Introduction to the 2020 Edition

You may click on the timeline spots in the video to skip to the questions listed below.

• 0:26 Presentation
• 29:50 2 Are the language functions and language features used in addition to the language and content objectives following SIOP of a lesson?
• 32:27 3 Where do the Can Do Descriptors fit in, and what is their relationship to the components of the framework?
• 35:12 4 Provide clarification on the proficiency level descriptors and how they are organized differently from the domains, specifically with respect to the Interpretive and Expressive modes of communication.
• 37:18 5 Are the features are the same, whether they are Expressive or Interpretive? How are they are differentiated within the PLDs?
• 39:34 6 What roll out and implementation advice can you give, as well as a bit of step one?
• 42:34 7 Will there be updates to the Interpretive Speaking and Writing rubrics? Can you provide any additional recommendations we might have around roll out?
• 45:10 8 Multilingual learners is used throughout the 2020 Edition but is there going to be a universal change of terms from ELL or EL to ML or MLL?
• 47:00 9 Is there anything that shows how the ELD Standards are incorporated with Common Core State Standards?
• 49:35 10 In terms of integrated UDL principles, do we have anything that specifically calls out that alignment?
• 52:17 11 What are the supports for English learners to be able to meet the language expectations?

Video Transcript

WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition Introduction

Annemarie Banas: And just to let you know this recording will be shared within the next couple of days as soon as we can logistically get it up on the WIDA website. And with that I am going to turn it over to Dr. Fernanda Kray – lead developer of the 2020 Edition of the WIDA ELD Standards and welcome. 

Fernanda Kray: Hi, everybody. So happy to see so many people. I know that we do a lot of Webex these days, but for one I’m really happy. And I feel like it’s such a nice opportunity for us to come together as a community and at least have some discussion around new and exciting things that are happening. So this is the, the first in a series of question and answer webinars that we are holding around the WIDA ELD Standards Framework 2020 Edition. It is out in the world – hooray. So I hope you had a chance to download the book, start exploring it. Perhaps you've had a chance to see the introductory videos that we shared during the WIDA eSummit this past October. And if you haven't those are available in the Secure Portal to you until January 31st so you can still look at those. And the intent today is really to have a brief period where we'll activate our thinking to remember some of the main things about the updated Standards framework and then really spend time on your questions. And we can go to the next slide.

Fernanda Kray: So we have several team members here today with us. You heard from Annemarie our moderator. Margo Gottlieb was going to be here with us and fortunately she got, she was scheduled to have her COVID vaccine at this time – hooray, yes but unfortunately she can’t be here. So I will be talking to you through some of this. Lynn Shafer Willner, she will be helping us as well with questions and answers. And Elizabeth Warren is also here, and she will be moderating some of this. And Lynn do you want to just introduce yourself and Warren? I'm sorry I put a picture of Warren there too, and she’s not on. Do you want to just say hi Lynn? Okay, so I’m not hearing Lynn or Warren. We’ll go – people will say hi later. That’s okay, so I just

Lynn Shafer Willner: Oh I’ve got it there. I was placed on mute on Webex as well, sorry. So the trick with Webex is if you get kicked out because of narrow bandwidth – then call in by phone. So hi everybody it’s Lynn Shafer Willner and looking forward today to supporting you in the, during the question and answer time. And Fernanda shall we just go ahead and start with the introductions with some fun surveys?

Fernanda Kray: Yes. Yep, sure we can do that. 

Lynn Shafer Willner: Alight, and here we go – there, yeah. So what we’re going to be doing is using Mentimeter.com and if you go to menti.com and use the code 62 10 15 5 or just click on the link that's in the chat box – that will. You can open a new tab or you can use your phone. And you can use this code, and we'll be starting with a slide. Just to take a moment and find out where you're, where you're coming from today. So again, you can use – go to menti.com and use the code 62 10 15 or 5 or click on the link. So there’s a lot of folks in Minnesota, Virginia, Massachusetts. We see Ghana West Africa, nice. Virginia, the Netherlands, Nevada, Illinois, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Wyoming, Alaska. Welcome. Fairfax County folks are here from Virginia and I – oh, but New Jersey. Excellent, this is so fun. I love watching this cloud how it changes. Bangladesh is here, nice. We’re thrilled to have you – middle of the night, I believe? Utah. Wonderful. Alright, let’s start going to our next slide. And that one we’ll be looking at – what roles do you play in your district?
Roles/Position in District?

