Development of Tools and Processes for Teacher Professional Development
The TQI Professional Development modules consist of multimedia tools and processes that are intended for use across the continuum of teacher professional development, from pre-service education through accomplished teaching and teacher leadership. In combination with sustained professional development, these modules are both robust and flexible enough to be used in many combinations. All of the modules contain exemplars of practice, components that develop cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and reflection and elaboration activities. Also included are roadmaps that propose sequences of engagement for diverse users — teacher educators, teacher professional developers, and other teacher leaders — that can address the needs and circumstances of individual users and sites.
The Sociocultural Context of Educating Adolescent English Learners
This module explores the larger context of the education of English learners. It focuses on the interplay among language, culture, economics, and social class, and the dynamics that ensue as different groups, in asymmetrical relationships, enact schooling. The goal of this module is to raise teachers’ awareness of these issues and to help them reflect on attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors that may, if unexplored, be detrimental to their students' education.
Scaffolding Instruction for Adolescent English Learners
This module introduces pedagogical principles that underlie the development of academic instruction for English learners. Following Bruner's metaphor, this module uses the concept of scaffolding to discuss ways in which teachers, peers, and artifacts support students’ ability to develop conceptual, academic, and linguistic competence.
Teaching English as a Second Language to Adolescent English Learners
This module focuses on the theoretical, methodological, and practical approaches for teaching English as a second language to beginning levels of secondary English learners in a broad variety of instructional settings.
Teaching Social Studies to Adolescent English Learners
Teachers strive to make the content of social studies courses "meaningful" to students; students wonder why they have to study the past and what history has to do with the present. At the same time, professionals in the field debate the nature of history, the content of history courses, and the purpose of history in our schools. This module demonstrates ways to make connections between individuals and groups and personal and public histories. Emphasis is on developing academic language in social studies for intermediate-level English learners.
Teaching Reading to Adolescent English Learners
This module examines challenges secondary English learners encounter as they read in various subject areas and demonstrates how teachers can help students develop expertise in reading. As part of their professional development, teachers are asked to reflect on the ways that linguistics, background knowledge, conceptual complexity, new vocabulary, and ambiguous purposes for reading can singly, or in combination, make reading subject area texts difficult. Teachers learn about tools and processes to support students and to help them develop cognitive and metacognitive strategies to comprehend and critically analyze academic texts.
Research and Development in Schools
Through professional development and research conducted in secondary schools, and classrooms, TQI develops and puts into practice new tools and processes to help educators better serve English learners. Our current research and development projects investigate improving education for adolescent English learners, both those who are immigrant and those born in the United States.
Partners
Critical Topics Seminars for Faculty
These one-day faculty seminars are intended for teacher educators, deans and other representatives from institutions of higher education. The topics are selected based on a needs (interest) analysis and are centered around contemporary research and practice issues in the education of future teachers.
2001 Critical Topics Seminar: "Emerging Trends in the Supply and Demand of Teacher Development"
This seminar was the first in a series focusing on critical topics along the continuum of teacher professional development. We examined the changing roles of postsecondary institutions and the private sector in ongoing teacher development, providing experiences and research on best practices in the use of technology for teacher preparation and professional development. The day included two keynote speakers, a panel discussion, four case-study presentations, and teacher education faculty team discussions.
2002 Critical Topics Seminar: "Preparing Teachers to Work with English Language Learners"
TQI’s second annual seminar addressed international, national, and regional issues involved in preparing teachers to teach secondary English learners effectively. Ofelia García and Eugene García, our keynote speakers, discussed contemporary issues in the education of English learners. The day included time for discussion and reflection among participants and keynote and panel speakers, as well as a presentation of the materials that TQI has developed for use in pre-service and in-service programs, focusing on the teaching of subject matter content with English learners.
2003 Critical Topics Seminar: "Teaching Teachers: Conceptual Models and the Assessment of Quality and Impact of Teacher Education Programs"
At our third annual seminar in WestEd’s San Francisco headquarters, Lee Shulman (President of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University) gave a keynote speech about the role of conceptual models in framing questions about how we teach teachers, and the assessment of the quality and impact of teacher education programs. The keynote address provided the framework for participants to engage in in-depth discussion and dialogue with Lee Shulman and with each other.
Quality Teaching for English Learners Summer Institute
The Teacher Quality Initiative’s second Summer Institute, Quality Teaching for English Learners, will take place during the week of July 11-16, 2004 on the Asilomar Conference Grounds, a retreat/conference center nestled along the Monterey Peninsula shoreline in Pacific Grove, California. Participation will be by application only.
Quality Teaching for English Learners is an annual Summer Institute that focuses on increasing the capacity of teachers, teacher educators, and professional developers to teach rigorous academic language and disciplinary content to English learners at the secondary level. By linking theory and practice, the Institute will enable participants to:
- Develop knowledge of three levels of support - from curricular planning to academic and linguistic procedures used in particular activities to procedures used in moment-to-moment interaction.
- Increase understanding and skills in how to use scaffolding, which includes modeling, bridging, schema building, contextualization, text re-presentation, and metacognitive development.
- Increase understanding of specific subject matter interactions. Participants will explore and analyze exemplars of classroom practices in secondary language arts, social studies, and science.
Registration is limited to teams of applicants. For more information please contact Sherell Holcomb at 415.615.3314 or sholcom@wested.org.