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.
In this episode, we talk about some exciting changes and improvements we have planned for Highest Aspirations. We also preview some of the topics we will be covering beginning with our first episode on January 18th. Learn more and stay up to date by joining our community at bit.ly/getmlresources. You’ll receive our weekly community brief with news and multimedia resources you can use with your colleagues and students right away.
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 came together during our annual Impact Conference to discuss how they are responding to this challenge and the plans they have moving forward. Special thanks to Amaya Garcia from New America for moderating the panel and providing perspective on what the research data is telling us. Thanks also to our panelists - Dr. Yolanda Rios, Alice Solis, Magda Grape, and Jeremiah Lack.
This episode was taken from our Impact Conference that took place on December 6, 7, and 9. We will be sharing more resources and content from all Impact sessions on our weekly Community Brief email, which you can get by joining our community here: bit.ly/mllresources.
Highest Aspirations will be back in January 2022. Until then, we wish you a happy and safe holiday season!
How can we help colleagues, families and community members become advocates for dual language programs? What does it mean to truly embrace biliteracy? Why is embracing bilingualism good for all students?
We discuss these questions and more in part 2 of a 2 part series with Sandra Medrano-Arroyo.
Sandra Medrano-Arroyo presently works at Ellevation Education as the Dual Language Instructional Content Specialist, where she has spearheaded the creation of two new instructional practices specific to the needs of Dual Language programs. In over 23 years in education, she has served the needs of emergent bilinguals and various sub-groups in a number of roles: teacher, academic coordinator, school director, recruiter, instructional specialist, and program planner. Prior to Ellevation, Sandra served as the Manager of Multicultural Education for the 11th largest school district in the US, overseeing the ESOL program for over 34,000 students, including a two-way dual language program that served over 9,000 students. Since 2016, she has also served as a PD Consultant for the National Association for Bilingual Education.
As you’ll hear in our conversation, Sandra has a natural ability to bridge the gap between research and practice by breaking down concepts and findings into bite-sized pieces that educators can use right away, which is one of the many reasons I am happy to have her as colleague at Ellevation and an advocate in the field of multilingual education. As always, thanks for listening to Highest Aspirations - I hope you enjoy part 1 of our informative conversation.
If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please feel free to reach out at stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If you haven’t done so already, we invite you to join our ELL Community while you’re there so you get weekly resources, strategies and tips from that you can use right away.
On this special episode of Highest Aspirations, we're sitting down to speak with 2021 Ellevation Scholarship Winner Sirenia Garcia from Deer Park ISD in Texas.
Sirenia was born and raised in Texas and plans on attending the University of St. Thomas in Houston in the fall, where she will be studying Music Education and minoring in psychology. She hopes to become a school counselor or school principal - we love to hear that!
As you'll hear in the episode, Sirenia is very open about the struggles she faced in school as a multilingual learner, as well as the important role that her teachers had in encouraging her to persevere. She shares great advice for current students on staying diligent and motivated despite challenges they might face. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did. If you'd like to hear more conversations with scholarship recipients, check out the Scholarship Winners playlist on our Spotify.
If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please feel free to reach out to me at stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If you haven’t done so already, we invite you to join our ELL Community while you’re there so you get weekly resources, strategies and tips from that you can use right away.
On this special episode of Highest Aspirations, we're sitting down to speak with 2021 Ellevation Scholarship Winner Jesse Ding.
Jesse Ding graduated as the class valedictorian from Wilmington High School in Wilmington, Massachusetts. She is planning to study computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. In the future, she hopes to become a robotics software engineer and utilize her knowledge and expertise to program personalized assistive robots for those in need.
As you'll hear in the episode, Jesse is very dedicated to giving back to her community and using her strengths in STEM and robotics to find ways to improve the lives of those around her. We hope you enjoy our conversation, and to hear more conversations with scholarship recipients, check out the Scholarship Winners playlist on our Spotify.
If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please feel free to reach out to me at stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If you haven’t done so already, we invite you to join our ELL Community while you’re there so you get weekly resources, strategies and tips from that you can use right away.
How might growing up as a multilingual learner shape the message that educators communicate to their EL students and families about home language and learning English? What are some of the most important sources of research on dual language programs and how can they help school leaders and educators shape valuable learning experiences for all students? What are the three pillars of dual language and what role does each of them play out in high-quality programs? What challenges do we face in addressing the shortage of bilingual educators and what are some possible solutions?
We discuss these questions and more in part 1 of a 2 part series with Sandra Medrano-Arroyo.
