Student Work Samples

At the end of the day, our work as educators is to advance student success.  I invite you to view a sampling of student work supported by tools and strategies implemented by myself or my ELL team.

 

 

 

Middle School

WIDA Level 1
Over the years, I have worked with many Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE).  When I met this particular student, he had only received a year of formal instruction as a twelve year-old.  This is a sample of his writing in the beginning of the year.
Through creating class-constucted models, the use of sentence frames and feedback, this student’s work started to blossom even though his lexicon was still quite low.  This a sample of his writing mid-year.

 

WIDA level 2

 

 

 

WIDA level 3

Elementary School

 

WIDA level 1
WIDA level 2

 

WIDA level 3

 

Language Supports and Differentiated Materials


I invite you to peruse some of the instructional supports I use, adaptations I have made as well as work my students have produced.

 

Vocabulary

I use the Frayer Model and also adaptations of Marzano’s 6 Steps.  Using strategies like these, alongside Beck’s Model and multiple meaning-rich interactions, I’ve seen students’ academic lexicon explode.

I believe in using concrete images whenever possible and pairing them with student-friendly definitions and student drawings.

Together, I’ve found this can help students connect to vocabulary more quickly and thus retain it longer.

Untitled-2

 

View a sample of Vocabulary Powerpoint.

 

 

 

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Speaking to Writing Connection

 

Research tells us that ELLs benefit from making connections from speaking to writing when grappling with academic content.  In my experience, most learners benefit from clarifying and developing understanding of complex concepts verbally. Two of the best tools I’ve found to address this Jeff Zwiers’ Academic Conversation Placemat with Prompts and the National Science Foundation’s Discourse Moves (http://stem4els.wceruw.org/).

While these take some modeling, norming and feedback, and certainly need some adjustments for younger learners and entering/emerging language learners,  I’ve found the process to be invaluable in providing learners the structures and conventions for deepening thinking.   Higher level discussions, even with limited vocabulary, are fun for learners and definitely lay the ground work for better writing.

 

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Writing Scaffolds


sentence-frameI’ve found the combination of the following to be game-changers for my students:

  • Analyzing Models
  • Using background knowledge to generate vocabulary and ideas
  •   Sentence Frames and Word Banks
  • Peer Feedback

 

At first, student use of sentence frames may sound formulaic, but over time students start to make the forms their own as they build vocabulary, analyze models further and make adjustments from targeted feedback.

See samples below of student work using these four strategies:

DropEverythingAndWrite_4th-5th_Week1-2

 

Writing Scaffold Sample

After reviewing our standarized reading data along WIDA writing assessment data, we as a school determined that we had some issues with writing related to stamina.  As one of many initiatives to address this, our school rolled out a mandatory writing period; where for 20 minutes each day, everyone the school would write. A sample writing prompt for elementary can be found here.

While this was a great step for our school, it was a shock to the system for our WIDA level 2s and 3s. Imagine trying to write in a non-native language for 20 minutes a day as an emergent language learner!

The challenge then was to devise a scaffold that could be used with the prompt for WIDA 2-3.  This is a sample of the scaffold for the sample writing prompt.  The full set can be viewed here.
The response was overwhelming.  Students went from being frustrated and producing nothing, to filling multiple pages in a  matter of weeks.

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Assessment Differentiation – Keeping the Rigor

As a part of our unit on non-fiction, our 2nd grade team designed a reading test  to assess the following standards:

  • RI2.8: Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text.
  • RI2.9: Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.

The grade had several WIDA level twos who were reading in the A range on F+P running records and BR range on MAP.  As a team, we were concerned that the assessment was not accessible to our WIDA level 2s and that the assessment would not return useable data regarding students’ true ability to demonstrate their knowledge as it relates to these standards.

After deconstructing the standards into component parts, we were able to adapt the assessment text to fit the criteria for emerging readers using the WIDA Performance Definitions.  Once we had accessible reading material that fit the standards being measured, we were then able to use the Can Do Descriptors and List of Supports to design supports for the assessment.

