NGSS and ESL

How can we harness the power of WIDA to support science teaching in light of the Next Generation Science Standards? This hand-on, minds-on session will help you learn to grow your students' ELD and their interactive work with science content. 

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Literacy Links: Best Web 2.0 Websites for Students and Teachers

NewsELA. Reading A to Z. Think Cerca. MobyMax. Book Wizard. Goodreads. The web is filled with amazing FREE Common Core aligned texts and programs that make instruction and practice in literacy skills fun and informative for students. Come and explore the latest and greatest on the web!

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Turbo-Charge Your Reading Incentive Program

Many schools use commercial or homemade reading incentive programs. But, are they using them to promote more reading? At St. Croix Falls Elementary we've turbo-charged our incentive program! The results have been 1,000s of books added to the community and three years running of stellar state school report cards.

Progress Monitoring Made Simple: CBM3D: Curriculum-Based Measures, 3 Domains

The data-based teaching revolution has arrived and ESL can be a part of it!  We will share a free easy-to-use tool for documenting student growth in English language development. Finally you can share up-to-the-minute growth data with students, principals, and parents to positively impact teaching and learning for your ELs.

Motivate by Making Learning Visible

The data-based teaching revolution is here. We must not leave students out of it! An exploration of how assessment can be used to foster student motivation and ownership of learning. We examine the latest findings about the nature of motivation, review the basics of data-based instruction, and work together to see how students can learn to analyze their own performance data to set goals and monitor their own progress. 

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Level Up in Writing!

Harnesses the popular gaming term is a great way to motivate students to write more and write better. In this session we will explore the what's, why's, and how's of practical wrting instruction with a focus on ESL students. 

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PADI: The Page-a-Day Initiative 

Reading is an essential part of learning. The Common Core Standards call for an increase in teaching with nonfiction texts and deeper analysis of literary fiction. To be college and career ready, every student will need the ability learn from academic texts.  It is vital that schools are doing the right things to grow readers. Students must experience their development as readers from month-to-month and year-to-year. In this session we will present a powerful method for working with students so that they read texts at their personal levels every single day. 

WIDA 101

WIDA offers a wealth of tools and strategies to make teaching and learning successful. Join us for a day of learning and / or relearning the basics of all things WIDA.

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Language Targets at the Heart of your Discipline--Using Sentence Stems to Foster Academic Understanding

In order for sentence stems to be more than a one-off, they need to be tied to the major understandings of your content. This session will help you define the key ideas in subjects you (co)teach, write them as sentence stems, and use them to help students master content and develop their English language skills through academic conversations and writing. 

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Individualized and All-Together: Thematic Reading + Precision Teaching=Content Learning 

Reading is an essential part of content learning. As 21st century skills call for an increase in teaching with nonfiction texts there is also an increased possibility that our ELs will be overwhelmed with texts beyond their reading levels. All students should have the opportunity to learn using texts within their own ZPD. In this session we will explore methods and resources for finding and using leveled reading materials around a theme or specific subject.Through use of leveled thematic texts every student can read at her level and can contribute to the class learning as a whole.

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Breakthroughs and Heresies in ESL Scholarship

An overview of the year’s most powerful and provocative EAL scholarship, including Calderon’s 2012 tough-love list of nine factors that produce Long-Term English Learners, Ur’s 2012 contrarian survey of research on Vocabulary Learning, Goldenberg’s elegant 2012 summary and synthesis of key research, and Saunders’ research-based recommendations on all students’ need for form-focused EAL support. The research and recommendations are available ... and they may surprise you!

The Big-5 in ESL

Being a teacher of English language learners is one of the most challenging and rewarding of professions. There is conflicting information about best-practices, programs, and strategies. In this session you will be introduced to the "Big 5" in EAL teaching. We have synthesized the research and found 5 winning big ideas in EAL. 1) Formative Assessment; 2) Reading Intervention; 3) Vocabulary Instruction; 4) Academic Language; and 5) Structured Pair Work. Each idea will be discussed in terms of practical application, the research, and resources.

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Breakthroughs and Heresies in ESL Scholarship

An overview of the year’s most powerful and provocative EAL scholarship, including Calderon’s 2012 tough-love list of nine factors that produce Long-Term English Learners, Ur’s 20

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Data-Based Motivating

An exploration of how assessment can be used to foster student motivation and ownership of learning. We examine the latest findings about the nature of motivation, review the basics of data-based instruction, and work together to see how students can learn to analyze their own performance data to set goals and monitor their own progress. The data-based teaching revolution is here. We must not leave students out of it!

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Leaps and Bounds with ELPA

Iowa and other states use ELPA21 to measure ELD growth. In this session we offer tools and strategies to harness the power of the ELP standard to help students more forward in ELD and content learning.​

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Want Readers? Engage the Community! 

An integrated set of tried and true methods and strategies to engage your community in the reading and writing lives of students. 

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Topics Including:

6-Traits Writing, Writing Process, Common Core State Standards and Writing Genres, National Board Certification, Smarter Balanced Assessments, Leveled Libraries in the Classroom, Goals & Goal-Setting, Student-Centered Learning, Reading Fluenc

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