School Name: Bert Bowes Middle School
School District: SD#60 Peace River North
Inquiry Team Members:Navenda Wright: nwright@prn.bc.ca
Heather MacGillivray: hmacgillivray
Inquiry Team Contact Email: nwright@prn.bc.ca
Type of Inquiry: NOII (focus on core competencies, OECD learning principles, etc.)
Grade Levels: Intermediate (4-7), Post-secondary
Curricular Area(s): Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Reading, Language Arts – Writing
Focus Addressed: Universal design for learning, Other: English Language Learners learning needs
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? How do ELL students feel about learning English and what they need to be successful in middle school?
Scanning: We used the four key questions in a survey; we did adapt questions for our students with consultation and input from an English language learner. We used the students input to adapt questions in order to better connect with our focus in English learning. Another piece of our scanning process was looking though the needs of our students connected through their Annual Instruction Plan (AIP) discussed with teachers and students. The learners were very clear on what they needed to become more proficient in 4 strands English.
Focus: We directly service ELL in the middle school and wanted to better understand and meet their learning needs. What we were hoping to establish was the level of comfort our ELL students and making meaningful connections with adults in the building.
Hunch: Every teachers delivery system is different and academic/content language may not always be accessible for ELLs. Teachers need more resources to help them become more comfortable in their practice and methods of delivery and an overall understanding that the access points needed for ELLs to be successful are access points that will support all learners.
New Professional Learning: – Collaboration which was used to explore and develop resources (lists) to share with staffs
– Reading articles (discussion and sharing with staffs)
– Webinars and videos that show good practice for teaching not only in a UDL setting but for ELLs in the content areas.
Taking Action: – Interview with ELL student (discussion about survey and overall conversation about learning English and here experience)
– Survey (16 students): 16 students responded on the survey and showed the diversity of their learning needs in all 4 strands.
*Our actions were great for the hearing the students voice and the students enjoyed being able to give comment and suggestions for teachers to hear.
*This has given us a platform to continue to share and collaborate more with educators moving forward next year
Checking: *Our baseline came from the interview and the need to develop language that students related to and understood.
*The survey of 16 middle schoolers was successful and students were happy to share and liked that their information would be shared with their teachers. Students liked being able to have a voice.
*Students were able to have google translate to work through the survey, happy to be independent, the degree of confidentiality of doing a survey allowed them to more honest
Reflections/Advice: Reflections:
– need to share our learners thoughts with colleagues
– Collaboration/Co-Teaching
– survey and provide voice to learners