Professional Development in CAPCS (Washington, DC)

Thank you for your interest in DSF Consulting, a small business that supports English learner achievement and supports teachers of ELs. We’d like to share all the ways we worked toward EL equity during the past month and how we spread the word through our writing and presentations.

TESOL/Kellogg Foundation Grant

We are thrilled to announce that DSF Consulting will be partnering with TESOL, who received a grant on behalf of the Kellogg foundation to create a curriculum to improve teaching to young ELL students. DSF Consulting will be developing a pilot MOOC for pre-service content teachers designed to strengthen their understanding of the educational needs of ELLs and strategies to support ELL achievement. Read the press release here.

Professional Development

• CAPCS (DC): We worked with ESL and content teachers at the Dorthy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter Schools (DC) to conduct a CCSS for ELs Equity Audit and discuss instructional that support ELs within a Common Core framework. We worked with three groups of teachers at the PreK, K-2, and 3-5 levels.
• Williamsville (NY): We worked with ESL teachers in Williamsville, New York to reframe ESL teachers’ roles within a co-teaching context and develop ESL teachers’ leadership skills within the Common Core framework.
• Montgomery County (MD): We worked with ESL and content teachers in the highly diverse Rolling Terrace Elementary School to help examine and reframe ESL teachers’ roles and develop their leadership voices along with the content teachers for collaboration on how to implement instruction that provides access to the Common Core for ELs. The teachers learned about and applied information on creating assessments, choosing and teaching background knowledge, and teaching academic language to ELs through content instruction.

Manassas City Schools ESOL Advisory Meeting

Diane presented on advocacy strategies for ELs at the Manassas City Public Schools (VA) parent advisory board meeting.

Albany NYSED Meeting

As part of our work partnering with the American Institutes of Research to scaffold English language arts and mathematics curriculum for ELs in Grades P-12 for New York State, Diane Staehr Fenner and Diane August from AIR met with ESL directors from across the state of NY to share some scaffolded prototype lessons and obtain feedback on them.

Publications and Presentations

Association of California School Administrators: Diane Staehr Fenner, Peter Kozik, and Ayanna Cooper wrote the article Evaluating Teachers of All Learners for ACSA’s Leadership Magazine that provides a new, inclusive framework for teacher evaluation which recognizes the strengths and challenges posed by ELs and students with disabilities.

TESOL Convention & Language Expo in Portland, OR – Diane Staehr Fenner’s Presentations:

• Advocating for ELs: Sharing the Responsibility and the Joy (K-12 Dream Day)
• Advocating for English Learners: Why and How
• Academic Language: The Pathway to Student Success Across Content Areas (with Gisela Ernst-Slavit, Margo Gottlieb, Debbie Zacarian)
• The TESOL Professional Standards for P-12 Teachers (with Eleni Pappamihiel, Heather Linville, and Anita Bright)
• Preparing Your TESOL P-12 Teacher Education for NCATE/CAEP Program Review (full day workshop)

Webinars

• Diane Staehr Fenner presented a webinar for Ellevation Education titled “Collaborating with Classroom Teachers.” View the archive here.
• Sydney Snyder presented a webinar for Progressive Business Publications titled “ELL Legal Concerns and Implementation Strategies for Schools.”