Student Progressions in Science and Language Development – Progress in Developing Language Fluency and Complexity

Partners in Innovation: Integrating ELD and Science

The Integrating ELD (English Language Development) and Science program, a partnership between the Exploratorium and Sonoma Valley Unified School District (SVUSD), offers elementary students wide-ranging opportunities to interact with and make meaning of natural phenomenon through science inquiry. In turn, students’ individual and collective investigations create rich and varied opportunities for using language. The kind of student-centered and student-generated learning produced by the Integrating ELD and Science program happens in deep and complex ways, but often “below the radar screen” of what can be detected through formal standardized student assessments. As an alternate construct to achievement testing, the concept of student progressions provides a view of how children build their knowledge over time.

The student progressions concept is presented here to show how SVUSD students at large fulfilled the primary purpose of the Integrating ELD and Science program-making positive and often dramatic progress in developing both their oral and written language fluency, as well as their communication skills. The data informing this report is gleaned from a range of sources: classroom observations; teachers’ survey responses; teacher reflections from interviews and written testimonies; as well as exemplars of student conversations. Discussed are not only why science provides an especially rich context for acquiring language and how SVUSD teachers expanded their classroom practices, but also descriptions of what integrated science and language classrooms looked like and how students benefited from their participation in those language-rich classrooms.

Progress in Developing Language Fluency and Complexity (pdf, 11 pages)

Partners in Innovation: Integrating ELD and Science
Exploratorium and Sonoma Valley Unified School District
PROJECT PORTFOLIO:

Introduction and Overview – The Innovation and Its Contributions

The Contributions to Teachers – How Teachers Were Empowered to Support Students Learning Science and Developing English Language Fluency

Student Progressions in Science and Language Development:

What follows are five separate and brief reports focusing on various aspects of student progressions in learning science and language. We suggest that reader begin with the first, “Student Progressions in Science and Language Development: An Introduction and Rationale” that describes the idea of student progressions.  The construct of student progressions serves as an alternative to standardized test scores as a way to assess and demonstrate student growth and development.

An Introduction and Rationale

Progress in Developing Positive Attitudes and Confidence

Progress in Learning Science Content

Progress in Developing Science Practices and Thinking Skills

Progress in Developing Language Fluency and Complexity