Lynn Shafer Willner: So this could be - are you a classroom teacher? Are you a testing coordinator? Are you an administrator? Are you the district coordinator? Perfect – teachers, administrators. A lot of teachers here today – specialists, data specialists. Nice – coordinators, test administrators, instructional coaches. Great, we’re thrilled to have you and let’s see. Annemarie, if you can see some others we have in there – talent development, oh, school liaison, resources, state education agency specialist. Nice, we are thrilled to have you here today. Why don't we go on to our very last slide as we warm up? And that last slide, here we go.

Lynn Shafer Willner: And that is - how familiar are you with the 2020 Edition of the WIDA ELD Standards Framework. I didn’t know they had been updated. I’ve done some initial browsing of the 2020 Edition. I’ve been reading through the 2020 Edition. And I am closely reading the 2020 Edition and making notes for next steps. So we see a lot of folks who've done some initial browsing. Terrific. Others working through doing some initial - doing some reading and close reading and notes. Great. And then what I was going to say Fernanda when you are ready. Maybe we’re at two hundred and seven right now, and I believe there are about three hundred on the call. Fernanda, let me know when you’re ready and I’ll turn it over to you. And Annemarie why don’t you go ahead and pass the ball when you’re ready? Nice, we are thrilled that you’re here today and we look forward

Annemarie Banas: I’m also going to jump in briefly and say some people have been having some audio issues and connecting. I apologize for that. I put a couple of different suggestions into the chat for trying to reconnect – either logging out and then logging in which will prompt Webex to have you connect. Or if you're having difficulty hearing there's also a phone number in the chat with the event code, and you can connect via that way. Alrighty, thank you.

Fernanda Kray: Alright, great. So nice to see where everyone's coming from, and as we go along this hour together I will be sharing some thinking prompts with you along the way. Please use the chat box to share your insights, some answers that you might have as you go along. And our moderators are monitoring the chat box. So as you have questions that come up that you'd like us to address in the later part of the presentation during the Q&A please put them in so we can have that discussion later.

Fernanda Kray: We learned that WebEx it's – on an event this big it's difficult to share a video over Webex, but I wanted you to know that there’s an introductory video. It’s about three minutes on the Standards landing page which gives you a nice overview of the Standards, and it’s something that you could use if you are opening up a staff meeting or PLC or talking to your colleagues. So I left the slide here anyway just so you know that it's there. And we'll give you the link later where you can find that to view. So let's get to the meat of the matter here and start talking about the 2020 Edition.

Fernanda Kray: So the launching points for this Edition really came from WIDA’s mission, vision and values including the Can Do Philosophy which is at the root of everything that we do. And then we took some particular aspects of this and really brought them to the forefront in the four big ideas that permeate the 2020 Edition. The first big idea in the upper left hand corner that you see is Equity of Opportunity and Access. As you are beginning to learn about the framework, I'm curious to know how you see the framework contributing to increasing equity in classrooms. So for example a couple of the things that I've been thinking about later are so this, this Edition’s – notion of expanded, and expanded view of academic language. So making visible and valuing the way that our students communicate, the way that they create knowledge and the ways that they're using their full linguistic repertoires in our classroom to make meaning. Another thing to me that I am very eager to see it playing out in classrooms is Standard 1. Remember, that's language for social and instruction purposes. And the way that this Edition really calls attention to the importance of connecting the personal to the academic. So we know that this is something we've been talking about as educators before, but we're really bringing that to that forefront. So I'm interested in this calling out for spaces where students can earnestly inquire about – can express who they are as multicultural, as multilingual learners – in their own particular histories and identities in relation to the society in which we live.

