Session 4: Strengthening Curriculum by Adjusting for ELs

As teachers enter the class today, they need to post their flyers promoting strategies for comprehension and assessment from homework last week. Be sure they do this and allow them a minute or two between sessions to look at them during the session. 

LA 4.1 (10 min) : Sharing My Learning and Professional Development This is the shower of ideas as in other chapters, and this time the content they need to share out is Challenging Activities. For this session, you will need to pull forward their learning concerning Chapters 5 & 6 from SIOP during this time.

LA 4.2 (40 min): Presentation on SEP—Challenging Activities The team who met with you at the end of session 3 activities now present their topic for 40 minutes. They need to answer the question, How can I create and add challenging activities in my MSDLAs so all learners have access? 

LA 4.3 (30 min): Reviewing My Objectives to Strengthen Them First each group-member shares the objectives they have selected for their centers. Each person should ask questions about the quality of the objective in relationship to the task and the promotion of language and literacy. The focus should be clarity, making sure the objective is observable, and suggestions for improvement. Discuss with each other their challenges in writing language objectives and instruction to meet student needs. If time allows, they should help each other make any changes to adjust or rewrite the language for your MSDLA task cards.  

LA 4.4 (25 min): Considering Funds of Knowledge Among My Students Teachers share the graphic organizer they made from homework reading Funds of Knowledge. They create a list of how teachers can identify and utilize student funds of knowledge from home and the larger community. Consider how these funds of knowledge can inform your MSDLAs by sharing ‘wonders’ they have for adjustments they can make. 

LA 4.5 (30 min): Examining Your Texts and Your Strategies in Making Texts More Comprehensible Follow the directions in instruction #1 to get to the video from TELL materials to watch. They take notes about types of texts and text modification suggestions. After viewing, each group discusses their learning from the video and together consider ideas for making the texts in your MSDLAs more comprehensible for ELs. 

LA 4.6 (20 min): Sharing Strategies by Reviewing Promotional Flyers Take one more moment to view strategy flyers posted at the beginning of class. Select a few that you might consider to use in your MSDLAs for each center. The facilitator will be available to answer questions you have about a strategy or anything to do with your MSDLAs. 

LA 4.X: Consulting with Facilitator on Presenting—Joint Productive Activity (JPA) This is your opportunity to meet with those who will present about joint productive activity. They need to be sure the audience can answer: How can I attend to joint productive activity so all learners have access? 

Homework Review  Remind them that they need to bring their materials for working on their MSDLA next week. 

HW 4.1: Reflection on My Practice in Developing ELs Content and Language Proficiency Based on the videoethnography about challenging activities. They will write a paper using personal voice to describe putting challenging activities in their lessons. They turn in the paper to you next week and participate in the discussion you lead in class.  

HW 4.2: Learning Teaching through Multi-media Cases and Expert Perspectives Teachers watch the VideoEthnogrphy of the teacher they chose to observe by examining the study of Joint Productive Activity. They take notes on the provided note sheet.  

HW 4.3: Gaining an Understanding of Making Content Comprehensible They read ch. 7 and 8 in Making Content Comprehensible and they take notes on the worksheet in the link ‘ch. 7 and 8. They need to be ready to share with colleagues about their learning. 

HW 4.4: Developing Rubrics for Informal Assessments to Evaluate EL Learning They review the Assessment Literacy Tool document in the link. They use this information to think about assessment and what they remember from the assessment course to use in their MSDLAs. There are 4 links provided in the homework activity directions to remind them of what they learned. The last link is an article. They should read that, too. notes on things they think are relevant to their teaching and designing MSDLAs. First is a list of eight skills students need to improve their thinking; next is a blog post by Lavonne Botcher; third is a website; last is the Colorin Colorado website. Teachers are asked to be discriminating in their search through these sites and to determine what they think are applicable to their situation. It’s in the warning under the instructions. Remind them of that.  

This content is provided to you freely by Equity Press.

Access it online or download it at https://equitypress.org/tell_facilitator_guide/session_4G.