Day 1: September 16, 2024

8:30–9:00 a.m.

REGISTRATION AND MATERIALS PICKUP
BREAKFAST

9:00–10:20 a.m.

OPENING SESSION

• • Welcome: David Francis, Principal Investigator, Center for the Success of English Learners, University of Houston
  • Remarks: Michael Feuer, Dean, The Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University
  • IES Introduction: Matthew Soldner, Acting Director of IES
  • OELA Introduction: Montserrat Garibay, Assistant Deputy Secretary & Director for the Office of English Language Acquisition at the U.S. Department of Education
  • Plenary Keynote Address
    Reconceptualizing Ecologically the Transformation of Educational Opportunities for Multilingual Learners
    • Aída Walqui, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, National Research and Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners, WestEd
      • Description: Unless we look ecologically—in contextualized, situated, dialogic ways—at the opportunities we offer multilingual learners to develop with quality and equity, our efforts may unintentionally undermine each other. This presentation will outline work in research and implementation that the two national R&D Centers have engaged in to build interconnections and dialogic interaction among systems that typically stand on their own.

10:20–10:30 a.m.

COFFEE BREAK & TRANSITION TO BREAKOUT ROOMS

10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND INTERACTIVE SESSIONS ON INSTRUCTION AND POLICY
For Day 1, participants have been assigned to a specific breakout session. Please check your badge for your assignment. On Day 2, the sessions will be repeated, and participants will be able to choose which breakout session to attend at that time.

• • English Language Arts
    The Role of Educative Materials in Ecologies of Learning: Iterative Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of English Language Arts Curriculum
    • Lee Hartman, Mary Schmida, & Aída Walqui (WestEd)
      • Description: How do teachers interpret and enact high challenge and high support dialogic ELA 8th grade replacement curriculum? What aspects of the ecology support and gravitate against quality implementation? What is the impact on student learning? We share data from usability and feasibility studies based on observational data, interviews with teachers and students, focus groups, and analysis of student work across time in three different implementations.
  • Math
    Design Principles for Educative Curriculum Materials and Professional Learning: Lessons from a Summer Math Bridge Program
    • Haiwen Chu (WestEd)
      • Description: In this session, we present findings about how educators used educative curriculum materials intended to support their implementation of a three-week summer bridge program focused on challenging and supporting English Learners to explore cross-cutting concepts in mathematics. Drawing upon data from usability, feasibility, and implementation surveys as well as observations of classroom practice, we articulate novel principles of the design of educative curriculum materials and the professional learning that empowers teachers to enact a more ambitious vision with English Learners.
  • Science
    Supporting Secondary-Level Multilingual Learners (MLLs) and Their English-Proficient Classmates in Acquiring Grade-Level Science Knowledge and Associated Academic Language
    • Diane August (Center for Applied Linguistics), Jessica Debski (Center for Applied Linguistics), Megan Rogozenski (Worcester Public Schools), & Coleen Carlson (University of Houston)
      • Description: During this session, participants will learn about the Center for the Success of English Learners (CSEL) science component. Presenters will first describe the CSEL science design principles, resources, and survey results. Participants will then be assigned to teams of two to three to review one or more CSEL science activities and to describe to other groups what they learned about CSEL methods used to differentiate instruction to accommodate students with different levels of English proficiency and background knowledge. Finally, presenters will model scaffolds that have been added to make grade-level science content more comprehensible for MLLs and participants will have opportunities to apply these scaffolds to similar science passages. Throughout, there will be opportunities for questions and discussion.
  • Social Studies
    Enhancing Social Studies Instruction for Secondary Emergent Bilinguals and Their Peers
    • Phil Capin (Harvard University) & Letty Martinez (University of Texas at Austin)
      • Description: This session will begin by presenting the process for enhancing social studies instruction to maximize learning for emergent bilinguals (EBs) and sharing results from randomized control trials evaluating their impact on vocabulary and social studies learning for middle school students. In the second half of the presentation, the focus will shift to helping teachers and school leaders consider how these effective instructional principles can be implemented in their settings. Participants will have opportunities to engage with the free instructional materials and resources for enhancing existing instructional materials.
  • Policy
    Both the Day 1 and Day 2 policy sessions feature speakers from the Policy Teams from the Center for the Success of English Learners (CSEL) and National Research & Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners (WestEd Center).
    Describing the systemic barriers that face adolescent English learners
    • CSEL: Michael Kieffer, Kristin Black, Ben Le, & Lindsay Romano (NYU)
    • WestEd Center: Karen Thompson (Oregon State), Ilana Umansky, & Janette Avelar (University of Oregon)
      • Description: This session will draw on data across four states analyzed by the two R&D Centers to describe the systems that work as barriers or facilitators to English learners’ access to content learning. Topics include how English learners are concentrated with other English learners in schools and classrooms, intersections of English learner status with race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status, educators’ perspectives on these barriers, tracking that excludes students from content courses, and the experiences of students dually identified as needing special education and English learner services.

12:00–1:00 p.m.

NETWORKING LUNCH

1:00–2:15 p.m.

BREAKOUT GROUPS: VIGNETTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES OF EDUCATORS AND ENGLISH LEARNERS IN CONTENT CLASSROOMS

• • Participants will read and discuss two policy- or instruction-focused vignettes depicting the educational experiences of students from diverse first-language backgrounds and with different levels of English proficiency and background knowledge in order to surface issues that are typically present in the education of multilingual learners. The vignettes will follow from the preceding breakout sessions focusing on the Center research presentations. Participants will return to the room where they attended the breakout session before lunch.
  • During the vignette session, participants will work in groups of four, organized into pairs of two. Each dyad gets one of two vignettes. After each individual reads and annotates their assigned vignette, the two members of a dyad identify issues, potential solutions, and how to enable the situation in the vignette to be improved from an ecological perspective. They agree who will present the content of the vignette and the essence of the discussion to the other dyad in their tetrad—who will have engaged in the same process with the alternate vignette. Finally—sharing the floor—each dyad presents their consensus to the other dyad. After the presentation, each dyad reads the vignette that was not assigned to them, and if they have additions to the discussion, they share their ideas.

2:15–2:30 p.m.

COFFEE BREAK

2:30–3:30 p.m.

PANEL DISCUSSION ON ECOLOGIES OF LEARNING

• • Moderator
    • Diane August (Center for Applied Linguistics)
  • Panelists
    • George Bunch (Professor, Education Department, University of California, Santa Cruz)
    • Alexandra Estrella (Superintendent, Norwalk Public Schools, CT)
    • Tamara Hewlett (Director of the Department of English Learners and Multilingual Learners at Montgomery County Public Schools)
    • Mary Martínez-Wenzl (Director of Multilingual and Migrant Education, Oregon Department of Education)

3:30–4:15 p.m.

CLOSING REMARKS AND AUDIENCE Q&A

• • Ester de Jong (Professor, Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Education Co-Editor, Bilingual Research Journal, University of Colorado)

4:15–5:00 p.m.

OPTIONAL DISCUSSIONS WITH PRESENTERS (BREAKOUT)

5:00–6:30 p.m.

RECEPTION