Stay ConnectedOn the Highest Aspirations Podcast, we engage in important conversations about the most rapidly growing student demographic in the United States – English Language Learners. We speak with educators and students, researchers and policy makers, and parents and community members about how we can help all students reach their highest aspirations.
Join us on this important journey as we bring the vibrant ELL Community together around the topics that matter most to the students we serve.
Why are advanced STEM classes a good fit for many English learners? What strategies can teachers leverage to maximize impact on diverse learners in STEM classes? How might we remove barriers that prevent many English learners from taking advanced classes throughout their academic careers? We discuss these questions and much more in our conversation with Dr. Stephen Fleenor.
Stephen is a scientist-turned-educator who is inspired by the principles of sheltered instruction and growth mindset, particularly in the service of English learners. In 2014, Stephen earned his PhD in Developmental Neurobiology and sought to empower the next generation of thinkers as a high school science teacher at a Title I school in San Antonio. He has developed innovative approaches to working with ELs and economically disadvantaged students, and has presented his ideas across various districts, as well as at regional conferences. A central component of Stephen’s pedagogy is student ownership of personal growth throughout the school year. This approach has been particularly effective in promoting language and content acquisition for ELLs, and under his leadership his department closed the gap in EL performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in Science.
In 2017, Stephen was awarded the Edgewood ISD District Teacher of the Year Award and the KENS5 ExCEL Award, and went on to serve as a science instructional coach for Edgewood ISD. In addition to his PhD from Oxford, Stephen holds an M.Ed. in School Leadership from the University of the Incarnate Word and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin. Stephen lives in San Antonio with his wife, a fellow educator.
What if schools were run like Disney? How would this philosophy affect the educational experiences of all students, and particularly ELs? What can we learn from Disney about providing access to opportunities that keep students coming back?
We discuss these questions and much more with Lynmara Colón, Director of English Learner Programs at Prince Williams County Public Schools in Maryland. Lynn brings the perspective of a teacher, assistant principal, and principal—positions she has held since joining education in 2003. As principal of an elementary school in 2014, she served over 1,000 students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade and was able to increase reading engagement by leading a culture of literacy, personalized learning, and collaborative learning teams.
Lynn believes all schools should be run like Disney; providing magical experiences to every student regardless or their background. She now heads the office that provides comprehensive registration services to English learners and immigrant children, including translation and interpretation services, to a school division serving over 90,000 students. These students represent 124 countries and 149 languages. Colón holds two master’s degrees: a degree in curriculum and instruction, and the other in educational leadership. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in education through Old Dominion University.
How can shadowing EL students help educators, schools, and districts improve their instruction and outcomes? What are some ways we can link quantitative data from assessments with qualitative data gathered while shadowing students? What are the protocols that teachers should use when shadowing students and what action steps should be taken after the experience? We discuss the questions and much more with Dr. Ivannia Soto.
Dr. Soto is professor of Education at Whittier College in California, where she specializes in second language acquisition, systemic reform for English language learners (ELLs), and urban education. She began her career in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), where she taught English and English Language Development to a population made of up 99.9% Latinos, who either were or had been ELLs. Before becoming a professor, Dr. Soto also served LAUSD as a literacy coach and district office administrator. She has presented on literacy and language topics at various conferences, including the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), the California Association for Bilingual Association (CABE), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the National Urban Education Conference. As a consultant, Soto has worked with Stanford University’s School Redesign Network (SRN) and WestEd, as well as a variety of districts and county offices in California, providing technical assistance for systemic reform for ELLs and Title III. Soto is the co-author of The Literacy Gaps: Building Bridges for ELLs and SELs, as well as ELL Shadowing as a Catalyst for Change and From Spoken to Written Language with ELLs, all published by Corwin Press. Together, the books tell a story of how to systemically close achievement gaps with ELLs by increasing their oral language production in academic areas. Dr. Soto is Executive Director of the Institute for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (ICLRT) at Whittier College, whose mission it is to promote relevant research and develop academic resources for ELLs and Standard English Learners (SELs) via linguistically and culturally responsive teaching practices.
You can find a full transcription of our conversation and more resources on our blog post about the episode.
How do students deal with the stigma sometimes associated with English learners and immigrants in our schools and communities? What are some of the main factors that help ensure success for English learners? What can educators do to best support English learners?