So these are just a couple of examples that I really hope to begin with people, you know – and I think about my positionality as I come to this work. I came here as an undocumented, limited English proficient student and we all bring this. So, eager for those discussions. So, that was just an example. So the second big idea of integration of content in language is showing the synergy between these two things – they are inextricably woven. Multilingual learners – they learn content through language, and they learn language through content. The third big idea of forging partnerships among stakeholders is critical when we have people in different roles bringing different sets of expertise, but they are collectively responsible for the wellbeing and the success of multilingual learners. And it's especially critical that we have content and language specialists work together and administrators and other stakeholders. So that students can have a coherent and cohesive experience as they go through their day in school. 

And finally the fourth idea is the functional approach to language development. We have a much more technical explanation for this if you look at our theoretical foundations, but basically we can make an analogy of language development as the expansion of a toolbox that allows us to do things with language. So we keep adding different linguistic tools for different situations, different topics to engage. So there are different ways. So this functional approach to language development. We really want students to expand their toolbox – to become more aware, to become more strategic as they are using language and they are navigating different situations. They are using language to negotiate meaning and so that they are achieving their own purposes wherever they go.

Fernanda Kray: And in comments that participants previously submitted about what was – we were talking about possible topics for these Q&A’s. Collaboration came up a lot. So I was helping to hear from you a little bit about how collaboration is happening at your school. We'd love to hear a little bit about that on the chat. Elizabeth is going to be taking a look. She'll share some responses with us and as you begin to type in some responses. I also wanted to let you know that we will have a Q&A on this specific topic on February 23rd, and it’s really about those initial curricular conversations and how content and language teachers help – sorry, I’m working from home – there’s, there's interruptions here. Okay so, and we will remind you of when those Q and A’s will happen. Okay, so shall we Warren – should, should we go straight to the Framework?

Elizabeth Warren I think so. Yes, so far we just have some questions related to where we can find the Standards, things like that. So, I think you're good to talk about this right now.

Fernanda Kray: Okay. Alright, and then I’d love to circle back and read some of the comments that I see coming in. Okay, so the updated Standards Framework. We see that some of you are, have already started to become familiar with this. And so I’d like to activate what you've been reading about. The first component are the WIDA ELD Standards Statements themselves. They maintain that conceptual framing that WIDA has always had of content and language integration. The key language uses are highlighting those most prominent way students use language across the disciplines and across the years of schooling. The language expectations then begin to get more specific, and they give us goals for content driven language learning. And finally, Proficiency Level Descriptors give us a continuum of language development.

Fernanda Kray: So for the first component of the framework, here you see the abbreviations of the five Standard Statements. And I'd like you to notice how Standard 1 – Language for Social and Instructional Purposes is how it's designed to work both independently and in conjunction with Standards 2-5. And I started to talk about this in my recent wondering about equity. And because Standard 1 encompasses existential, experiential, linguistic, cultural backgrounds and identities of multilingual learners – it's really drawing attention to student positioning in the world that's informing their meaning making, right? So it's reminding us to bridge the personal, the social and emotional to the academics. So a wondering that I have is currently practice how you are bridging the personal to the academic, the social emotional to the academics. That's an interesting topic of discussion that I hope we get to talk about at some point.

Fernanda Kray: The second component of the key language uses. They are highlighting those prominent language uses across the disciplines – so narrate, inform, explain and argue. And given our limited time with our students they're taking that whole world of language. And they're helping us to prioritize and organize how we are planning that content and language integration. Some of you are familiar with key language uses and with how they're evolving, it may be new to some. Currently in your work – how do you see key language uses and especially in this Edition, right? Helping content and language teachers work together, develop curriculum? How do you see key language uses in the materials that you currently use? How do you see key language uses in the work that your students produce? So I'm going to take a little break here because I know that there's chat going on and Elizabeth - do you want to mention a couple of things that are going on there?

Elizabeth Warren: We have some people commenting that they'd like to see the KLUs drive ELD instruction and collaborative conversations with grade level and content area teachers which is great because I know that's definitely our intent. Others are saying it helps by focusing their language targets on those key uses, that they're planning to focus more on the language functions that fall under the KLUs, that they think they're good for making those self to text connections.

Fernanda Kray: Great.

Elizabeth Warren: Yeah.

