Overhauling Learning for Multilingual Students

"In Education Overhaul for Multilingual Students, scholar-practitioner Dr. Jeff Zwiers argues that the path to pedagogical justice for multilingual learners sits atop a foundation of six, high leverage dimensions: (1) Cultivating student agency and voice (2) Providing conditions for meaningful interactions -- supported opportunities for peer-to-peer conversations about academic content (3) Teaching students to build up ideas through language and thinking (4) Providing students with engaging challenges (5) Engaging in deep assessment that values students' rights to self-monitor and reflect across a range of academic and social areas (6) Nurturing student critical and creative thinking There are no shortcuts to lasting pedagogical justice. The only way to achieve it in every school and classroom is to replace much of the current model of learning and growth with one that is grounded in authentically valuing student differences, voices, and empowerment. This book is designed to guide teachers and school leaders in enacting the Idea-Building and Growth approach, which focuses on co-constructing concepts and claims while also working on key aspects of human growth such as agency, social skills, creativity. It is also informed by an assets-based framework, the strategies are designed to help multilingual learners learn and grow is much as possible in order to reach their full and varied potentials. Zwiers shifts educator focus from remediation and test preparation to what students are learning, how they are assessed, how to choose and change curriculums, how to teach, and how to adapt the overall system to support these overhauls. The book also includes activities for teachers call upon educators to engage in a similar idea building process to that of their students with the goal of reconceptualizing traditional approaches to educating multilingual learners to a deeper level, holistic approach that is strengths-based and justice-centered"--