Santa Clara University

A Presentation by Dr. Marco Bravo
Assistant Professor, Department of Education

When: Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Where: Bannan Hall 241
Time: 11:45 am - 1:00 pm

Closing the achievement gap in our nation will requre educatiors to address the needs of the rapidly growing population of English language learners (ELL) in U.S. schools. In order to meet the needs of ELL, teachers must have the ability to recognize and address the language demands of academic content area instruction, including those in science (NCES, 1999). The question of how to support teachers in developing these abilities and enacting instruction that supports the science learning and English language development of ELL is the central concern of this NSF-funded research project.

This study involves the use of educative materials to provide ongoing support for teachers in making informed instructional decisions for ELL in science. The innovation is instantiated in a curriculum program, Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading (Seeds/Roots) based on the idea that curriculum materials can support both teacher and student learning (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). This presentation unpacks results from a pilot study used to test the efficacy of this approach with 15 classroom teachers.

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