Fernanda Kray: Okay, thanks. So just to give a check-in, and we'll hear more at the Q&A time. Let me point out just a couple of other important things here. In this Edition we've expanded the four language domains of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing into two more inclusive communication modes – Interpretive and Expressive. So when you look at the language expectations the profession, the performance learning descriptors. You will see them in those two modes. And another wondering that I have as a former teacher, as a practitioner and working with you are – in which ways will we incorporate Viewing and Representing into our practice in this way?

Fernanda Kray: Our third component, language expectation. So as a reminder they are goals for content-driven language instruction. They are identifying what students need to do with language to meet the academic content expectations. These statements are the most similar to what we have, the academic content standards that you usually have. And they also have these codes to them, much as you do in the content standards.

Fernanda Kray: When you see these new language expectations I wonder – how might they be useful to you in your work? What new ways are you seeing to use these language expectations? And as you start to dig into your material you learn that those bullets here are I’m so sorry, there are people knocking on my door – working from home. These bullets here, they are really language function. And then when you get to your grade level materials you're going to see that the language functions, they have example language features attached them. So those are types of sentences, clauses and phrases or words that help carry out the language function, right? So if an example language function, that's one of those bullets there under the language expectation. So, develop story with time and event sequences for example. You also have language features that help you think how to carry out that, that language function. So if I’m developing a story with my students at Grade 2 and these event sequences, the features are saying – how are we using verbs to describe what the characters are doing, thinking and feeling? How are we using connectors to sequence time? And that's going to help you with that planning, right? So I'm curious to know – what questions you have about language features and how language features might be useful to you?

Elizabeth Warren: First Fernanda, we had a quick question related to expectations. Someone asked – am I right to think of these expectations as unpacked Standards and if not, how can I clarify my thinking?

Fernanda Kray: So that's an interesting question because it's a Framework, right? And we have those four components. So if we're talking about the Standard statement, for example – language for language arts, then in a way it's unpacking – what’s the language for language arts? So I have this whole idea of language for language arts, then I've gone through the key language uses that have helped me prioritize. And then for an analysis, of looking at the ELA Standard band – what students are expected to do with narratives at Grade 3. Yes, we've pulled out these language functions that are very common in a narrative. So in a way it is an unpacking of those Standard statements. However, as we go into the detail of a lesson plan I'm going to unpack these further to see what they mean. So what I'm saying – yes it's the beginning of unpacking, and it's not the end of unpacking.

Elizabeth Warren: We had another quick question on language expectation. Sorry, somebody says – instead of having academic language objectives, does it make more sense to organize planning around the language expectations? And then in create, and somebody else is asking – in creating those language objectives what components need to be present?

Fernanda Kray: Okay, so I think let me answer. Hmm, there’s a lot of questions. Alright, so the language expectations, the question about objectives. So different people in different areas will use language objectives in a different way, right? And your planning and what you're required to do and what you want to do – sometimes it's actually negotiated in your contract or with unions. So what we're sharing here are examples. We are thinking, the way that we've been thinking about language expectations and this is based on, on work done with several districts. Again, it can vary – is that language expectations work well as a unit level goal because they represent things that students will develop over time. So this would work really well if you have a unit on narratives for Grades 2 or 3 to help you pull out and make visible what's happening with the language throughout the unit. And I might take those language functions and start to break them down in the lesson. And even the sample features, the language features might be part of what I focus on in a lesson.

So my lesson and the content is asking me, so the teacher's working – hey, we're gonna work on this paragraph in the middle of the story where we are – developing action, developing the plot. So at the lesson level I might be working on the verbs and you can see how I, I could be working with a variety of proficiency levels – this, this applies for everybody. So we want all students to get more and more apt and strategic as far as how they're using the verbs, how they're using the connectors – for that larger purpose of telling the narrative. So I might create lesson objectives that are shorter term, more concrete, more easily bound objectives. And together, they're building in a logical sequence to this larger goal of creating beautiful narrative that we want all of our students to do.

So Elizabeth I think I'm going to suggest just I'll go very quickly through the last couple of slides just to activate whatever else, people’s thinking in terms of other important areas. And then we’ll go to all of the questions in the end. Otherwise I think I'm going to get distracted with the wide range of questions we might get, I might get. Is that okay?

