Monday, April 22, 2013

This Friday - Free RtI² for ELLs Webinar!





I am excited to tell you that WIDA will be offering a free webinar this Friday, April 26, 2013 on one of the hottest topics in our work with English language learners (ELLs).  The webinar will be about how we as educators respond to ELLs that are experiencing difficulties in school. 

This webinar will be presented by Cristina Sanchez-Lopez and Laurie Donnell, the lead developers of the WIDA RtI² for ELLs document.  It will be interactive.  Participants will learn about seven important factors in understanding ELLs’ development, and they will have a chance to complete a sample screening protocol that will assist schools and districts in gathering data along these critical factors.  Participants will also view real examples from school districts across the consortium while learning how WIDA tools and resources can be used within an RtI² framework. Interested in joining the webinar?
Click here for all the details.

The webinar is based on a new document called Developing a Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Approach to Response to Instruction and Intervention (RtI² ) for English Language Learners (ELLs).  Currently a draft of this document is available online.  Educators from across the WIDA Consortium at the state, district and school levels have been providing WIDA with fantastic feedback on this document. That feedback is being reviewed and used to finalize the document.  The final publication will be released this summer (2013) as a free download and for purchase as a printed book.

But it won’t stop there, WIDA plans to add even more resources to their RtI webpage in the coming months.  There will be tools to help educators introduce the publication to their colleagues.  Having reviewed the document, I am eager to get my hands on these new resources. 

Written by: Tammy King
 

5 comments:

  1. I'm interested. Where do I sign up?

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    1. Mrs. Moreno,
      No need to sign up ahead of time. But you do need to make sure your computer is ready and set up for the webinar. So go to http://wida.us/resources and follow the directions there. That will be the same webpage you will go to on Friday to join the webinar. Be sure to note the time zone. It will be from 10:30am - 12:30 pm CDT (which is 11:30am EDT and 9:30am MDT).

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  2. Will this be available at a later date?

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    Replies
    1. Anon,
      Absolutely. The webinar will be recorded and archived. It will be available at http://www.wida.us/RtI2 and in our Download Library. Look for it beginning Friday, May 3, 2013.

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    2. There were some technical difficulties (audio problems) during the webinar today. The presenters have graciously offered to re-record the webinar and post it. However, this might take a few weeks in order to schedule, record and post it. The documents referenced during the webinar are already available at http://www.wida.us/resources.

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