{"id":7919,"date":"2018-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/becoming-an-effective-educator-of-english-learners-job-embedded-competency-based-professional-development-for-all-teachers\/"},"modified":"2020-02-27T14:44:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T19:44:58","slug":"becoming-an-effective-educator-of-english-learners-job-embedded-competency-based-professional-development-for-all-teachers","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/becoming-an-effective-educator-of-english-learners-job-embedded-competency-based-professional-development-for-all-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming an Effective Educator of English Learners: Job-Embedded, Competency-Based Professional Development for All Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ask any public-school teacher across the country about their greatest challenge. They are likely to tell you it is a lack of confidence in their own ability to work with students in their classes who may not speak English, sometimes representing vastly different cultures. The ExcEL Leadership Academy recognized the need for a better approach to professional learning <\/em>that would prepare all teachers to work with English Learners<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"The number of English learners in schools in the United States continues to grow. English learners present particularly diverse and intensive challenges for educators – some students are recent arrivals with limited or formal interrupted schooling, others were born in the United States but lack the academic language required for school success even after many years of ESL support. Many have complicated, interrelated difficulties with literacy in two (or more) languages. At the same time, schools are challenged to locate, hire, and retain specialist English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers. Even in schools well-staffed with bilingual and ESL instructors, the average student spends less than fifty minutes per day engaged in English language instruction. That means more than 80 percent of their time is spent in the mainstream classroom. Much of that 80 percent is spent with well-intentioned, hard-working teachers who know their subject area well, but who know little or nothing about how to scaffold their academic content so ELs can make sense of it. For students who are dually struggling with new concepts AND new language, this context often results in a cycle of lagging achievement, failure, and remediation. Under-prepared teachers are engaged in the same downward cycle, as their skill and confidence fail to grow along with the diversity of the students in front of them.<\/p>\n

These urgent needs led to the development of the new (and much better) approach to teacher learning embodied in the Effective Educator of English Learners<\/em> micro-credential. The Effective Educator<\/em> program emerged from a peer network looking for effective ways of delivering meaningful, accountable professional development that positively impacts student outcomes. Designed from the ground up, it represents a significantly better approach to teacher learning and credentialing.<\/p>\n

The Effective Educator of English Learners<\/em> micro-credential is awarded when teachers have broadened their professional knowledge and skill in five areas:<\/p>\n