The results were amazing!  Teachers learned that students had a much higher proficiency with the skills of identifying key point and details and comparing and contrasting than they had anticipated.  This in turn helped them to design their next unit to build off of this proficiency and extend it.  From the student point of view, our WIDA 2s were able to demonstrate their knowledge, lower their affective filter, and build confidence as readers.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

When teaching my new-to-country SLIFE students family vocabulary, I found that the Western-centric imagery and material for teaching family structure was not working for my students.  Part of this, is that the material in a lot of ESL texts is not representative of the cultures many students come from.

To counter this, I created some material using actual photos of Somali families as well as some graphic organizers that reflected their family structure as well as using names that were more representative of their background.  The result was telling.  Students picked up the vocabulary faster and used it more effectively.

View family vocabulary slideshow

View family tree

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Co-Teaching

Co-teaching is often considered the apex of instructional collaboration.  In my experience, while co-teaching is tremendously effective, it takes intentional planning and norming of practices in order to reach the potential of the models.  Below is an example of co-teaching resources I put together for our district to help teachers better understand the models and (more importantly) norm their collaborative practices as a unit.  I’m proud to say that our co-teaching practice is evolving measurably each year!

 

 

 

Launching of the Daystar Bridge Program

Daystar Academy is a strong bilingual immersion program that develops world citizens by embracing Chinese and Western culture through its integrated education model. Daystar students strive for distinction in comprehensive Chinese and English studies, creative thinking and character development for the purpose of serving the community at large.  In short, Daystar students are highly bicultural and biliterate to a degree few people ever achieve.

While the success rate is high, one of the challenges in such a time-intensive model is finding opportunities to implement lengthier interventions for students who need additional interactions with academic English concepts and content.  In traditional English-only schools, this burden is distributed throughout the school day or is lessened by students being surrounded by English in the world around them.  In contrast, our ELLs (who make up 70% of the student body) only receive 12 hours of instruction a week and have very little exposure to English in their lives outside of school.

In order to create additional opportunities for these students, a small team of us were able to do a needs assessment of the students and parents and reach out into the larger Beijing community to find partners who could provide extra support aligned with our mission and curriculum.  After interviewing several candidates, we settled on the Learning Tree. Working together with our two curriculum teams, we have been able to facilitate the creation of the Daystar Bridge Program.  As it is aligned with our learner outcomes, program of inquiry and standards, and given that there are pathways established for teachers to share feedback and data, students have been able to receive extra targeted support.  We’ve even been able launch parent education sessions to help parents support students at home.  Results have been fantastic.  Reading and writing scores are improving quickly and students and parents alike are reporting higher levels of understanding and enjoyment in learning.

 

基本信息 General Information

About Me

brady2I am a licensed coordinator and educator with twelve years of experience supporting linguistically and culturally diverse students from all over the globe.

Most recently, I have served as the PreK-12 Culture and Language Development Coordinator for Adams 14 School District in Colorado, where I have designed and implemented policies for identification, placement and redesignation servicing over 3,500 multilingual learners that have reduced placement errors by 60%.  I have also developed several half-day K-12 academic language trainings for the district which has led to a 50% increase in students producing target language.

Before moving back home to Colorado, I served as the K-12 district Language Support Services Coordinator for Daystar Academy, an International Baccalaureate school district in China which serves over 500 multilingual learners in two elementary schools and one middle school. In my time there, I facilitated full membership with the WIDA Consortium and implementation of the WIDA Standards Framework to inform instruction for multilingual learners. I also delivered WIDA CLIMBS training to our district, which helped the staff unify their approach to helping multilingual learners develop academic language and ensure their access to challenging, grade-level content.

In my previous position, I identified a need and worked beyond my job description to design and manage an award-winning literacy volunteer program, which provided students with over 3,000 hours of extra one-on-one literacy support. I also co-founded a newcomer academy to help Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) fill gaps in their educational experience and prepare to transition into the mainstream classroom.