Elizabeth Warren: Perfect, that’s perfect. Yep.

Fernanda Kray: Alright, so I think I mentioned or perhaps not yet. You will get these materials in grade level clusters. So Kindergarten, Grade 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8 and 9-12. So if I'm a grade, this is example from Grade 6-8. I go to my grade-level cluster. I see what my language expectation functions and features are. And then there’s some examples of annotated language samples that show those expectations, functions and features in a, an authentic grade-level text. So that's a nice little resource that's there for you.

Fernanda Kray: And of course the final component are the proficiency level descriptors – again at those grade-level clusters that are helping us see possible trajectories, typical trajectories of multilingual learners across the levels of English proficiency. They are made more specific because they are done by grade-level cluster now rather than K-12.

Fernanda Kray: Additional supporting materials that you have there are a sample collaborative planning process for content and language integration. So relating to some of the things we were just talking about – about how we might start to think about planning curriculum instruction, mostly focusing on the unit level. You have a deeper look at key language uses to really begin to explore them. So you will have a Q&A webinar just some key language uses on February 10th. There's a glossary that talks about all these linguistic terms that come up throughout the book, and we have eight appendices on a lot of topics for specific audiences. For example, there's an appendix on ESSA, one on theoretical foundations and various other things.

Fernanda Kray: I want to let you know that WIDA Professional Learning is rolling out. So if you're part of the Domestic Consortium in the U.S. there are self-paced eWorkshops that are rolling out our available to you on February 15th. This one is called the WIDA ELD Standards Framework: A Collaborative Approach. This is available to most people. I'm sorry if you're in North Dakota or Pennsylvania – it's the State Department of Education who chooses it. So they're not currently offering that, but everybody else should have access to that. There is also a facilitated eWorkshop Planning with the WIDA ELD Standards Framework. And that one – it’s your State Department of Education who chooses whether they offer the facilitated one or not. So please check with them so you can have access to these. If you are part of the International Consortium – the Virtual Institute is available right now on-demand, and you can register for that.

Fernanda Kray: Go to our WIDA ELD Standards Framework webpage because you will have access to that introductory video that I mentioned to you. You have a flyer, you have a PowerPoint deck. These are all things you can use if you are doing staff meetings, sharing with your colleagues in your district. There's the Guiding Principles of Language Development – they are in thirteen languages, we have a new illustrated version. It is great to talk to families using those. We have focus bulletins. And we have new materials, new resources coming out all the time. So keep checking back. For example these Q&A webinar recordings will be available on that page about a week after, after we do them live. So coming up soon we have a set, three sets of – three or four sets of frequently asked questions. So keep checking back over there to look for all of the new things that are coming out.

Fernanda Kray: And so our next Q&A that we hope to see you at are February 10th, 23rd and March 9th – that information is also on our website. Alright, so I’m going to take a breath and start to hear from the moderators about what it is that you'd like to talk about now.

Elizabeth Warren: So we have a question regarding where language functions and features fit in with a SIOP model. So they’re asking – would you say that language functions and language features are used in addition to the language and content objectives following SIOP of a lesson?

Fernanda Kray: I haven't thought about SIOP in a while. So, but SIOP is one approach. There are people who do separate content and language objectives. There's a lot of people who want to do a joint objective that includes content and language. So I don't know if Lynn or Warren or somebody else wants to jump in? I think that's so up to like which model you are doing. I mean, I would

Lynn Shafer Willner: Yeah, this is Lynn. I’d say part of it is a philosophy issue. So you're looking at language functions. It's how you're taking language like the – describing the features, you know the structural parts of language and how you're using it to do things. And those doings are in the language functions, and then they're grouped together in sets – which make the language expectations. So with SIOP a lot of the objectives are at the lesson level. So I think it's a matter of looking at them as complimentary. And so you're looking at how you can have your arrows, your goals kind of going in the same direction but I don't think, there's not – it's not intended to be a one to one spot.

Elizabeth Warren: Thank you.

