Highest Aspirations

On this special episode of Highest Aspirations, we're sitting down to speak with 2021 Ellevation Scholarship Winner Sirenia Garcia from Deer Park ISD in Texas. Sirenia was born and raised in Texas and plans on attending the University of St. Thomas in Houston in the fall, where she will be studying Music Education and minoring in psychology. She hopes to become a school counselor or school principal - we love to hear that! As you'll hear in the episode, Sirenia is very open about the struggles she faced in school as a multilingual learner, as well as the important role that her teachers had in encouraging her to persevere. She shares great advice for current students on staying diligent and motivated despite challenges they might face. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did. If you'd like to hear more conversations with scholarship recipients, check out the Scholarship Winners playlist on our Spotify.  If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please fee

How might growing up as a multilingual learner shape the message that educators communicate to their EL students and families about home language and learning English? What are some of the most important sources of research on dual language programs and how can they help school leaders and educators shape valuable learning experiences for all students? What are the three pillars of dual language and what role does each of them play out in high-quality programs? What challenges do we face in addressing the shortage of bilingual educators and what are some possible solutions? We discuss these questions and more in part 1 of a 2 part series with Sandra Medrano-Arroyo. Sandra Medrano-Arroyo presently works at Ellevation Education as the Dual Language Instructional Content Specialist, where she has spearheaded the creation of two new instructional practices specific to the needs of Dual Language programs.  In over 23 years in education, she has served the needs of emergent bilinguals and various sub-groups in

On this special encore episode, we revisit the topic of collaborating, co-planning, and co-teaching with content teachers with Tan Huynh. Tan is a career teacher specializing in language acquisition.  Tan has taught students from fifth to twelfth grade in public schools, private boarding schools, and charter schools.  Internationally, Tan has taught in schools in China, Laos, and Vietnam. He shares teaching strategies on his blog, Empowering ELLs, and has provided professional development training in places such as China, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, and Canada. Tan’s goal is to support all teachers who are committed to empowering English learners whether it be in a tweet, a blog post, a book, a training, a course, or over coffee. Tan and I discuss how EL specialists can establish and nurture relationships with content teachers who work with multilingual learners. You’ll leave the episode with some simple strategies that can help make co-planning and co-teaching easier for all teachers as well as som

In this special episode of Highest Aspirations, we feature one of our 5 Ellevation scholarship winners, Paola Gutierrez. Paola recently graduated from Tahquitz High School in Hemet, CA. She is currently attending UCLA where she is studying Human Biology on a pre-med track. As an aspiring physician, she looks forward to caring for people in low-income communities in the future. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Paola surfaces some of the challenges she has faced as a multilingual learner, but also many of the assets she and her fellow students bring to their schools and communities. She also offers some useful advice to educators about how they can best support their multilingual learners and put them on a path to success. As such, this conversation is particularly important for listeners who work with multilingual learners of any age. If you have an idea for a topic or guest for a future highest aspirations episode, please feel free to reach out to me at stevens@ellevationeducation.com. You can find additio

On this special encore episode, we revisit the topic of ensuring multilingual learners have highly qualified teachers to help them achieve their Highest Aspirations - with guests Amaya Garcia and Alexandra Manuel.  The lack of teachers who have the training necessary to effectively support multilingual learners has been plaguing school districts across the country for years. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem, putting multilingual learners at greater risk. We will be addressing this challenge at our upcoming Impact 2021 virtual conference, a free event that will take place over three days on December 6, 7, and 9th. New America’s Amaya Garcia, one of this episode’s guests, will be moderating a panel from school districts and organizations around the country to discuss how they are responding to this challenge and the plans they have moving forward. Amaya will also provide a perspective on what the research data is telling us. If you are interested in joining us for Impact 2021, please join our

How can teachers help students assert positive identities so they have the confidence necessary to achieve academic success and advocate for social justice in their schools and communities? What are some strategies teachers can use to infuse language concepts into content lessons while simultaneously providing students with the skills they will need to be successful in school and beyond? Why is it so important to have a network or “professional family” to rely on for professional learning and support and what are some ways to find one? We discuss these questions and much more with 2021 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Natalia Benjamin. Natalia Benjamin teaches high school Ethnic Studies and Multilingual Learners in Rochester, MN. She is dually licensed in K-12 ESL and reading and holds a master's degree in Language Acquisition and Teaching. She advocates for multilingual and multicultural education and is part of Education Minnesota's Facing Inequities and Racism in Education - Racial Equity Advocates (FIRE-REA)

