Multilingual Learners

This chapter describes an ongoing research-practice partnership with in-service teachers in communities across Oregon focused on broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Broadening participation is essential for creating more justice-centered STEM in our society and cannot occur without families and communities working in partnership with educators to ensure that community resources, needs, and multi-generational perspectives are centered in this work.

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.

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.

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.

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.