Session 1: Exploring My Culture and ELs Strengths

LA 1.1: (30 min.) Welcome to TELL Teachers discuss with the facilitator the answers listed in the learning activity. They are listed here with the answers included— 

  1. Why are you taking the ESL endorsement courses? Ask teachers to share their reasons and indicate that while good teaching is good teaching in working with ELs they need to focus more intently on the language and literacy development of English Learners as they take up a new language and need to be successful in being able to participate in school work.  
  2. What is the history of the endorsement in your district? In the 1990s several of the districts came under OCR mandates. To meet the mandates districts needed more of their teachers to be ESL Endorsed. This became a BYU/Public School Partnership project. Using resources from the districts, BYU’s Office of Research and Creative Activities, the McKay School, and the Districts, these courses were originally constructed. BYU Faculty, teachers and district personnel worked together to design and build the courses. Most recently your school district and the McKay school (using resources from both) have worked to up-date and shorten the courses to 8 weeks. To meet the seat time hour demands for the courses, we ask you after each session to apply something you learned in your teaching (reviewing the information on a child, adjusting curriculum, trying out strategies, reviewing and adjusting teaching practices, sharing with your grade level team) and then reflect on this—this gives you 10 hours toward the course time demands for each session.  
  3. What does ESSA and OCR require for ELs? Find out what they know and don’t know about these two and their requirements and tell them they will be able to answer it by the end of the course. Here are links if you need more information about Every Student Succeeds (Here is the government site https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn and here is a simpler version https://equitypress.org/-xvsP) and OCR (https://equitypress.org/-YivWhat are the courses and credits required for the endorsement? There are 6 courses: Foundations, Second Language Acquisition, Assessment, Literacy, Content and Language, and Parent, Family and Community. 
  4. Are the credits at the graduate level and will they lead to a Master’s or lane change credit? They will get BYU credit which they can apply toward state recertification. They will not count as graduate credit at BYU because they use a number labeled as Professional Development; however, teachers have been able to negotiate with other programs to receive part of the credit toward a Master’s Degree. Usually they ask for a portfolio that includes usually the major projects from each course and sometimes the syllabus so save these if this is your plan. If you are working on a Master’ Degree, check to see if your program would accept these courses for credit in your program. 
  5. What are the time commitments and homework required? These courses have been reduced to 8 weeks, but the hour requirements for BYU courses and the state requirements remain the same for the ESL Endorsement. This means they need to be in class each week for the entire 160 minutes. In addition, between sessions we expect you to apply something you learned in the school or course. The reflection component is the way for you to account for the 10 hours needed to meet hour requirements. 
  6. What are the grading and attendance policies? You need at least 80% of the of the points to get credit for the class. We know you have busy lives and may need to miss a session. This means to achieve the 80% you will need to make up the session. Confer with the teacher when you miss and arrange to complete the session work and homework for the session for partial credit for the session. This is calculated as a semester class which is usually 14 sessions, since this course is designed to meet the demands of a 3 credit 14 week courses each session has a heavy demand to meet the requirements for the typical demands of a semester long 3 credit hour course.  

LA 1.2: (30 min.) Belief Statements—Divide the class into five groups and assign each group one of the belief statements that are listed in the learning activity. After they confer, in a whole group share, have each group share their thinking (3-5 minutes each). When they complete the survey, be sure to have them e-mail them to you. Keep them to be used in session 8 in the last activity.  

LA 1.3: (20 min.) Questions about Culture. Bring index cards to this session to hand out to teachers.  Follow the directions in the activity. You will work with teachers at the end of the activity to identify common themes or categories. You need to keep a list of the themes and seek out your own answers to their 15 questions. Across the course when you think it is appropriate post the ideas and categories.  