Lynn Shafer Willner: Yeah, there’s flexibility if you, if you look at the bullets. Thanks for putting that slide up there. So there may be especially with expressive there are times that you may, it may be useful. For example, if you're looking at this student is narrating and so it's in Grades 2-3. And so within an essay – do they do these three things with language? Are they orienting the audience to content, to the context? What's, what is going on in the background? How is the language fitting to that particular to language arts, their narrating and telling a story? Do they have a sequence where they have the events, complication and resolution? And then are they adjusting their language so that they're engaging their audience? So especially with expressive you may want to group these together in an activity, but then with interpretive if you are looking at it – that could be used individually. It really depends, there's flexibility. Depends on how you want to use them but they do function together as a cohesive set. Elizabeth, did you have something you were going to say?

Elizabeth Warren: No. No, thank you.

Fernanda Kray: I think it would also be good if we could spend a little bit of time talking about where the Can Do’s fit in, their relationship to these Framework pieces. I've seen several questions related to that.

Lynn Shafer Willner: So Fernanda, I can take that one as well. At this time WIDA is not retiring the 2014 Can Do Key Uses Edition. It's very popular, and so when we're thinking about rollout – this rollout is occurring over three to five years. We're sensitive to the fact that we're rolling out updated Standards during a pandemic, and so we're doing this rollout over time. And so as we're looking at the rollout, we're also trying to be careful about what educators are using the Can Do Key Uses for. And then as we go forward we'll look, we will be updating them. That's where the conversations are going towards, but again we're doing this in a three to five year period. So it doesn't mean that next year you need to be ready. Next spring for all your students to be ready for the updated – the language expectations and the proficiency level descriptors. You have some time to kind of ease in and look at how you're going and integrating them into your current work if that helps.

Fernanda Kray: Can I add to that? That when you get to that implementation point also depends on your state, or your school at International locations. I can share with you that there's, you know – some states are beginning that rollout process now, but they have three or four year plan too. Where the first year’s just learning, second year’s maybe deepening PL and some states aren't even actually officially rolling these out to begin to learn until the summer or fall this year. So there is time. And I saw something on the chat saying that people would like more guidance on how to use this for implementation.

Fernanda Kray: I want to point out that part on section four of the book that gives you a start-off point to start those discussions. And you see we'll have that Q&A. Is it February 10th or 23rd where we'll be discussing this? And in this sample that you get here. So we are sharing some very concrete steps about one possible way you could use the, the components of the Framework to create that unit level goal and to begin planning. So just catching up on that one that I saw and back to you moderator, Elizabeth Warren.

Elizabeth Warren: We're still looking for some clarification regarding the PLD’s. Somebody was asking about the fact that the domains are not how the PLD’s are organized. So I thought maybe you could touch on Interpretive and Expressive a little bit again and those being the organizing features.

Fernanda Kray: Sure, Lynn is the go-to PLD person. So Lynn why don’t you take this one too?

Lynn Shafer Willner: I love this. We can talk about accessibility and accommodations and thinking about this. So we have the traditional domains. Scores have to be reported to the federal government in relation to Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. And yet those are, if we think about them – we're looking at when you're communicating, you're not. There, there are other modalities. So language works with these other modalities that we are looking at, how you can. You might be listening, reading and viewing and in doing so we're trying to connect our modalities also to universal design for learning. So how do we increase accessibility for all students as they're participating in activities? So this might be scaffolded from proficiency level one all the way through proficiency level five and six.

And so especially in relation to Writing and Speaking – how also are you using other ways to represent ideas? And this idea of accessibility is baked into the WIDA, to the WIDA work. So that if you look at the top row – the proficiency, proficiency level descriptors. It talks about how you're measuring performance with the understanding that you're scaffolding students. You're not measuring students with no support. They are allowed to have support and scaffolding and respond in multiple modalities. So we're trying to get more to that authentic, real situation and to make sure we have access to all for high expectations.

Elizabeth Warren: Okay, and there have also been some questions regarding the effect to access. I did just put a fairly comprehensive response to that in that chat, but people you know can also elaborate in response to that information. Somebody is asking whether the features are the same, whether they are Expressive or Interpretive. So perhaps we could talk a little bit about how those are differentiated within the PLDs?