We discuss these questions and much more in our conversation with Take the Pledge scholarship winner Melany Quintero. Melany is a recent high school graduate from Pembroke Pines, Florida, just outside Miami. She is beginning her higher education journey at Dartmouth College this fall, where she is studying Biomedical Engineering. She came to the US from Cuba at age 9 and as you’ll hear in the episode, she attributes much of her English learning to the Hannah Montana series.
Melany’s story exemplifies the educational journey of so many English learners across the country. For more information about Ellevation’s Take the Pledge Scholarship for English learners, visit takethepledge.net.
You can read the full transcription of our conversation with Melany here.
How might we create and nurture a classroom and school culture that encourages respectful conversations where everyone has a chance to participate? What are some practical ways to increase quality conversations with English learners? What is QSSSA and how might it help engage all students in high quality classroom conversations?
We discuss these questions and much more in our conversation with John Seidlitz, founder and CEO of Seidlitz Education. Seidlitz Education's mission is to support school districts and teachers with increasing academic achievement for English Language Learners. They provide research-based consultations, trainings, coaching, and products with innovative educational tools that focus on ways we can help give students the gift of academic language. We are always looking for user-friendly ways to help teachers give students rich background knowledge and the ability to communicate in academic settings.
John Seidlitz is an independent educational consultant and the author of Sheltered Instruction Plus: A Guide for Texas Teachers of English Learners; Navigating the ELPS: Using the New Standards to Improve Instruction for English Learners; and a contributing author for The SIOP® Model for Teaching History-Social Studies for English Learners.
He is the co-author of numerous publications including the 7 Steps to Developing a Language-Rich Interactive Classroom®. Mr. Seidlitz has also been a guest lecturer for many regional and national language development conferences.
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 Giving Kids the Gift of Academic Language™.
You can find a full transcription of our conversation with John Seidlitz here.
Be sure to subscribe to Highest Aspirations on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. Also, please consider leaving us a rating and review on iTunes to let everyone know how we’re doing. This will help us get the word out and bring in more great guests.
Finally, we love to crowdsource from the community! If you have an idea for a topic or guest for an upcoming episode, please reach out to stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
As always, you can find more free resources, including our Whiteboard Wednesday short video series, curated news articles, blog posts, and at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. You can join the community there to get a weekly email with fresh content you can use and share with others.
What are some strategies that help create a more inclusive classroom environment for multilingual students? How are dual language programs evolving and what supports do schools need to get them off the ground? What if we ran our schools like Disney runs their parks? Why are STEM classes particularly well suited to multilingual learners and how can we ensure they have access?
We cover these questions and much more in Season 3 of Highest Aspirations, an education podcast, where we engage in important conversations about our country’s most rapidly growing student demographic - English Language Learners.
Be sure to subscribe to Highest Aspirations on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. Also, please consider leaving us a rating and review on iTunes to let everyone know how we’re doing. This will help us get the word out and bring in more great guests.
Finally, we love to crowdsource from the community! If you have an idea for a topic or guest for an upcoming episode, please reach out to stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
As always, you can find more free resources, including our Whiteboard Wednesday short video series, curated news articles, blog posts, and at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. You can join the community there to get a weekly email with fresh content you can use and share with others.
How might EL Specialists establish and nurture relationships with content teachers who work with ELs? What are some simple strategies that can help make co-planning and co-teaching easier for all kinds of teachers? How can we encourage content teachers allow their EL students to create as a more effective way of learning. We discuss these questions and much more in this lively conversation Tan Huynh.
Tan Huynh (@TanELLclassroom) is a career teacher specializing in language acquisition. Tan has taught students from fifth to twelfth grade in public schools, private boarding schools, and charter schools. Internationally, Tan has taught in schools in China, Laos, and Vietnam. He shares teaching strategies on his blog, Empowering ELLs, and has provided professional development training in places such as China, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, and Canada. Tan’s goal is to support all teachers who are committed to empowering English learners whether it be in a tweet, a blog post, a book, a training, a course, or over coffee. Currently, he and others are preparing for the third annual VirtuEL conference, which is open to anyone for free online on Saturday, June 15th from 9am to noon eastern time. You can find out more about the conference by visiting http://bit.ly/VirtuEL.
For more resources from the episode, visit Ellevation's EL Community.
