Glad that you liked it!

As part of this project we were able to offer "Family Nights" through our collaborators at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (a Smithsonian affiliate). We were able to open up the museum for free for participating students and their families to experience an exhibit or show that tied to the classroom learning of the students and had a dual language component. This is a special opportunity to students and their families. 

I love it! Thanks for the information. 

Thanks, Patti!

Thank you for your interest! You can learn more about the project and the strategies here https://ssec.si.edu/english-learners-stem (scroll to the bottom for the full videos). The videos highlight one or two strategies specifically, but these amazing teachers are using a whole host of strategies effortlessly!

Thank you for watching our video!

When starting this project, we were not sure how interactive students would be with each other so we tried to pick strategies that encouraged students to work together and build on each others knowledge. One of the best strategies we found for fostering student interaction and support was the mix and match cards, see video at https://ssec.si.edu/english-learners-stem. Overall, we saw most students working together and helping each other interpret their ideas in their group discussions before sharing out to the larger group.

Thank you for watching!

You can see the beginning level of creating those discussion in the sentence frames video but it was not the focus of this work. We suggest using sentence frames for all students when starting arguing from evidence.

Thanks for stopping by!

Here are samples of graphic organizers from the videos we did:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11T6fikmgx8TMNE0nlP9jWvl4ZvgYykMoI2tc7u1C3vk/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xBouxtb9EAlJPN7CVIfMJAzKM62DG8Xxzd1rPth-foU/edit?usp=sharing

The word walls vary by topic and what ever teachers want to highlight. You can see an example in this video

https://ssec.si.edu/english-learners-stem-realia-wall-and-sentence-frames

 

 

Hello, 

Do you also have examples of Mix & Match cards? I would love to use some of these in my elementary STEM classroom!

Best, 

Michelle Callaway 

Thank you for watching! Our recruitment and training varies from project to project.

When setting up projects we always try to work with a strong community partner who can help us understand the culture and needs of the location but also act as recruiters. We work with our community partner to clarify what the objectives, supports, and expectation of our program is before sending it out to groups/schools that may be interested. Also, when we are recruiting we require buy in from multiple levels. For CO, it was teachers and administration, but for other projects it might also include instructional coaches and the district leadership.

For training, we have traditionally done face to face training for at least a day and half. We are looking at adjusting this for the future. Our trainings are a mix of practical use and higher level understanding of why we are doing what we are. For this project, we discussed the needs of EL students, why hands-on science was a strong area for language acquisition, the WIDA rubric, and the actual strategies for student support. As possible, we prefer to do an introduction and then have teachers apply the new knowledge by presenting to peers, adjusting current lessons based on the new knowledge, or work with peers to create new lessons and tools for their classrooms.

I really appreciated the resources provided! I can see incorporating such tools as graphic organizers, realia walls, and sentence frames into everyday lessons. 

Hi Marianne!

Teachers were given professional learning opportunities in an ongoing manner. First they were introduced to EL strategies in the context of introductory professional development focused on the implementation of curricular materials. The following summer teachers were invited to bring samples of student work and teachers were given tools to identify misconceptions along with an opportunity to deepen their learning related to EL strategies.

Thanks for watching! We are excited to host Noyce Scholars and Fellows when travel is possible again.

Thanks for stopping by!

This project is being evaluated by CREP at the University of Memphis (https://www.memphis.edu/crep/) using standardized testing data.

Standardized testing is being used to evaluate student achievement. In addition classroom observations, interviews and surveys are techniques to assess the program.

Thanks for watching!

We had not considered gesticulation. However, we recently had a discussion in our group about the importance of gesticulation and facial expressions in understanding people and keeping that in mind when framing yourself in a video call. I think that gesticulation may need to go into a future study somehow.

Thanks for your interest! I wouldn't say that one strategy is more or less difficult to implement then another. Teachers are the experts in their classrooms, so we rely on teacher to identify opportunities in their classrooms to leverage different strategies. Often content will lend itself more or less towards one or more strategy.

I am so sorry that is broken. I will try to get that fixed ASAP.

This site has a few, but it might be easier to make your own specific to what you are working on.

Thanks for watching!

Our focus has been elementary and middle school and our evaluation has been occurring over several years. This was supposed to be the final year of data collection but we won't have access to state assessment data or classroom observations. We hope to gather that data next year (if we are granted an extension) so that we can have a firmer grasp on student outcomes. If they are as positive as they have been trending we do hope to follow up this work.