I have taught academic English using the WIDA Standards Framework for several years in a range of settings, from international students in a bilingual immersion program to new-to-country immigrants and refugees from East Africa in an urban U.S. setting. I have also supported university-level literacy for adult learners in Vietnam, as well as teaching technology use to diverse learners in urban Minneapolis.

Driven by a belief in all students’ ability to learn and achieve great things, I am invested in each and every one of my students’ potential success. It is my conviction that the purpose of education is two-fold: foundational and functional. Educators should provide each student with the means to develop a curious, agile and analytical mind. But we also need to provide the student with situational fluency and linguistic/cognitive skills that can be applied across a number of contexts, all while drawing from the rich and unique pool of socio-cultural assets belonging to each student. This is the great joy of my field, for the teaching of language facilitates both of these educational goals. Read my full philosophy of teaching here.

Teaching Videos

Welcome to my video section of the site. Here, you can view teaching samples as well as educational support videos I have made or facilitated with our ELL/EAL teams to support parents and students.

Teaching Sample 1: Elementary ELLs – Supporting Language Arts

Standards assessed:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.5.4
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 5 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3
Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.1
Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Teaching Sample 2: High School ELLs – Supporting Language Arts

Standards assessed:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.11-12.4
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11-12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.


 

Bilingual Parent Support Videos

 

Supporting Literacy at Home | School Expectations

 

Using Technology to Support Your Child’s Literacy at Home

This initiative was a collaboration between the ELL teachers and Chinese teachers to help English and Chinese speaking parents support literacy at home in a concrete way by helping parents understand and use two of our favorite online literacy resources: Reading A-Z and Phonics Genius.  The teachers collaborated with Chinese colleagues to shoot and translate the videos. The result was a marked uptick in use of these tools with parents and students!

Using Reading A-Z at Home to Support Your Child’s Literacy

Using Technology to Support Phonics at Home

Reading With Your Child at Home Using Reading A-Z

 


Bilingual School Expectations Videos for Students and Parents

This initiative was a collaboration between students and ELL teachers in order to help all students and parents understand school expectations given that there were many new-to-country families to our school who had limited or interrupted formal schooling in the past.  The students brainstormed school norms and agreed to them through voting.  They then co-wrote the scripts and created the videos with graphics and sound.

 

Banaadir Academy Expectations: School Arrival

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Hallways

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Cafeteria

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Recess

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Bathrooms

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Dismissal and Busing

Diversity Statement

Download my Diversity Statement

As an ELL/EAL/ESL educator and coordinator, I am not merely a supporter of diversity in the classroom, but believe it should be openly discussed, celebrated, and promoted—for it is diversity that gives us the opportunity to have rich and inspiring interactions with each other and the world.

While my cultural competency is certainly evolving, it is built on a lifetime of experiences.  One of those core experiences for me was living and working in Hanoi, Vietnam for four years.  During that time, I learned how difficult it can be to learn another culture’s norms, values and practices as an outsider.  I also learned how it can feel to stick out physically and not be able to blend in, and how frustrating it can be to be surrounded by a language one doesn’t understand while trying to negotiate the nuanced demands of daily life.  By leaving my own set of customs and way of life and attempting to adapt to another, I learned how culturally-based many of my assumptions were about a myriad of things like educational practices, humor and even just shopping.   In short, this period transformed my life and worldview, and continues to be a touchstone for me in my teaching and personal life.

Another central experience that informed my cultural competency has been working in a school that services a student body of East African immigrants and refugees.  By immersing myself in another culture and working with Somali students, families and staff on projects such as forming a Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), I have experienced first-hand the value of having many perspectives in any collaborative endeavor.  In short, through open and persistent dialogue, our projects were always made stronger by including differing perspectives and opinions. Our end of the year celebration that was attended by almost 500 hundred people is but one example that comes to mind. By incorporating henna, Somali poetry and Somali food into our program, it was much more vibrant and meaningful to those in attendance.

