Blogs Our last road trip stop in Tampa, Florida, helped us reconnect with the importance of giving students all kinds of space for learning: verbal space to drive discussions, cognitive space to design questions for learning, and physical space to foster collaboration.
With our sense of space broadened, let’s make our way to Flushing International High School in New York, where we’ll meet teacher Jordan Wolf. He’s going to give us some incredible insight about working with English Language Learners. Onward!
You’re invited to join us as we take another special tour, this time in Jordan’s classroom. We’ll learn more about the ways he meets students where they are in order to build deeper learning experiences. Don’t forget, when you participate in the Zaption tour, you also have the chance to discuss it with teachers from around the country who are road tripping with us!
(I also had a chance to talk with Jordan as part of the Road Trip planning. To learn more about Jordan’s story, read my interview with him.)
Souvenirs
My collection of souvenirs from this road trip continue to accumulate! Talking with Jordan Wolf and getting a unique peek into his classroom has given me some truths about teaching that I don’t want to forget.
- Students accelerate when they use both their native language and English as part of their learning process.
- A side effect of project-based learning is the authentic opportunity it creates for students to engage in academic discourse as part of their learning process.
- Great learning isn’t magic. It comes from deliberate instructional moves long before the lesson begins.
Travel Tunes
If you need a few “songs” to get you back home, these fantastic videos will quickly make it to your favorite playlists for deeper learning and teaching English Language Learners. Of course, remember the best playlists are the ones we never finish, so as you continue traversing our highways of videos, don’t forget to collect your favorites along the way.
