Below you will find my notes from the 2016 WIDA National Conference in Philadelphia, PA. which I attended as an English language (EL) teacher.
•View the history of WIDA as a national consortium for 39 U.S. states.
•To learn more about the experience, visit the WIDA conference website.
•To learn more about the experience, visit the WIDA conference website.
WIDA Mission
WIDA advances academic language development and academic achievement for children and youth who are culturally and linguistically diverse through high quality standards, assessments, research, and professional learning for educators.
Unique PD Tools for Advancing ELLs’ Mathematics and Language Development
Focus Group: 7 PD days, 25 mainstream and ESOL teachers, Show-and-Tell and small group AND whole group sharing:
-implementation of new learning/strategy in the classroom
-evidence through classroom artifacts, student work, videos
-professional discourse, all equals
-feedback from colleagues
-LOTS of research-based resources
-planning time
Mathematical pedagogy component- emphasizing TEACHING practices
NCTM: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, created practices that teacher must do in teaching math
•Problem-solving based math
•CGI: cognitively guided instruction, language and number sense games
•math talk and discourse moves
-questioning patterns
-writing
•Using Children’s literature for teaching mathematics
Cognitively Guided Instruction
What’s most difficult and why?
- How many more? (vocabulary hard) part + unknown part= whole-> whole-part=unknown part
- How many left? Can be visualized (cookies being eaten) **easiest! Written as whole-part=part and had an action they could visualize (eating cookies)
- There are 14 hats in the closet. 6 are red and the rest are green. How many green socks are in the closet? Most difficult because the whole was given first and very abstract (Whole-part=part unknown)
•Comprehensible Input: communicate context by talking, reading, watching about it
-students make sense of context, action/location, math problems (comes from context), computation, answer (in context)
Productive Classroom discussions:
-Selecting language-rich mathematics tasks
-Anticipating student responses
-Patterns of questioning
-talk Moves:
- Revoicing
- Repeating
- Reasoning
- Adding on
- Waiting
Don’t just focus on vocabulary!
There is basic, everyday language that is involved in mathematics: sentence level, linguistic complexity
•Specific organizational styles of different methods of math
•Students need to use authentic language to communicate their ideas
•Mathematical literacy: teachers have to consider the principles of language development
•Integrate language and math: relevant, meaningful, interactive, and purposeful activities
Practices should relate to students’ languages, cultures, life experiences, allow students to construct mathematical meaning in a variety of ways, provide activities that allow for interaction and authentic use of language in different context
Exploration of instructional tools:
- Cubing game: pocket dice, looking at a concept from different perspectives
- Three-way tie: can be used in multiple content areas, can be used to assess background knowledge, necessitates discussion in the classroom, correcting misconceptions, practice using the terms authentically in written sentences
- 2x2 sentence builders: making connections between words, asking students to write
- Problem-solution space: focus taken off the solution, focus on the process, stating the problem in your own words, sketch problem and solution
Discussion prompts:
- make sense of the tool: explore and engage
- Benefits for developing language skills: vocabulary usage, language forms and conventions, linguistic complexity
- Benefits
Take-Aways:
•Instructional tools have explicit language focus (vocabulary, sentences, oral and writing skills, AND support development of mathematical ideas
•Classroom implementation of tools create opportunities for students to practice L/S/R/W
Contact with questions/requests: Galina (Halla) Jmourko: jmourko@pgcps.org
Rodrigo Gutiérrez: rodrigog@umd.edu