I have also learned how important it is to be active in the pursuit of diversity.  Over time, I have witnessed how easy it is for staff to culturally self-select and self-isolate in various scenarios.  In one specific context, I noticed that Western teachers were resistant to learning any Somali and the Somali staff was resistant to certain pedagogical practices. To address this as an ELL teacher, I started by setting up food sharing events with my Somali coworker.  Through these informal gatherings, many of the barriers between the two cultures came down as people got to know each other better as individuals through their enjoyment of food.  Next, I implemented the Somali Word of the Week program, which focused on vocabulary and cultural customs and was co-taught by both Somali and Western teachers. Through this program, the staff acquired a working vocabulary of over 100 useable Somali words that center on classroom management and day to day functioning.  Further, by learning elements of Somali, which is linguistically and culturally very different from English, teachers were able to relate more readily to their students’ challenges in learning English.  Both staff and students reported increased enjoyment and understanding of each other through Somali Word of the Week.

Over time, with committed advocates of diversity working together, as a staff we began to build deeper relationships, address misunderstandings and find common ground with each other.  One specific example of the fruits of this labor comes to mind.   Through conversations over staff breakfast, kindergarten teachers were able to reach out Somali staff to request clarity regarding the use of musical mnemonic devices in class, which had previously been forbidden by the administration. Through trust-based discussion, the teachers were able to understand the notion of certain music contexts being considered haram (forbidden by Muslim teachings).  After this understanding was reached, the teachers were able to reach out respectfully to parents and Somali staff members and effectively explain the educational purpose and nature of the songs in a manner that addressed concerns of parents and staff.  Once the educational context was fully clarified and understood through dialogue, both Somali staff and parents were able embrace the practice of learning through song, which led to increased retention and use of phonemic awareness.  I believe this process would not have happened had we not started reaching out to each other through food and language exchange.

Lastly and most importantly, throughout the last seven years, I have had the opportunity to teach students and work with colleagues from five continents representing every socioeconomic status imaginable, as well as the full spectrum of sexual orientation and identification.  I have loved working with each new student and have enjoyed learning as much from my students as they have learned from me. The same can be said of my co-workers. While I value the fact that I have worked with so many kinds of people, the question remains, how has my teaching changed as a result of these experiences?

First, I strive to create an open, safe space in which students feel free to express different ideas, opinions, and worldviews.  Through careful planning, I am able to weave in opportunities for students to write about and discuss their own backgrounds, influences and goals with each other.  In addition, my classes co-create their own norms and expectations of each other so that everyone has a stake and voice in the tone the class. An example of this on a larger scale is a project where I facilitated the production of a series of bilingual training videos detailing school procedures and expectations.  These videos were written for and by new to country refugees to help new students learn the routines and behavioral norms of the school. Students generated their own examples, co-wrote the script and acted in and directed the films.  A sample video can be found at here.

In addition, I model respectful, inclusive communication that celebrates all cultures and ways of living.  As I believe that respect is an active rather than a passive act, I also personally strive to practice and model empathy.  My experiences have taught me that it is always valuable to appreciate how someone else might be thinking and feeling.  I make this expectation explicit for my students by openly discussing empathy practices with them and having them use specific writing journal prompts to adopt perspectives that are different than their own as a way of practicing both empathy and higher-level reasoning. Together, this provides the basis for safe and dynamic communication and the negotiating of complicated ideas while honoring diversity.  I believe this benefits my students in several ways.  For one, my classes are receptive, supportive environments where students can try out both language features and ideas that are new and challenging to them.  Further, by attempting to try on others’ perspectives, I have witnessed my students becoming more flexible and more thorough in their reasoning—thus becoming more engaged and committed class citizens.

