COURSE DESCRIPTIONS - SEA 2022

ELL 101 is designed to support preK-12 mainstream educators and paraprofessionals who have not had formal preparation to work with English language learners.  Participants will connect research to practice throughout this course, with the goal that they will be able to apply new learning to their unique students and educational settings.

Participants will be able to:

1. Increase knowledge of state and federal laws that ensure services for ELLs.
2. Examine research-based instructional strategies to optimize academic learning for ELLs.
3. Develop an understanding of second-language acquisition to increase awareness of ELLs’ strengths and empathy for their needs.
4. Improve participants’ ability to meet the diverse needs of ELLs and increase their academic achievement.

This course focuses on literacy training for tutors or teachers providing individualized instruction to ELLs in grades K-6 who need additional literacy supports. Even before the pandemic, many students learning English struggled to participate on equal terms in the classroom as they confronted the dual challenge of mastering grade-level content while continuing to learn English. For many ELLs, the abrupt transitions during the pandemic have made that struggle even harder.

Participants will be able to:

1. Develop a deeper understanding of the benefits and research of individualized instruction for ELLs.
2. Examine the foundational literacy skills ELLs need to succeed as readers.
3. Make connections between individualized instruction, family support, and ongoing professional learning and supports.
4. Learn and practice research-based instructional strategies for reading complex text, acquiring academic vocabulary, assessing progress in reading and visual linguistics.
5. Reflect on existing instructional practices to better understand modifications and adaptation.

This course is a blended-model professional learning opportunity designed to inspire and support educators in becoming reflective practitioners while meeting the highest expectations of the profession.

This newly revised course re-envisions the learning environment as a place where teacher and student identities are celebrated and affirmed; social emotional learning is intentionally planned for; and student agency is supported through equitable, responsive structures to help all students thrive.

Participants will explore foundational research through the lens of student-centered engagement and instruction as well as investigate practices that support autonomy and choice, activate critical thinking and deeper learning, along with ways to maximize learning time inside and outside the classroom.

Reading Comprehension Instruction focuses on the research and exemplary practices that help students acquire strong reading comprehension skills. RCI is appropriate for all K-12 teachers and support staff who need to help increase their students’ comprehension of text—whether that text is a literature selection or informational. The course provides participants with a synthesis of the research base on reading comprehension instruction and vocabulary development. Participants examine, discuss and evaluate the appropriate application of a range of instructional strategies from explicit to implicit teaching of comprehension skills. Strategies are presented for increasing student comprehension of both narrative and expository texts. In addition, participants learn how to help students self-monitor comprehension and apply appropriate strategies to fix the problem when comprehension is not achieved. Practice in using instructional strategies and examples of student work are embedded in the course.

Course Objectives:

• Develop an understanding of research and exemplary practices that help students acquire strong comprehension and vocabulary skills.
• Examine the requirements of literacy content standards: regular practice with complex texts; using evidence from text when reading, writing and speaking; attending to academic vocabulary; and building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction.
• Understand the nature of narrative text and expository text and how they can both aid and hinder comprehension.
• Learn how to build and support dialogic discourse in classrooms through student-centered strategies to support comprehension.
• Recognize and reflect on the relationship between comprehension and vocabulary knowledge.

Join us for an interactive, practical look inside your classroom assessment practices and delve into how personal biases can affect classroom practice. Fair and equitable assessments give teachers useful data on their students that improves instruction. In this 20-hour train-the-trainer course, we will discuss the difference between testing and assessment and develop a better understanding of the many different types of data and what they can and should not be used for. You will practice shifting your classroom assessments so they are culturally responsive, non-biased, valid and reliable. 

Participants will explore foundational research through the lens of student-centered engagement and instruction. The session also will investigate practices that support autonomy and choice, activate critical thinking and deeper learning, along with ways to maximize learning time inside and outside the classroom.

Modules

• Effective Group Management
• Principles of Instruction (formerly Interactive Direct Instruction)
• Feedback
• Time on Task

Pre- and post-session assignments are required.