Watch the Gap! But How to Close it?

Instructor: Paige MacLeod
Email: PMacLeodLIIPS@gmail.com

Description:
In the middle of a well-organized and prepared lesson, have you ever realized your students do not have the background knowledge to complete the task or understand the concept? You suddenly find yourself doing a quick Google Image or YouTube search, drawing diagrams on the SmartBoard or scrounging up some sort of visual to help provide that background knowledge, and essentially, fill that gap. We try to anticipate these setbacks and incorporate the background knowledge or skills, but it is impossible to predict them all until you are in the moment.
As educators, we are well aware of the basic fact that there are challenges and “gaps” that our ELL students face. These challenges are present despite where the student is in their academic career, or when they entered the American educational system. There is an overwhelming number of inequities, so it is important that we try to pinpoint the most common, detrimental, and even the ones that may be less obvious.

Objective: Course participants will have an understanding of the array of systematic and societal challenges of being an ELL and how these challenges contribute to widening the academic gap for them.