My awareness and appreciation of cross-cultural understanding continues to grow. I work to increase my fledging fluency in Somali and Mandarin because practicing a second language helps me appreciate the challenge faced by students who are simultaneously learning English and academic content.  As a teacher, I listen to my students carefully and always strive to remember what it is like to be immersed in a new culture.  I set aside my own perceptions of what academic or linguistic concepts are “easy” or “hard” to understand because these assumptions are based on my cultural and educational background, not that of my students. Finally, I am inspired when my students learn English in ways that are meaningful to them. As such, I strive to introduce them to a variety of materials from assorted of backgrounds, and to support them as they shape their own identities as scholars.

Download my Diversity Statement

Parent Outreach

WechatIMG72
Research shows that non-native speakers take an average of 4-7 years to attain academic English proficiency (Cummins, 1981; Snow, 1987; Collier, 1995).  It’s a long Journey, but one that is doable with intentional instruction and self-study. Parent support can often be a key component to success in this endeavor, so our ELL/EAL teams place a high value in communicating with parents.

Coffee Talks

At Daystar Academy, we have a tradition of hosting Coffee Talks: a gathering where we share food, ideas, resources… and coffee (and tea)!  Over the last WechatIMG58several years, our team has hosted dozens of these sessions as a way of opening up a dialogue about the program and as a way of learning and sharing together strategies and tools aimed to help language learners succeed.

We’ve learned a lot from each other during this process with activities ranging from phonics games, vocabulary strategies, asking questions while reading and using technology.

Through this process, we’ve seen a big uptick in parent involvement, which has in turn shown increases areas such as reading fluency, comprehension and vocabulary usage.

Parnent ResourcesParent Online Resources

Given that not every parent can attend a Coffee Talk, we view it as essential that our parents have a way of perusing our bilingual session notes and resources.  Thus, we place all of our materials and resources into an online resource hub.  Parents can access programatic information, bilingual videos, bilingual PowerPoints and handouts and share them with their children or each other.

 

Parent Newsletters and Content Previews

As a part of our parent outreach, we send home semi-monthly newsletters that overview student learning engagements and various supports that we are using.  We also send out previews of the next week’s lesson and vocabulary words, background knowledge videos, and an abridged reading or summary, as well as a unit overview.  This has lead to students being more ready to start the week as they come to class on Monday already having background information on the subject as well as a general understanding of the reading. Students also often come in on Mondays comparing original student-generated definitions and sentences using the Tier 2 vocabulary or the week.

Bilingual Parent Support Videos

 

Supporting Literacy at Home | School Expectations

 

Using Technology to Support Your Child’s Literacy at Home

This initiative was a collaboration between the ELL teachers and Chinese teachers to help English and Chinese speaking parents support literacy at home in a concrete way by helping parents understand and use two of our favorite online literacy resources: Reading A-Z and Phonics Genius.  The teachers collaborated with Chinese colleagues to shoot and translate the videos. The result was a marked uptick in use of these tools with parents and students!

Using Reading A-Z at Home to Support Your Child’s Literacy

Using Technology to Support Phonics at Home

Reading With Your Child at Home Using Reading A-Z

 


Bilingual School Expectations Videos for Students and Parents

This initiative was a collaboration between students and ELL teachers in order to help all students and parents understand school expectations given that there were many new-to-country families to our school who had limited or interrupted formal schooling in the past.  The students brainstormed school norms and agreed to them through voting.  They then co-wrote the scripts and created the videos with graphics and sound.

 

Banaadir Academy Expectations: School Arrival

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Hallways

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Cafeteria

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Recess

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Bathrooms

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Dismissal and Busing

Professional Development

Jan Cappuis

Like most reflective educators, I find professional development energizing.  I value the opportunities to learn from and share with educators from a wide range of backgrounds. In addition to the valuable skills and takeaways, I thrive off of the feeling one gets after professional development…  being amped up but yet wrung out at the same time. These moments push collaboration, reflection and initiative in ways few can.

The following is a list of professional development that I have attended recently.

Assessment

Jim Knight

  • Seven Strategies Of Assessment – By Jan Chappuis – 20 hours

Instructional Coaching

Differentiation

Language Support

Carol Ann Tomlinson

Inquiry-based Learning

 

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