What are “Grow Your Own” (GYO) teacher programs and how are they being deployed to address the bilingual teacher shortage? What can we learn about these programs from those who have experience implementing them? What supports do GYO teacher candidates and schools need to help them thrive? We discuss these topics and much more with Amaya Garcia and Alexandra Manuel.
Amaya Garcia is deputy director for English learner education with the Education Policy program at New America. She provides research and analysis on policies and programs related to 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. Previously she worked in a variety of research labs conducting studies on topics including school finance, reading comprehension, infant learning and memory and early language development. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Maryland-College Park, a master’s degree in cognitive studies in education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in English and psychology from the University of Iowa.
Alexandra (“Alex”) Manuel has been the executive director for the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) and the first in the nation, WA State Paraeducator Board since February, 2018. Prior to her new role, she served as PESB’s Deputy Director and previously the Director of Educator Pathways. Her experience as a strategic leader has focused on education policy that expanded access to educator preparation and advancing equity to support student success. Over the last several years she has focused on addressing educator shortage and educator diversity in the workforce. Her experience includes resource development, government relations, community engagement, policy development, system change, capacity building and immigrant integration. Alex is focused on providing greater access to the educator workforce by lifting up community assets including language and culture.
Alex brings skills as a strategic leader in systems integration and strategic planning, community engagement and change management from her employment and consulting experience in both private and public organizations including Highline College, Seattle University, City of Auburn, the YMCA, City of Seattle, and University of Washington. Alex earned her Bachelor’s degree at George Mason University in Organizational Development and Social Change and her Masters degree in Education from Seattle University.
How do school principals impact EL reclassification rates? Why is it important to consider the underlying spirit of policies that are passed down from above rather than simply looking at compliance? How might leaders create opportunities for school staff to engage in meaningful conversations about EL student success? We discuss these questions and much more in our conversation with professors Madeline Mavrogordato and Rachel S. White.
Madeline Mavrogordato is an associate professor of K-12 educational administration in the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University . She utilizes quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how education policies shape outcomes for underserved student populations, particularly immigrants and English learners. In addition, she studies how to develop and support effective school leaders who are prepared to serve students from diverse backgrounds in today’s climate of high stakes accountability and evaluation. Her work is informed by her experience serving as a bilingual teacher in Texas and California. Mavrogordato’s work has appeared in a range of publications including Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Administration Quarterly, and Educational Policy. She currently serves as an associate editor for the American Educational Research Journal.
Dr. Rachel S. White is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Foundations and Leadership Department of Old Dominion University’s Darden College of Education and Professional Studies. Rachel teaches graduate courses in education policy & politics, as well as advanced research design and analysis. Rachel’s research agenda is framed by three areas of interest: 1) issues of power and democratic accountability in local and state education policymaking processes, 2) relationships between institutional structures and education policymaking and implementation, and 3) how school and district leaders come to understand and implement policy in ways that lead to the enactment of social justice for historically marginalized students. As such, Rachel examines the politics of education policy making and implementation, with a focus on the ways in which decisions made by political and educational leaders at the school, district and state level impact K-12 educational experiences of marginalized students.
How can state level agencies help promote the successful implementation of the Seal of Biliteracy in school districts? Why is it important to track data on who is earning the seal, and how might organizations go about doing it? What are some ways to ensure equitable access to the seal of biliteracy for all students and how are states like Washington providing resources to make that happen? We discuss these questions and much more in our conversation with Angela Davila and Patty Finnegan from Washington State’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Angela Davila is the WA state World Language Program Supervisor, OSPI. Previously she coordinated foreign language programs worldwide for the Department of Defense Education Activity in Arlington, VA. She has also served as World Language Curriculum
Coach/Developer for the Bellevue School District, World Language Facilitator for the Highline School District, and Spanish teacher in Bellevue and Highline school districts for a total of 26 years. She also directed Language Immersion Camps in five languages at Camp Waskowitz in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains while working in the Highline District.
Patty’s work as a teacher, teacher educator, state-level administrator, and educational researcher continues to be fueled by her passion to serve traditionally marginalized students. She has led professional learning on effective program development and instructional practices for English learners and students with disabilities. Patty serves as Special Projects Program Supervisor with the Washington State’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Migrant & Bilingual Education office and facilitates Washington’s K-12 Dual Language Initiative.
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