students who are identified as English learners in order to boost educational outcomes by improving English language development services, making grade-level instruction comprehensible, and leveraging students’ funds of knowledge and home language skills for new learning.
PARTICIPANTS
The course is designed for school-based teams who wish to collaborate to improve their school’s services for developing multilingual students and their families. School-based teams participate in cohorts with four additional teams. Each team should include one administrator, one or more ELD specialists, and classroom teachers of multilingual learners.
LIVE COLLABORATION SESSIONS
Each team meets locally. All cohort teams connect via Zoom with a facilitator. Collaboration sessions are currently held for 90 minutes twice a month.
TEAM COLLABORATION BETWEEN MONTHLY SESSIONS
The expectation is that each team will continue their work between the monthly collaboration sessions. The nature of the work and the time commitment needed depend on the goals that each team sets for themselves. The course facilitator will be available for some limited consultation between sessions to help each team achieve their goals.
ATTENDANCE AND ENGAGEMENT
Each team member should plan to be available in person for every session for the entire time, and engage in collaboration actively and productively. Attendance for the full session is required to earn the stipend.
DISPOSITIONS
Professional educator dispositions are the norm, which include:
- Be committed to students and their learning
- Demonstrate high expectations for all students
- Follow ethical and legal practices
- Protect sensitive and confidential information
- Demonstrate positive rapport with colleagues
- Receive and act on professional feedback
- Contribute to group efforts
- Communicate professionally showing care and respect
- Listen carefully and build on what others are saying
- Be mindful of using language that reflects potentially hurtful attitudes, bias, stereotypes, or a view of deficiency
- Be open to new ideas and different perspectives
- Show patience with individual differences
- Strive to solve problems|Provide support when needed
MODULES
The course consists of ten modules, each critically important for building equity for multilingual learners:
- Knowledge of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students at the school
- School climate for educating CLD students
- School-level plan for educating English learner (EL) students
- Language-rich classrooms
- Quality English language development programs
- Adequate resources for implementing the school-level plan effectively
- Engagement with CLD families
- Motivating multilingualism and literacy in the home language
- Leveraging funds of knowledge in learning.Access to all programs
AGENDA FOR COLLABORATION SESSIONS
Collaboration sessions include a mix of whole group sessions and team-based planning. For example, a daily agenda can look like this:
- Warm-Up: Team Building Fun
- Update: News from Teams on Prior Actions; Celebration of Achievements; Acknowledgements
- The What and the Why: Rationale for the Unit; Activating Background Knowledge
- A Look in the Mirror: Self-Assessment Discussion: Where Are We Now?
- A Look Around: Models from Peers. Guest Lecture. Q&A
- Discovery: Walk-Through of Resources
- Action Planning: Work on Teams Goals
- Idea Market/Peer Pressure: Exchange of Action Plan Among Teams; Peer and Consultant Feedback
- Doing It: Debriefing with Home Team on Take-Aways, Tasks, and Next Steps; Facilitator Recaps Plans
- TEAMS USA Continuous Improvement: Survey Feedback to Facilitator
LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
The course modules and resources are available within the learning management system on Blackboard Community. Collaboration sessions are on Zoom. Guest lectures may be live or prerecorded.
OUTCOME
Each team will set their own goals for their school. Goals do not have to incorporate all of the modules of this course. Some teams may choose to work on introductory steps, such as getting to know the populations of multilingual learners at their school and creating a welcoming environment for all culturally and linguistically diverse families. Other teams may choose to focus on implementing an existing plan and evaluating its effectiveness. Still others may examine multilingual students’ meaningful learning in the grade-level curriculum or their ability to access all programs at the school. The most common outcome for completing this course will be the creation of a school-level plan to serve multilingual students in accordance with the regulations and securing adequate resources to be able to carry out this plan.
BENCHMARK FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
This course uses a self-assessment tool for continuous improvement called the 3E Inventory. The 3E Inventory consists of ten elements with 40 key equity signals. The ten elements correspond to the ten modules of this course and the 40 key equity signals relate to the objectives within each module. Elements 3, 5, 6, 7, and 10 cohere with the published guidance from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and Office of English Language Acquisition. Other elements (1, 2, 4, 8, and 9) reflect promising practices recommended by experts in the field. Together, the ten elements and 40 key equity signals address the most relevant targets for continuous improvement with school-based collaboration. Each team will conduct self-assessment with the 3E Inventory to measure change over time in their school’s services for multilingual learners.