Guest blog post by Jessica Goldberg, team lead for the Spanish Teacher Professional Learning Community LIGHT Awards project:
On January 26, 2018, the CUES staff attended a BeGLAD refresher training session. (All teachers had been initially trained in GLAD strategies at the start of the school year). This session was unique in many ways, not least because it was held at a very special location: the One Workplace showroom in Oakland, California. One Workplace is a furniture company that, among other things, works with schools to create active learning environments. We were fortunate to receive a tour of their showroom and test out some of their kid and teacher-friendly furniture!
The refresher training itself was tailored to our specific site’s needs by our amazing BeGLAD trainer, Amina Khan. CUES is a unique school site, with two different programs functioning simultaneously: a 50/50 Spanish/English dual immersion program, and a SEI (Structured English Immersion) program. All of the teachers on the staff were present, as were our administrators (principal, vice principal, and learning coach). Amina was able to ensure that we all got something out of the session, which allowed us to refresh our memories and dig deeper into the GLAD strategies that enable all teachers to scaffold learning for second language learners. In addition, Amina helped us to see how we can incorporate these strategies into our new, site-wide language arts curriculum, Benchmark Advance/Adelante.
We are so grateful to the LIGHT Award team, the staff at One Workplace, our administrators, and to BeGLAD for making this day possible!
