Multilingual Learners

Justice-Centered STEM Education with Multilingual Learners: Conceptual Framework and Initial Inquiry into Pre-service Teachers’ Sense-Making

When pressing societal challenges (e.g., COVID-19, access to clean water) are sidelined in science classrooms, science education fails to leverage the knowledge and experiences of minoritized students in school, thus reproducing injustices in society. Our conceptual framework for justice-centered STEM education engages all students in multiple STEM subjects, including data science and computer science, to explain and design solutions to pressing societal challenges and their disproportionate impact on minoritized groups.

Author/Presenter

Scott E. Grapin

Alison Haas

N’Dyah McCoy

Okhee Lee

Year
2023
Short Description

Our conceptual framework for justice-centered STEM education engages all students in multiple STEM subjects, including data science and computer science, to explain and design solutions to pressing societal challenges and their disproportionate impact on minoritized groups. In the first part of this article, we extend our conceptual framework by articulating the affordances of justice-centered STEM education for one minoritized student group that has been traditionally denied meaningful STEM learning experiences: multilingual learners (MLs). In the second part of the article, we report on an initial inquiry into how 14 undergraduate pre-service teachers made sense of our conceptual framework after participating in lessons from our COVID-19 instructional unit.

Multilingual Classrooms: Development of an Observational Analytic Tool to Examine Mathematics Instruction

This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning. The aim of this process is to (a) combine existing rubrics that capture teaching strategies and positioning construct protocol, (b) test the combined rubric in multiple elementary classroom settings, (c) revise the rubric in light of testing to create a more consistent version, and (d) retest with a larger sample of classrooms.

Author/Presenter

Michael W. Krell

Abigayle Dirdak

Beatriz Quintos

Jonee Wilson

M. Alejandra Sorto

Claudia Galindo

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning.

Multilingual Classrooms: Development of an Observational Analytic Tool to Examine Mathematics Instruction

This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning. The aim of this process is to (a) combine existing rubrics that capture teaching strategies and positioning construct protocol, (b) test the combined rubric in multiple elementary classroom settings, (c) revise the rubric in light of testing to create a more consistent version, and (d) retest with a larger sample of classrooms.

Author/Presenter

Michael W. Krell

Abigayle Dirdak

Beatriz Quintos

Jonee Wilson

M. Alejandra Sorto

Claudia Galindo

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning.

Multilingual Classrooms: Development of an Observational Analytic Tool to Examine Mathematics Instruction

This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning. The aim of this process is to (a) combine existing rubrics that capture teaching strategies and positioning construct protocol, (b) test the combined rubric in multiple elementary classroom settings, (c) revise the rubric in light of testing to create a more consistent version, and (d) retest with a larger sample of classrooms.

Author/Presenter

Michael W. Krell

Abigayle Dirdak

Beatriz Quintos

Jonee Wilson

M. Alejandra Sorto

Claudia Galindo

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning.

Parents and Teachers Doing Mathematics Together

Collaborative partnerships between families and teachers have the potential to support and transform students’ mathematics learning experiences. This study focused on interactions among mothers and teachers of multilingual elementary grade students who participated together in workshops focused on teaching and learning mathematics. We analyzed participants’ engagement in open-ended, culturally responsive mathematics tasks designed to foster collaboration and equitable participation.

Author/Presenter

Erin Turner

Pilar Ester Mariñoso

Marta Civil

Beatriz Quintos

Fany Salazar

Maura Varley Gutiérrez

Year
2023
Short Description

Collaborative partnerships between families and teachers have the potential to support and transform students’ mathematics learning experiences. This study focused on interactions among mothers and teachers of multilingual elementary grade students who participated together in workshops focused on teaching and learning mathematics.

Parents and Teachers Doing Mathematics Together

Collaborative partnerships between families and teachers have the potential to support and transform students’ mathematics learning experiences. This study focused on interactions among mothers and teachers of multilingual elementary grade students who participated together in workshops focused on teaching and learning mathematics. We analyzed participants’ engagement in open-ended, culturally responsive mathematics tasks designed to foster collaboration and equitable participation.