Lynn Shafer Willner: Well, you can – they’re, they’re written out in terms of Expressive, in the Expressive communicate, communication mode. You want to go to the, the other slide Fernanda if you have that? But you can use them with Interpretive. They are designed to work together. A little further, a few further – that’s okay.

Fernanda Kray: This one?

Lynn Shafer Willner: Yeah, and then we can go to the next slide. So you have – so that's Expressive. And these language features are written out so that they tie over to the language functions, but what we tried to do is write the interpretive language expectations in a way that mirror and compliment the expressive language functions. Even though they're slightly different doings with language, at their core you still have the same language features that you can use in the surface of learning.

Fernanda Kray: Yeah, and if you want to check. So this appears in a few places in the book. For example, if you want to go to page forty four – is one place you can look where there's a little bit of an explanation of why the features are shown in the expressive functions. Because they kind of incorporate what we’ll be understanding about how students are interpreting. So just showing you a little shortcut to the book about where you might get some information about this. Elizabeth, I saw one question here from an administrator, someone said – I'm an administrator, what is step one for me? I want to start with this. So, yeah  

Elizabeth Warren: Yep, and people are just also asking about what roll out and implementation advice could we give as well as a bit of step one.

Fernanda Kray: So we have shared at the state level. WIDA has shared a sample roll out implementation plan at the state level, but a lot of those steps could be similar at a district level. So while, you're going to learn – so there's two things, right? There's the content of the Standards but implementation, system-wide implementation – that is its own science. And one place where we might want to start is looking back at district previous history. What did the district do previously to roll out new Standards? So and if we look at the literature that says – what does good, what does successful implementation look like? We're going to see that you know we need to start by creating a Leadership Team to lead this work that is cross-departmental that includes different stakeholders who are responsible for the success of ELLs. There has to be a communication plan in place. People have to be on the same page. There might be a Needs Assessment that's needed in the district. What are people's understandings of what ELD Standards are? Is a district clear on the expectations of how ELD Standards are to be used and by whom? So to language content teachers, special ed teachers, administrators –however that is. So there's a whole side that has to do with implementation sci, science.

Fernanda Kray: How is the staff's understanding being supported with Professional Learning with discussion ect? So that's like the structural side right? The architecture upon which you lay any content that you want to implement system wide, but so if we go back to – how do I learn about the new Edition? So I mentioned that WIDA is rolling out two options of Professional Learning that's in the Consortium. International has the Virtual Institute. Additionally, you know we recommend you take the book. You break it into sections, into chunks. You could you know start PLC’s to start learning and continue the Professional Learning. So it's, I'm recognizing that that's a very complex answer with lots of different things to think about. That is a couple of steps to think about and we do want to know the types of resources that you will find most useful.

So for example – would districts but be looking for a sample roll out plan in the way that we design one for states? And by the way I'm not promising that we're going to produce everything, but it would be great to know – what are the things that you most want? So that that can inform which things we release for you, we publish for you.

Elizabeth Warren: Okay, here have also been some questions about – will there be updates to the Interpretive Speaking and Writing rubrics? And then people like I said are also still looking for any additional recommendations we might have around roll out.

Fernanda Kray: And roll out. Hmm, go ahead. No, for rollout I’m just going to say first learn about the PL on this side. The second thing that you can look at directly is look at National Implementation Science has various phases that’s for deep implementation, but PL – Professional Learning is a good place to start with that too. So sending it over to you Lynn.

Lynn Shafer Willner: So, sure and addressing Speaking and Writing rubrics. So what we're doing is we are again carefully integrating that into looking at how we'll go forward and just thinking about scores and all the calculations that go in there. This will be a careful integration across three to five years. So there is time. We will, we will definitely update you as we're going through on that, but right now this is the initial stage where you're just becoming more familiar with the Framework.

