Educational Services Newsletter
October 21, 2019
Constructing Meaning
On October 15, the District’s Constructing Meaning training continued with Day 4 for teachers. To ensure the academic achievement of English learners, a comprehensive approach for developing English proficiency is essential. Integral to such an approach is explicit language instruction in every class, every day.
Constructing Meaning provides teachers with the process and tools for weaving explicit language instruction into content area teaching. Lesson planning is driven by the content and academic language demands of discipline-specific learning. Based on backward design and a gradual release of responsibility model, the Constructing Meaning process prompts teachers to:
understand the role language plays in content learning
decide what language knowledge students need to access content and express understanding
provide appropriate, explicit oral and written language instruction and practice
In Soledad, teams of secondary teachers across subject-areas from Main Street Middle School and Soledad High School, this year 2 of implementation. Four “Apprentices” who were members of year 1 (Cohort 1) are partnering with the EL Achieve trainer to present in the workshop.
South County Professional Learning Network
The South County PLN reconvened on October 17. Teams from Jack Franscioni and Main Street Middle Schools met along with a team from Chalone Peaks Middle School in King CIty with Consultants from the Monterey County Office of Education to work on problems of practice and instructional strategies related to raising teacher efficacy and student achievement.
Randy Bangs, Associate Superintendent of Educational Services
Email: rbang@soledad.k12.ca.us
Website: soledadusd.org
Location: 1261 Metz Road, Soledad, CA, USA
Phone: (831)6780668