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QTEL
QTEL Professional Development Update
Year One Calendar
Year Two Calendar
| | What is QTEL?
Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) is a unique project created by the Teacher Professional Development program at WestEd under the direction of Aída Walqui. It is devoted to improving the capacity of teachers to support the linguistic, conceptual, and academic development of adolescent English language learners, both immigrant and U.S.-born. Funded through the Western Regional Educational Laboratory Teacher Quality Initiative, as well as other funding sources, it is grounded in a body of research that challenges the traditional thinking that teaching and learning for English language learners must be simplified. Instead it provides an academic framework that offers intellectual challenges and supports that strengthen teacher knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in classes, and in turn raise student achievement.
Today’s educators are expected to help the most diverse student population in United States history meet the highest education standards ever set. QTEL helps classroom practitioners meet that challenge. Our vision is to improve the education of adolescent English language learners by creating and spreading the use of learning models, tools, and processes which enhance the professional growth of secondary teachers who work with English language learners, from pre-service education, through induction, life-long learning, accomplished teaching, and teacher leadership. We do this using:
- A four-phase Sustained Professional Development/Apprenticeship Model for professional developers that includes Building the Base, Participation/Observation, Mentoring/Coaching, and Appropriation.
- A learning model in which our work with educators mirrors the same kinds of learning opportunities they need to offer their students.
- Multimedia modules that incorporate reflection, exemplars, elaborations, and road maps.
- New tools and processes developed through research conducted in secondary schools and classrooms.
QTEL/ESUHSD PARTNERSHIP GOALS: - To work intensively on the development of all teachers at each participating school so they can offer quality educational opportunities to all of their students, especially their English learners.
- To accelerate the educational achievement of English learners as measured by standardized testing and increases in attendance, school graduation rates, successful transitions to higher education, as well as by decreases in dropout rates.
- To set up examples of the quality education that is possible in high schools with all students.
PARTNERSHIP TERM:
Two years with a possible two-year extenstion based on evaluation and agreement between our ESUHSD, WestEd, and the Irvine Foundation.
PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS James Lick High School; Yerba Buena High School; Silver Creek High School; Mt. Pleasant High School
FOR A COPY OF THE PARTNERSHIP PROGRESS REPORT CLICK HERE:
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WestEd AND QTEL, CLICK BELOW:
www.wested.org/qtel
Contacts:
WestEd
Mary Schmida, Research Associate
MSchmid@WestEd.org
East Side Union High School District
Robert Ibarra, Coordinator, Professional Development
ibarrar@esuhsd.org
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| | | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | | August 2006 | October 2006 | February 2007 | May 2007 | | During the first two days of professional development, teachers were grouped by school site; on the third day, teachers were grouped by discipline. Carefully crafted activities provided opportunities for teachers to engage in substantive interactions with colleagues within and across schools. Focus: The work emphasized the acceleration and deepened understanding of subject matter content and the development of students' ability to use key disciplinary concepts and process orally in sustained discussions. | The goal of day four was to allow teachers in like-disciplines from each of the four participating schools to work together during a regular school day. Teachers engaged in QTEL tasks to build on and strengthen the knowledge and understanding of scaffolding of language and content. Teachers collaborated on the creation of lesson plans that were academically rigorous with necessary and appropriate scaffolds. | The goal of day five was on the importance of student talk and elements essential in a task to promote this. Teachers again had opportunities to collaborate together, using their own materials, to prepare lessons that they could take into the classroom the following week to implement. | The day was devoted to lesson planning with colleagues from all participating schools. Teachers shared with presenters orally , and in writing on the evaluation, that they were pleased to have developed a deeper understanding of scaffolding during the course of the year, and now think about how to prepare lessons that promote quality student talk and interactions. |
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| | | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | | August 2007 | December 2007 | February 2008 | May 2008 | | The training began with an examination of the STAR testing cluster data for each school, by discipline. Teachers identified one strand in the cluster data on which to focus and drive their lesson planning for the next three days. | The focus of Day 4 was on the language of testing. The day was spent working with teachers examining the language expectations of the STAR test in each of the four disciplines, and discussing implications for instruction. Teachers also had an opportunity for lesson planning, working with colleagues across the four schools. | Day 5 provided an opportunity to really take apart tasks, examine them, and consider uses for them in teachers' own classes. Each discipline also offered teachers a new student exemplar, all of which included at least two new tasks that teachers had not yet had the opportunity to experience. | Day 6 was a day of reflection, review, and also provided an opportunity to experience one last student exemplar in each discipline. Aida Walqui provided a keynote presentation to close the two-year collaboration. | |
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