Multilingual Learners

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The resources that multilingual students bring to school mathematics are often ignored. During a teacher-researcher collaborative project focused on creating more equitable learning environments in high school math classrooms, we noted an initial tendency to focus on the challenges and barriers facing multilingual students. To counter this tendency, we worked with two teachers to engage in a structured teacher-student interview to identify and highlight secondary multilingual students’ home and community resources.

Despite the increased availability of curricular resources intended to support teachers to engage in equitable instruction as expected by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013), teachers are still left wondering how to use those generic resources in local classroom contexts that have unique challenges.

This department explores the concept of disciplinary literacy—the conceptual understandings and ways of reading, thinking, and writing involved in critiquing and constructing knowledge in a discipline—and its intersections with aspects of culturally sustaining pedagogy.