Author/Presenter

Erin Turner

Pilar Ester Mariñoso

Marta Civil

Beatriz Quintos

Fany Salazar

Maura Varley Gutiérrez

Year
2023
Short Description

Collaborative partnerships between families and teachers have the potential to support and transform students’ mathematics learning experiences. This study focused on interactions among mothers and teachers of multilingual elementary grade students who participated together in workshops focused on teaching and learning mathematics.

Parents and Teachers Doing Mathematics Together

Collaborative partnerships between families and teachers have the potential to support and transform students’ mathematics learning experiences. This study focused on interactions among mothers and teachers of multilingual elementary grade students who participated together in workshops focused on teaching and learning mathematics. We analyzed participants’ engagement in open-ended, culturally responsive mathematics tasks designed to foster collaboration and equitable participation.

Author/Presenter

Erin Turner

Pilar Ester Mariñoso

Marta Civil

Beatriz Quintos

Fany Salazar

Maura Varley Gutiérrez

Year
2023
Short Description

Collaborative partnerships between families and teachers have the potential to support and transform students’ mathematics learning experiences. This study focused on interactions among mothers and teachers of multilingual elementary grade students who participated together in workshops focused on teaching and learning mathematics.

‘Me Hizo Sentir Como Científica’: The Expressed Science Identities of Multilingual Learners in High School Biology Classrooms

To make sound science-related decisions in a global society, individuals must possess a science identity, or see themselves as capable of doing and understanding science. Science identity development begins in school-aged years, when multilingual students (MLs) are often marginalised in the classroom due to language challenges and low expectations placed on them. This descriptive multiple case study explores the science identities expressed by six US high school MLs in their biology classrooms. Data from semi structured interviews were analysed through qualitative coding methods.

Author/Presenter

Molly M. Staggs

Julie C. Brown

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Science identity development begins in school-aged years, when multilingual students (MLs) are often marginalised in the classroom due to language challenges and low expectations placed on them. This descriptive multiple case study explores the science identities expressed by six US high school MLs in their biology classrooms.

Science Teaching and Learning in Linguistically Super-Diverse Multicultural Classrooms

American schools are becoming more linguistically diverse as immigrants and resettled refugees who speak various languages and dialects arrive at the United States from around the world. This demographic change shifts US classrooms toward super-diversity as the new norm or mainstream in all grade levels (Enright 2011; Park, Zong and Batalova 2018; Vertovec 2007). In super-diverse classroom contexts, students come from varied migration channels, immigration statuses, languages, countries of origin, and religions, which contribute to new and complex social configurations of the classroom.

Author/Presenter

Minjung Ryu

Jocelyn Elizabeth Nardo

Mavreen Rose S. Tuvilla

Camille Gabrielle Love 

Year
2022
Short Description

In super-diverse classroom contexts, students come from varied migration channels, immigration statuses, languages, countries of origin, and religions, which contribute to new and complex social configurations of the classroom. Super-diversity thus encourages educators and researchers to draw on nuanced understandings of the complexity that it brings to bear in educational settings and reconsider instructional approaches that we have believed to be effective. This chapter provides an insight into the complexity of teaching science in linguistically super-diverse classrooms with the case of Riverview High School.

Invisible Multilingual Black and Brown Girls: Raciolinguistic Narratives of Identity in Science Education

Black and Brown girls are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Although studies have examined the reasons for this by exploring Black and Brown girls' experiences based on culture, gender, and race, there is a need for specifically understanding how language contributes to racialized experiences in science education. This study fills this critical gap by presenting narratives of three academically talented multilingual girls from Black and Brown communities.

Author/Presenter

Akira Harper

Shakhnoza Kayumova

Year
2022
Short Description

Black and Brown girls are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Although studies have examined the reasons for this by exploring Black and Brown girls' experiences based on culture, gender, and race, there is a need for specifically understanding how language contributes to racialized experiences in science education. This study fills this critical gap by presenting narratives of three academically talented multilingual girls from Black and Brown communities.