The Right to be Curious: The Relationship Between Inquiry, Agency, and Discourse for Multilingual Learners
Where
Online (Zoom)
Workshop Facilitator

Beth Puma is currently an Instructional Coach and EAL Specialist at The American School in Japan.
She has a broad range of experience as a classroom teacher, EAL specialist, curriculum coordinator, and coach in K-12 schools. She has worked with linguistically diverse students in New York City, Tucson, Guangzhou, and Tokyo.
She specializes in working with teachers in unit and lesson design that strategically meets students’ needs through inquiry, standards aligned-instruction, differentiation, and progressive scaffolding.
Beth is dedicated to building a more transformative educational landscape that honors linguistic diversity while designing for linguistic equity.
Target Audience
Classroom/Subject Teachers:
Help all your students, with special attention to the needs of your multilingual learners, through strategically designing experiences that facilitate language learning through rigorous concept development. Gather strategies to help offer choice, voice, and developing classroom discourse.
EAL Specialists:
Take your seat at the table through strategic contributions around curricular and instructional design that facilitates language learning within the context of inquiry. Grow your instructional craftsmanship with strategies to facilitate your students agency alongside their peers, while guiding them through their language acquisition journey.
Curriculum Coordinators and Instructional Coaches:
You know inquiry, voice, and choice are the path forward to live the mission and vision of your school. Learn the nuances of designing for multilingual learners in this context that disrupt deficit paradigms.
Background
If inquiry is the answer, what's the question? A popular question is "Yeah, but how does this look for my multilingual learners?"
Many schools embrace the tenants of student-centered classrooms and inquiry, yet still struggle with implementation that ensures all students have access to the rigor and joy.
Additionally many schools still implement service delivery models for multilingual learners that are isolated, decontextualized, and/or fragmented from the curricular expectations.
This workshop serves to help participants build bridges between the ideas of inquiry/agency and discourse/language.
Aim
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Participants will interrogate their own experiences and biases about multilingual learners in the inquiry classroom in order to work towards linguistically equitable spaces that are curious, rigorous, and joyful.
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Participants will be explore the reciprocal relationship between discourse and inquiry in order to design equitable curriculum and instruction that fosters agency, voice, choice alongside language acquisition.
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Participants will gather differentiation strategies in order to equitably foster agency, voice, choice alongside discourse.
Topics Covered
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The reciprocal relationship of discourse and inquiry
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The motivator of curiosity, engagement, and choice while learning a language
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The roles of EAL specialists and classroom/subject teachers in curricular and instructional design
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Voice and choice differentiation strategies
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UDL, differentiation, scaffolding, personalization: What's the difference? When do we use what for multilingual learners?
Methodology Used
Interactive and differentiated workshop
Implementable Skills
By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped with the following:
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Backwards design language learning experiences with discourse as the goal to make meaning and communicate findings of units of inquiry
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Design differentiated learning experiences that offer students choice and provide the conditions for sharing their voice
FAQ
If I cannot make it to the workshop, will you offer a refund?
Given the logistics involved we will not be able to offer a refund, but you can transfer your registration to somebody else. Or we can also send you the recording (limited time).
Do you offer Continuing Education Credits?
No.
Will I get a certificate of participation?
Yes.