There are few things that we like better than hanging out with dual language immersion teachers and administrators and talking about the art of multilingual teaching. We have a steadfast belief in the capacity for growth in students and adults alike, and getting to know our partners face to face has been one of the best parts of expanding into new regions across the U.S.
Conferences style events have their place, but an in-person educator summit was no longer serving our partners well. In short, we needed a change.
But as the addalingua network of partner schools has grown over the years, it’s been increasingly challenging for our geographically disparate partner schools, and the addalingua team, to find common dates and times in the summer months to gather for extended professional learning. Conferences style events have their place, but an in-person educator summit was no longer serving our partners well. In short, we needed a change.
As we set about incorporating the feedback of our partner school administrators and teachers, our goal was to take the dynamic professional development we’ve historically offered during our summer educator summit and deliver it online.
We needed a way to provide differentiated learning to our partners schools across the nation that could be completed asynchronously, and could also provide teachers and administrators a simple interface to track their own progress toward addalingua certification.
After interviewing and analyzing numerous learning management systems, we struck up a partnership with the good people at Lessonly, and last week we launched our new online professional learning platform. (Hooray!)
We were geeked to hang out with several groups of fantastic dual language immersion educators throughout the filming process.
It was no small undertaking. We spent days recording video modules with Emmy nominated film-maker and composer Eric Schrotenboer, and several groups of dual language immersion teachers and program leaders from across the area. Then began the work of editing and shaping the content to be facilitated by program point people.
Through it all, we’ve been so grateful for the feedback and support of our partner schools–we knew the adoption of a learning management system would be a big step forward for ALL of us. It was our steadfast belief in human dignity and capacity for growth that propelled us forward, and so far the feedback has been tremendous:
“Seems user friendly! Thanks for never getting stuck in a rut ~ your innovativeness (yes, I just made that a word) is inspiring for us to strive for our A game too!” – Julie
“It was really helpful. Thank you so much!” – Pedro
“Change is good! Thanks for pushing the SI instructors!” – Laura
The team from Calvary Christian Academy is exploring success indicators in add.a.lingua’s quality quadrants.
It’s extremely gratifying to see teachers and program leaders, like our partners at Calvary Christian Academy pictured above, already tackling their professional learning courses and lessons online and growing in their practice to better serve their students and communities.
Three cheers for dedicated educators that have given their all to students this year and who continue to grow in their craft. Hip, hip, hooray!
Want to learn more about how add.a.lingua provides differentiated professional development for dual language immersion educators?
- Check out our workshops for teachers and administrators.
- Experience our leadership institute for program leaders.