LA 1.4: (45 min.) Inclusive Pedagogy Framework. Hopefully Teachers will have the TELL Posters that are 81/2 by 11” and laminated. If they do not have the posters, you can find them in the TELL TOOLS book (https://equitypress.org/-MbEt).  The poster representing the tool is listed and then the reading for the poster is in the next section. You need to read the article so that you as the facilitator are familiar with the Inclusive Pedagogy Framework. It is a tool that allows the teacher to consider a student, the students strengths and challenges in linguistic, cognitive and the social affective domains, the policies and programs that support them, their teacher knowledge for teaching them, and how to respond in their classroom.  

For this course Inclusive Pedagogy is the Framework for one of the capstone projects which is a portfolio. Each section of the portfolio represents a different Inclusive Pedagogy characteristic or question. The section will include an artifact that demonstrates teachers’ new understanding of the characteristic with a brief description of the artifact and how it relates to the characteristic, and his/her personal response to the reflection for change question—these are found in the last column on the back of the tool poster. 

LA 1.5: (30 min.) Connecting the Idea of Conceptual Tools and literal tools. You need to bring 6-8 tools such as a crescent wrench, needle nose pliers, file, hammer, tape measure, putty knife, hack saw, Philips screwdriver, vise grips, etc.  You could bring kitchen tools if that is easier for you.  Begin the activity by demonstrating what you want them to do. After you distribute the tools and before you tell the groups what to do, demonstrate what you want them to do. Hold up a tool. Identify a concept for teaching ELs you associate with the tool and explain the analogy. 

Follow the directions as they are written. 

Review Homework: Directions and Requirements.  

HW1.1: Reflection. For this homework teachers will do two things. First, try something out in their class. Identify what they did and how it went. Second, answer the questions posted in the homework. We ask that they construct the journal digitally and each week send you their journals. You can peruse the journals quickly so that you can comment on things they did informally in class. Simply give them a score for doing it. Each one is worth 50 points. 

 It will repeat with different questions over the first 7 sessions and will be turned in to you in session 8. If you peruse them each week you will not to review them again in Session 8 unless you want to.   

HW 1.2: Find and Share Cultural Artifacts:  You will want to review what they need to do for this: 1. Identify 3 artifacts that represent them as cultural beings. 2. For each artifact prepare a 3x5 card that explains the artifact (see directions in the homework). Bring the artifacts and explanations to Session 2.  

HW 1.3 Building Vocabulary about Culture: They are reading two articles and building an interactive glossary of terms (linked in the homework activity directions which they bring to class next time.   

HW 1.4. Survey of Beliefs There is a link to the survey in the instructions. Make sure they can access it. They will return to reconsider the survey at the end of this course and take it again.  

The teachers will take this survey three times: At the begining and end of the Foundations course and at the end of the Family course.

The first time they take the survey, have them e-mail the survey to you (They may want to save it on their own computer as well). You will return e-mail the survey to them (For Session 7, you will  print out the surveys they took for HW 1.4 so that they will have a hard copy to compare this same survey that they will complete in HW 6.2 return the survey to them in Session 6 either through e-mail or hard copy in class) so they can compare their responses at the beginning with their thinking at the end. (There might be an issue here because of research that indicates people over report their expertise in survey's like this and so part of their final comparison might be talking about where they thought they were but now with their new knowledge where they actually were)

They will take the survey again at the end of the course and e-mail it to you. You  need to save the e-mails from the first survey and then return them to teachers at the end of the course can compare their thinking. Save the surveys by their name and labeled 1 (pat draper 1 and pat draper 2). At the end of the course, you will e-mail both copies of all of the teachers' surveys to the person in your district who is teaching the Family course. This allows teachers to revisit their thinking as they began these courses, after foundations and then compare it to their thinking when they are finishing the endorsement. (They will repeat this survey at the end of the Family course in session 6). 

HW 1.5: Display of Professional Growth—Final Project: Make sure you have reviewed the guidelines and the rubric and are ready to answer questions from the teachers. If you want examples to share, you might contact earlier facilitators of your own from when you took the course (if you did). You will answer questions in LA 2.6.

This content is provided to you freely by Equity Press.

Access it online or download it at https://equitypress.org/tell_facilitator_guide/session_1.