Sandra Medrano-Arroyo presently works at Ellevation Education as the Dual Language Instructional Content Specialist, where she has spearheaded the creation of two new instructional practices specific to the needs of Dual Language programs. In over 23 years in education, she has served the needs of emergent bilinguals and various sub-groups in a number of roles: teacher, academic coordinator, school director, recruiter, instructional specialist, and program planner. Prior to Ellevation, Sandra served as the Manager of Multicultural Education for the 11th largest school district in the US, overseeing the ESOL program for over 34,000 students, including a two-way dual language program that served over 9,000 students. Since 2016, she has also served as a PD Consultant for the National Association for Bilingual Education.
As you’ll hear in our conversation, Sandra has a natural ability to bridge the gap between research and practice by breaking down concepts and findings into bite-sized pieces that educators can use right away, which is one of the many reasons I am happy to have her as colleague at Ellevation and an advocate in the field of multilingual education. As always, thanks for listening to Highest Aspirations - I hope you enjoy part 1 of our informative conversation.
If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please feel free to reach out at stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If you haven’t done so already, we invite you to join our ELL Community while you’re there so you get weekly resources, strategies and tips from that you can use right away.
On this special encore episode, we revisit the topic of collaborating, co-planning, and co-teaching with content teachers with Tan Huynh. Tan 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.
Tan and I discuss how EL specialists can establish and nurture relationships with content teachers who work with multilingual learners. You’ll leave the episode with some simple strategies that can help make co-planning and co-teaching easier for all teachers as well as some ways to encourage content teachers to allow their multilingual students to participate more fully in their instruction.
Tan will be presenting at our Impact 2021 Conference, a free virtual event that will take place over three days on December 6th, 7th, and 9th. If you are interested in joining us for Impact 2021, please visit our website at ellevationeducation.com/elcommunity and join our community. We’ll send information on sessions and registration on our weekly community brief emails that all community members receive.
In this special episode of Highest Aspirations, we feature one of our 5 Ellevation scholarship winners, Paola Gutierrez. Paola recently graduated from Tahquitz High School in Hemet, CA. She is currently attending UCLA where she is studying Human Biology on a pre-med track. As an aspiring physician, she looks forward to caring for people in low-income communities in the future.
As you’ll hear in our conversation, Paola surfaces some of the challenges she has faced as a multilingual learner, but also many of the assets she and her fellow students bring to their schools and communities. She also offers some useful advice to educators about how they can best support their multilingual learners and put them on a path to success. As such, this conversation is particularly important for listeners who work with multilingual learners of any age.
If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please feel free to reach out to me at stevens@ellevationeducation.com.
You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If you haven’t done so already, we invite you to join our ELL Community while you’re there so you get weekly resources, strategies and tips from that you can use right away.
On this special encore episode, we revisit the topic of ensuring multilingual learners have highly qualified teachers to help them achieve their Highest Aspirations - with guests Amaya Garcia and Alexandra Manuel.
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. We will be addressing this challenge at our upcoming Impact 2021 virtual conference, a free event that will take place over three days on December 6, 7, and 9th. New America’s Amaya Garcia, one of this episode’s guests, will be moderating a panel from school districts and organizations around the country to discuss how they are responding to this challenge and the plans they have moving forward. Amaya will also provide a perspective on what the research data is telling us.
If you are interested in joining us for Impact 2021, please join our community and we’ll send information on sessions and registration on our weekly community brief emails.
How can teachers help students assert positive identities so they have the confidence necessary to achieve academic success and advocate for social justice in their schools and communities?
What are some strategies teachers can use to infuse language concepts into content lessons while simultaneously providing students with the skills they will need to be successful in school and beyond?
Why is it so important to have a network or “professional family” to rely on for professional learning and support and what are some ways to find one?
We discuss these questions and much more with 2021 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Natalia Benjamin. Natalia Benjamin teaches high school Ethnic Studies and Multilingual Learners in Rochester, MN. She is dually licensed in K-12 ESL and reading and holds a master's degree in Language Acquisition and Teaching. She advocates for multilingual and multicultural education and is part of Education Minnesota's Facing Inequities and Racism in Education - Racial Equity Advocates (FIRE-REA) program, where she has worked on Cultural Competency Trainings. She is a member of several organizations that support teachers and students: Education Minnesota League of Latinx Educators, Employees of Color Resource Group, Rochester Education Association, and the Women Issues Committee for the National Education Association. She is passionate about the liberation of marginalized students and works on important issues such as identity work, Heritage Speakers, and humanizing pedagogies in education.
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