What current limitations do we face in our educational system when it comes to data collection about students with limited or interrupted formal education (or SLIFE students)? How can project-based learning and group work help support SLIFE students and their classmates so they can better learn from one another? What are a few steps educators can take to be more equitable and mindful of SLIFE students in instruction and assessments? We discuss these questions and much more with Orly Klapholz. Orly's expertise includes Special Education and second language acquisition with specialized training in Orton Gillingham curricula. She has extensive experience teaching multilingual students, particularly those with limited or interrupted formal education, and has presented her research at numerous conferences and trainings. In 2021, she co-founded Inlier Learning with Merary Martinez-Cobian, taking a tech-forward approach to creating integrated solutions for the multilingual population. As is the case with most of our

How can teachers structure one-to-one student conferences to help ELs own their academic growth while also building relationships? What are some innovative ways we can leverage everything from testing data, student work artifacts, and portfolios to help students and teachers set and measure progress towards goals? How can schools make these conferences and learning celebrations more widely practiced and systematic across their classrooms? We discuss these questions and more with Sarah Said. We first featured Sarah on Highest Aspirations back in 2018, and we are excited to bring her back. Sarah Said is the Director of Language and Equity Programs at the Elgin Math and Science Academy in Elgin IL.  Sarah has spent 17 years working with language learners. Currently she is launching the Stand Up Stumps, which is a social justice based public art project in Elgin. Sarah has written various articles in EdWeek Teacher and Confianza and appeared on Highest Aspirations to discuss cultural responsiveness back in 2

What’s in a name, or in this case, a label? Why do many prefer the term “Emergent Bilingual” over other terminology like English learner, LEP, or even multilingual learner? On the 40th anniversary year of the Castañeda v. Pickard Case, what progress have we made and what do we still need to do to ensure the civil rights for our multilingual learners? How might a name/title change lead to significant changes in how we perceive and educate our multilingual learners? We discuss these questions and much more with Araceli Garcia. Araceli grew up on the South Side of San Antonio and is the daughter and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants. She is the first person in her family to attend college, and her passion for immigrants’ rights stems from seeing her family and community insist on dignity while struggling to navigate their immigration and socioeconomic status. A graduate of Stanford University, Araceli has received several awards for her academic excellence and community service including the John Gardner Fello

What are some ways mindfulness activities can help multilingual students succeed and how can teachers get started using them successfully? How can educators proactively elevate the voices of their students while decreasing teacher talk time? How can we apply concepts from exercise and other training programs to academic language instruction? We discuss these questions and more in Part 2 of a two-part series with Gina (Lahpay) Lappe and Kent Dwyer. One key to their success has been intentional and sustained collaboration - which as many of us have experienced, can be more difficult than it seems. we’ll get into how they went about creating systems that made it easier for them and their colleagues to work together to support all learners. Gina Lappe is heading into her 10th year teaching inquiry-based science. She started teaching in Great Smoky Mountains National Park before heading into the classroom at an Expeditionary Learning Charter School in North Carolina. She currently teaches middle school science at

What are some easy ways that content teachers and ELL specialists can collaborate to better support their multilingual learners? How can schools and teaching teams build out systems for housing key instructional resources to support practices like scaffolding? What can educators do to ensure multilingual learners have equitable access to high-quality instructional materials and content - particularly in STEM courses? We discuss these questions and more in Part 1 of a two-part series with Gina (Lahpay) Lappe and Kent Dwyer. One key to their success has been intentional and sustained collaboration - which as many of us have experienced, can be more difficult than it seems. we’ll get into how they went about creating systems that made it easier for them and their colleagues to work together to support all learners. Gina Lappe is heading into her 10th year teaching inquiry-based science. She started teaching in Great Smoky Mountains National Park before heading into the classroom at an Expeditionary Learning Char

What are some steps that educators can take now to build positive relationships with students and their families this school year? What experiences can educators pull from to build empathy and appreciation for multilingual students and their families? How might we go beyond language so we can also build an understanding of diverse cultures, and how might that investment play out in interactions with families?  We discuss these questions and more with Rosalie Metro, an Assistant Teaching Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Rose has taught social studies at the high school level, and currently teaches TESOL classes for pre-service teachers as well as supervising student teaching interns. Metro is the author of two books, Teaching US History Thematically: Document-Based Lessons for the Secondary Classroom, and Teaching World History Thematically: Essential Questions and Document-based Lessons to Connect Past and Present, both published by Teach

Why are content-specific and intentional language supports so critical for effective instruction of multilingual learners? How can we advocate for multilingual learner perspectives to be included in key processes regarding curriculum and instruction at school, district and state level? What role do professional development and formative assessment play in the effectiveness of high-quality instructional material? We discuss these questions and much more with Crystal Gonzales, Executive Director of the English Learner Success Forum, or ELSF. At ELSF, Crystal collaborates with national experts, organizations, educators and content developers to increase the supply of quality K-12 instructional materials that meet the needs of the growing EL population. Previously, as a program officer at the Helmsley Charitable Trust, she collaborated with national K-12 organizations with a focus on teacher professional development, quality instructional materials, and advocacy for underserved communities. In this role, she work

