A single turn of the kaleidoscope. A fuller picture over time.

CALeidoscope is a professional learning series for bilingual and dual language educators who believe the best thinking happens in community. Each session pairs conceptual grounding with community dialogue to examine the questions that our field keeps circling back to – not to find easy answers, but to see our work more fully, together. Each session holds its own thought. Together, they form an ongoing conversation.

Each 90-minute session will include conceptual grounding, individual reflection, and structured dialogue, closing with a collective synthesis and at least one practical takeaway to take back to the classroom.

CALeidoscope Series: How do multiliteracies enrich student voice and identity?

Literacy has never been only about text. When we expand our definition of what counts as meaning-making and embrace digital, visual, oral, and other multimodal and cultural forms of expression, we hold space for our multilingual learners to show up fully in our classrooms. This session explores how a multiliteracies framework enriches not just students’ strengths and assets, but who they get to be – amplifying voice, honoring identity, and redefining what it means to be literate in today’s multilingual world.

CALeidoscope Series: What are we really measuring in our bilingual classrooms?

Assessment in bilingual classrooms is never a neutral act. When we assess only in the language of instruction, or rely on tools designed for monolingual learners, we risk measuring the container rather than what’s inside. This session brings educators together to examine the tensions around assessment practices in bilingual and dual language contexts, asking whose knowledge counts, in which language, and what we might be missing about what our students actually know and can do.

CALeidoscope Series: What does languaging look like in the bilingual classroom?

Language is something we do, not just something we have. This session invites bilingual and dual language educators to explore languaging – the active, dynamic ways students and teachers use language to make meaning – and what it looks like when we honor that in our classrooms. Through conceptual grounding and community dialogue, participants will examine how a languaging lens shifts what we notice, what we value, and how we design learning experiences for bilingual students.

CALeidoscope Series: What does the bilingual brain need from literacy instruction?

The bilingual brain is not the monolingual brain plus a second language. Research on dual language development tells us that bilingual learners process language and literacy in ways that are fundamentally different and that literacy instruction designed for monolingual English speakers is inadequate for students who live and learn across two language worlds. When we leverage the bilingual brain, we open pathways to deeper literacy development in both languages. This session explores what it means to design instruction that truly meets the bilingual brain where it is.