Newcomers in Your School: Cultural Connections and Instructional Strategies

August 24 & 31, 2022 | Learn effective strategies and activities to increase your newcomer students’ inclusion and learning in the classroom

Please join CAL for this engaging and interactive two-day virtual institute providing practical resources for building a welcoming environment, both socially and instructionally, for all students.

Given the increasing tide of newcomer youth entering U.S. schools, it is critical to address the cultural, social-emotional, and academic needs of these students to help them succeed in the classroom and beyond. Building on CAL’s decades of experience working with newcomers in educational and community settings, this institute focuses on two key components for optimizing success for newcomer students in the classroom:

• Day One: Cultural Perspectives, Influences, and Key Resources

• Day Two: Adapting Content Instruction for Newcomer Students

Participants will receive proven strategies and practical resources they can use right away to create a welcoming environment for newcomer students and facilitate their learning. Designed for PreK-12 teachers, administrators, and other practitioners who work in educational settings with newcomer students and their families, such as social workers, counselors, and after-school specialists, CAL encourages teams of colleagues to attend.

Participants will learn how to:

• Recognize the diversity of newcomers in the schools, including special populations such as unaccompanied youth, students with limited and interrupted formal education, and students who have experienced displacement and migration
• Identify their own cultural perspectives, assumptions, and biases, and how these interact with others’
• Interact in culturally-relevant ways with immigrant and non-immigrant educators, students, and families
• Use effective approaches and instructional strategies with newcomers in the content classroom
• Access and create ready-to-use resources for classroom instruction

Each attendee will receive a workshop packet with materials that explicitly address how to promote welcome for newcomers within educational settings. Presenters include CAL experts in immigrant and refugee integration and PreK-12 EL education, building on CAL’s decades of experience in working with language learners, immigrants, and refugees.

Institute Agenda

• In early March, participants will be expected to complete approximately 4 hours of self-paced work in CAL’s asynchronous Moodle platform.

August 24, 2022: 9:30am-12:30pm & 2-3:30pm EST

Cultural Perspectives, Influences, and Key Resources

• Building awareness of the diversity of newcomer students in the school, including special populations such as
  • unaccompanied minors
  • students with limited and interrupted formal schooling
• Identifying our own perspectives and how these influence our interactions
• Learning more about our students and their families, and what they contribute to the school and the learning environment
• Fostering connections among your school’s students, families, and teachers, immigrants, and non-immigrants alike
• Determining how to apply resources in your school setting

August 31, 2022: 9:30am-12:30pm & 2-3:30pm EST

Adapting Content Instruction for Newcomer Students

• Analyzing how to adapt content instruction and materials to meet the needs of newcomer students
• Determining how to promote oral language development and begin to bridge oral language skills to literacy development
• Designing classroom activities that allow newcomers to participate in grade-level content
• Analyzing the application of the college and career readiness standards (such as CCSS) for optimal achievement by all newcomer students 

Cost

• Early bird registration by July 13, 2022: $735/person
• After July 13, 2022: $865/Person. Send 2 people or more and pay $735/person