How might we seize the opportunity of a new school year as a chance to gather information on their multilingual learners, specifically the learning they may have done in languages other than English? How can teachers who aren’t comfortable speaking languages other than English facilitate and support their students’ learning in their home languages? What techniques can educators use to provide feedback to their students in the most meaningful and supportive way?  We discuss these questions and more in these questions in Part 2 of our 2 part series with Dr. Margo Gottlieb, author of the new book “Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages” and co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. For Margo’s full bio and a blog post with takeaways from our two part series, visit ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If y

How might new approaches to assessment create more equitable opportunities for multilingual learners? In what ways could local and professional accountability help motivate teachers to encourage students’ home language use? Why is it so important that relationships and a deeper understanding of our students be at the center of how we design and analyze assessments?  We discuss these questions and more in these questions in Part 1 of our 2 part series with Dr. Margo Gottlieb, co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Starting her career as an elementary school teacher and bilingual coordinator, she served as the longstanding director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center.  In addition, she has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Santiago, Chile and has keynoted, presented, and consulted in over 21 countries and almost every state in the U.S. In recent years, Margo’s scholarship has focused on design

Welcome back to Highest Aspirations, an education podcast that focuses on how we can help maximize impact on multilingual learners.  If you’d like to join us on the podcast or if you have an idea for a topic or guest, we want to hear from you. Take less than a minute to fill out our form at bit.ly/haptopics.  As always, if you’re looking for great resources and ideas to help support multilingual learners, subscribe to Highest Aspirations wherever you get your podcasts. If you have feedback, please consider leaving us a review on whichever platform you are using to listen. You can find more free resources such as podcast episode highlights, blog posts, and more at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. You can join the community there to get a weekly email with fresh content you can use and share with others. We’ll be coming to you with new episodes every Tuesday from now until the end of the year. In the meantime, good luck preparing for the new school year - it is certainly an exciting time to be an

Welcome to our season wrap up episode - and what a season it was. We’ve released 49 episodes and covered so many topics since August of 2020 - definitely a record for the 3 and a half year history of Highest Aspirations. For our season finale, we thought we'd take some time to reflect on what we’ve learned through so many rich conversations with our incredible guests. We’ll also talk about some of our plans for the start of the new school year. In a bit of a role reversal, I handed the interview mic over to my colleague Haley Sandifer, Ellevation’s Marketing Coordinator. A big part of Haley’s role is collaborating with me to create, edit, and share our free ELL Community content - including the Highest Aspirations podcast. Before joining Ellevation, she worked as a Communications Fellow through Leadership for Educational Equity at a parent advocacy group in Denver, CO. She originally became interested in education during her time with Teach for America teaching first grade in Richmond, CA. We have really enjo

What supports can a designated immigrant/refugee program provide for students and families that go beyond what a typical school or district may be providing? After the past year of interrupted learning, what can we learn from educators who have worked with SIFE students and newcomers - particularly when it comes to social-emotional needs? How are refugees actively benefiting or improving the communities they are in, and in turn how can community partnerships play a vital role in supporting refugee students and families? We discuss these questions and much more with Rebecca Masters. Rebecca Masters is a Senior Youth Coordinator for New American Pathways, an Atlanta based nonprofit with the mission of Helping Refugees and Georgia Thrive. Their vision is for new Americans in metro Atlanta to become successful, contributing, and welcomed members of Georgia’s communities. They fulfill these goals by offering the most comprehensive, fully integrated continuum of services targeted to meet the specific needs of refug

How does trauma that migrant children experience manifest in the classroom, and what impact does it have on their ability to communicate and develop relationships at school? What can educators who do not share the lived experiences of their students do to best support them, and why is better representation so crucial? How can those entering higher education or other realms where they may be underrepresented or experience imposter syndrome draw motivation and support from their community? We discuss these questions and much more with Dr. José Luis Zelaya. Dr. Zelaya is a Dreamer born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. At 13 years of age, he was obligated to flee Honduras and embark on a journey to the United States as an unaccompanied minor. He fled Honduras after living for many years as a street child in absolute poverty and violence levels. After a dangerous 45-day journey, he was found in American soil by immigration officers and months later reunited with his mother and sister in Texas. With the help of his mot

Welcome back to the second episode in our two-part series with Professor K. David Harrison. Make sure to check out part one on Anchor or wherever you listen to podcasts, and visit our community page to find our key takeaways from the whole conversation, resources and more. How are languages inextricably connected to other aspects of society and what does that mean about preserving and valuing them? What strategies can educators of multilingual students use to incentivize their students to help keep their home languages thriving - even while they are drawn to use English as the language of record? How have globalization, technology, and emotional connections all played a vital role in preserving and valuing languages? We discuss these questions and much more with K. David Harrison, Professor of Linguistics & Cognitive Science at Swarthmore College and National Geographic Society Explorer. David Harrison is a linguist, author and advocate for the documentation and revitalization of endangered languages. He