Highest Aspirations

In this short episode, we recap Season 1 and preview what we have planned for Season 2 - coming in January, 2019. Thanks to all our listeners and guests for your contributions to our first season. On behalf of everyone at Ellevation, we wish you a happy holiday season! Check out all 30 Season 1 episodes wherever you listen to podcasts and discover more great content at https://ellevationeducation....

How has Lincoln High School designed and implemented systems to foster a welcoming environment for students that collectively speak over 30 different languages? What might schools do to ensure that all students, including ELLs and newcomers, have access to a wide variety of courses? How can home grown “cultural liaisons" help promote family and community engagement while also enhancing the teacher...

What are some best practices to overcome challenges and ensure successful home visits for families of EL students? How might we set up activities outside of school (in neutral locations) so that families can come together? How can districts use creative funding approaches to pay for these programs? How can educators get started with this important work? We discuss these questions and much more wit...

Where are our Take the Pledge Scholarship winners now? How did their high school experiences prepare them for college life? What have they learned that they can now share with others? In this bonus episode, we speak with Maria Perez, a recent high school graduate from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We discuss her experience as an English Language Learner, the importance of family and teacher support, future pla...

How can EL teachers best learn about the sometimes complicated cultural backgrounds of their students? How might they confront the challenge of ensuring that other teachers and staff also have efficient access to this information? What cultural information is most important for content teachers (particularly those who do not have EL training) and how might EL teachers go about sharing it? We discu...

How might we design professional learning opportunities that provide both a quality, personalized learning pathway and a path to licensure to work with English Language Learners? What are some of the advantages of utilizing blended and personalized learning strategies to bring diverse cohorts of educators together around ELL instruction? How can partnerships forged between school districts and loc...

In this bonus episode, we bring you conversations from the annual WIDA Conference that took place in Detroit. We brought some guests over to our booth talk about ELL instruction, the ELL Community, and the conference itself. Thanks to the following people for joining us: Anna Matis and Carol Salva from Seidlitz Education Amanda Rodriguez and Brandi Smith from Alabaster City Schools, AL Jess Bell f...

In this episode, we speak with Abu Bakr a-Rabia about how how his journey to Canada as a Syrian refugee became a book written by his teacher Winnie Yeung. Abu Bakr talks with us about learning English, adapting to a very different life in Canada, and why it was so important for him to tell his story. Despite the struggles he and his family endured, his message is one of positivity and praise for t...

What happens when an ESL teacher helps a refugee student tell his story? How can relating simple, day to day activities in a war-torn country help us understand that people around the world have more similarities than differences? Why is it so important to understand what our students want to do with their learning? We discuss these questions and much more in Part 1 of a two part series about the...

How can making and sharing music bring together diverse groups of students? What skills does an educator need to incorporate tech tools to help students create culturally relevant and academically appropriate products? How can teachers of any subject leverage the power of music and technology nurture strong classroom and school communities? We discuss these questions and more with Sarah Minette. S...

What gaps exist between resettled refugees and their communities and how might we go about bridging them? How can the simple act of spending time with one another in a common space help break down barriers? Why is it so important to move toward an asset based approach with newcomers and what they bring to our communities? In this episode, we are joined by Kitti Murray and Walt Anderson of Refuge C...

How are schools accommodating English Language Learners with disabilities? What are some of the common challenges when working with these students and how might we overcome them? What impacts do EL and disability status have on reclassification or exiting? We discuss these questions and much more with Dr. Sara Kangas of Lehigh University. As an applied linguist, Dr. Kangas researches the education...

In this episode, award winning journalist Helen Thorpe joins us to discuss her most recent book, The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom. The book follows the lives of twenty-two teenagers from around the world over the course of one school year as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado, in a beginner-level English Language Acquisition class. Many a...

What opportunities exist for ELL Specialists to work as coaches to help content teachers better serve their English Language Learners? What strategies have proven successful and sustainable for supporting students in the long term? What are some of the obstacles that make this work challenging and how can anticipating them help maximize impact? We discuss these questions and more with Michelle Ben...

How might a teacher use podcasts as a way to increase language skills of EL students? How can creating podcast episodes help newcomers become engaged contributors to their school communities? How can telling stories about family experiences in this format enhance cultural responsive practices? We discuss these questions and more with James Housworth, creator of the Hidden Voices Podcast. James is...

What are the implications of ESSA on ELL programs and instruction? What specifically are Title 1 and Title 3 administrators going to observe in the coming months? And how about principals and teachers? How is the K-12 world we know going to change in 2018-2019? We discuss these questions and more as Ellevation President and Co-Founder founder Teddy Rice sits down with Dr. David Holbrook of TransAC...

What are some of the barriers to family engagement in underserved communities? How can using basic technology help educators better engage with families of English Language Learners? How do we go about changing mindsets and perceptions of families who may not have had positive experiences with formal education or those who have limited education in US schools? We discuss these questions and more i...

Many team members here at Ellevation Education recently participated in the company's 5th annual Hackathon. In this bonus episode, Steve sits down with Ellevation's VP of Engineering Eric Wong to learn more about what it is and why we do it.

How do ELL programs and instruction differ in Canada? What supports are in place to help newcomers and their families succeed in their new country? How do educational systems in Canada support diverse populations of students? We discuss these topics and more with Paula Markus, former ESL Coordinator for the Toronto School Board and Sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto.

How do schools go about identifying and developing EL teacher leaders to help other educators work with culturally and linguistically diverse students? What strategies have been most successful in developing these EL teacher leaders? How do schools create a culture in which EL teachers can lead the way and serve as experts in their field? We discuss these questions as they relate to pre-service pr...

How can project based learning strategies help accelerate the learning of ELLs? What kind of community partnerships work best when implementing project based learning in schools? How might teachers facilitate learning outside of the schools in ways that are mutually beneficial to students and community members? We discuss these questions and much more in our conversation with Donna M. Neary. Donna...

What does it take to build a new school from the ground up in a high ELL demographic area? How do school leadership and mission driven initiatives impact the culture of the school? How does a new school recruit, train, and retain highly qualified teachers to work with underserved populations? We discuss these questions and much more with Ruben Alonzo, Founder of Excelencia Charter Academy in East...

What is cultural responsiveness and how can schools and teachers integrate it into their practice? How do we weave cultural responsiveness into lesson planning, grouping, and assessment? What role does professional development have in ensuring educators are equipped with culturally sensitive strategies? We discuss these questions and more with Sarah Said. Sarah has fifteen years of experience work...

How can ELL stakeholders tap into the power of Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) on Twitter and beyond? What should ELL teachers do to be viewed as experts and advocates in their schools? What resources are most powerful for those just getting started? We discuss these questions and much more with Emily Francis. Emily is an English as a Second Language teacher at W.M. Irvin Elementary School i...

What does rigor mean for students with interrupted formal education (SIFE)? How do we recognize and leverage the experiences newcomers bring to improve the education of all students? Why is it important that educators embrace a mindset that constantly challenges beliefs about students and what they are capable of? We discuss these topics and much more in our conversation with Carol Salva. Carol is...