Abstract:

The diversity of our schools is evident in classrooms where three to five or more languages and cultures are represented due to increase in immigration. In fact, the growth of K-12 students in the school population can be ascribed to multilingual learners (U.S. Department of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). This has significant implications for our schools. Nearly all teachers will have at least one multilingual learner (ML) in their classrooms. Despite the current reality faced by school districts, teacher preparation programs are not providing their teacher candidates the knowledge and skills they need to work effectively with their culturally and linguistically diverse learners (Pavlak & Cavender, 2019; Santibañez & Gándara, 2018).

Puzzled with the overwhelming testimonial of researchers on the high number of misdiagnosed ELs in special education, inadequately teacher training for working with MLs, and the national and state data on MLs’ consistent low performance on standards of learning assessments, we found that it is important to examine ways to address these challenges. The literature reviewed suggested that teacher preparation programs and professional developments have attempted to address teacher training educational gaps by focusing on instruction of specific skills, such as reading comprehension, or by including in the curriculum courses on cultural diversity, or even specialized degrees, like bilingual special education. Although those efforts have merit, they seldom aim at preparing educators to take a team approach to the education of MLs. The complexity of this population of students and the importance of MLs’ language development requires a team of educators to learn and work together to effectively address MLs’ unique needs.

The purpose of this study was threefold:
(a) to expand the research base on professional development for in-service elementary educators working with MLs in elementary schools;
(b) to examine whether the year-long professional development team approach would increase educators’ knowledge and skills on effective methods for assessing and educating MLs with and without disabilities, and
(c) to investigate whether a team approach in a year-long professional development would be an efficient way to increase educators’ collaboration among themselves while also expanding their engagement in the community.

Data from this study were drawn from three high-need school districts located in the mid-Atlantic area of the United States. From those elementary schools, professional development was provided to school teams of two to five members, resulting in a total of 89 participants. The teacher training consisted of four new graduate courses on the assessment and instruction of MLs with and without disabilities. Using a longitudinal quasi-experimental approach, we assessed the effectiveness of the project through pre/post surveys, focus groups, family engagement events, and course performance. Results showed significant differences between the pre- and post- surveys in participants’ instructional knowledge and practices, content knowledge, and family engagement.

Keywords:

Multilingual learners, professional development, disability, collaboration, elementary schools.