Virtual professional development project on secondary teachers’ awareness of race, language, and culture

This report presents how a National Professional Development grant project team at a Midwestern university prepared and delivered the first phase of virtual professional development (PD) for preservice teachers and clinical faculty in August 2021. The online PD focused on raising teacher awareness of raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores, 2019; Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa, 2016), translanguaging (García, 2009, 2011), immigration experiences of The book of unknown Americans (Henríquez, 2014), La frontera (Mills et al., 2018), and introduced content-enhanced language objectives (CELO). Data provided by the College of Education and current course programming indicated that there was a gap in the preparation of secondary preservice teachers (SPTs) when teaching content lessons to emergent bilingual learners (EBLs) compared with the national norms. Thus, the three researchers prepared and implemented Grand Seminar 1 to explore their knowledge of EBL demography and enrich their awareness of EBLs ’ race, language, and culture. The SEETEL (Strengthening Equity and Effectiveness for Teachers of English Learners) team designed Grand Seminar 1 to be given virtually due to the context of the COVID 19 pandemic and restrictions on large gatherings. Previous research has indicated that virtual teaching PD is most effect-ive when teachers ’ immediate teaching needs are met, and when the PD is specific and offered by experts who may not be found locally (Bates et al., 2016). After working with language teachers, Giraldo (2014) noticed the importance of a needs-analysis to design PD, connecting research and theory to practical classroom applications, and setting up time for reflection and follow-up; similar findings were also identified by Powell and Bodur (2019). PD for secondary teachers focusing on teaching and learning with EBLs should support development of understanding of new language acquisition, cultural awareness, and sustained collaborative teaching methods (Newman et al., 2010)