Fernanda Kray: And I'll add that by – thanks, Kelly. She just put National Implementation Research Network on the chat there for you. That's what I was referring to. And let me tell you that in conversation with State Departments of Education and other stakeholders. WIDA was very intentional in listening to what our stakeholders said that they wanted to have this roll out be gradual and over time. And not to sort of overwhelm everybody given the pandemic that we’re living under and how stretched out people already are with so much to do. So let's just stress once again that yes this is out in the world, but right now what we're hoping is again to build these conversations and time for learning. The intention of this right now is not to distract or I have to do this right now. So what are the ways that we can do this as a community? So your own local community, your PLC’s, over time without – there's no state that I've heard of, anyone that's saying you must implement these Standards right now. So how do we do this joyfully and together? And learn together and there's a lot of implementation you will come up with that we haven't even thought about yet.

Elizabeth Warren: Somebody is asking, they said they noticed the term multilingual learners is used throughout the 2020 Edition which they like very much, but they're wondering about you know – is there going to be a universal change of terms from ELL or EL to ML or MLL?

Fernanda Kray: Sure. So let me see if I can put that here in the book where it appears as well.

Lynn Shafer Willner: And Fernanda, I responded as well in the chat.

Fernanda Kray: Yeah, do you want to read what you said Lynn?

Lynn Shafer Willner: So WIDA in general has talked about shifting to that, across all of its resources – shifting from the term English learners towards multilingual learners because we want to emphasize the Can Do kind of assets approach and resources that all students bring. So, of course we do need to use that term for particular submissions involving the requirements part, but we would like to position the work that we're doing in an assets-based way. And that's why the term has been shifted.

Fernanda Kray: Yeah. So, right. We’re using multilingual learners but you know so I think, I meant – so when I came to the U.S. as a high school student and I was classified as a limited English proficient student. I was classified by my limitation, and that's not what we want to do. So the federal legislation ESSA has changed, they’re no longer use LEP. They're still using English learners. We can't change what they're using, and we know there are other people who use you know emerging bilinguals or other things. But throughout WIDA publications except for where it speaks directly to ESSA we'll be using the term multilingual learners.

Elizabeth Warren: We also got a good question about – is there anything that shows how the ELD Standards are incorporated with Common Core State Standards? They noticed that we used a Common Core Standard in our example.

Lynn Shafer Willner: I would be happy to take that one. Yes, we do. You can go – I’ll put it in the chat. You can go to appendix B, and actually the way we derive the language expectations as we looked. We did a review of all Standards. Common Core, ELA, different state standards – Virginia, Minnesota, Alaska. We looked at International Standards that are being used also the approaches that are used in the International baccalaureates. And so essentially what we did is to create. We did this review, and we identify these four key language uses which are broad genre families. And then from there we took them, and by grade-level cluster we went and we mapped out – matching, thank you Fernanda. Matching Content Standards on the left as you can see here the Social Studies. Science, sorry Science and Engineering Practices. And on the right you'll see the Language Expectation. And you can see how they map to each other, and we're looking at the Language for Learning in Science.

Fernanda Kray: Here's an example from math as well.

Lynn Shafer Willner: And just to say so the samples in Appendiz B are, they are samples because there are forty State Education Agencies involved with WIDA and territories, jurisdictions. And so we want to go – the next step for us is to go and customize these, the Standards that you see on the left. Then we would go, and you'd have it exactly how it's shown in that particular State Education Agencies Standards.

Fernanda Kray: And I hope folks can see how this really highlights that. The big idea of content and language integration and how tightly woven. How the key language uses came directly out of this analysis. How the language expectations came out of looking at these very Standards and saying – what do students need to do with language to meet those content you know, the content things they need to do? And how those language functions are really you know, very common patterns in language that we would use to make sense of problems in math for example.

Elizabeth Warren: We also had a question related to how we integrated UDL principles. They're wondering – do we have anything that specifically calls out that alignment?

Lynn Shafer Willner: Go ahead.

Fernanda Kray: I was just going to say that UDL. So it's an approach, it's a method, it's a philosophy that we very much agree with. And the Standards can absolutely be used with a universal design for learning approach, and then we'll get into the details as well of multiple modalities and other things. Standards, this book – it’s setting out the goals for all students. So you're not going to see a peer like say – oh, this is how we’re using principle 1, principle 2, principal 3 as you would in a lesson plan or as applied. What we have done is we've really set this up to be able to work with multiple means of expression, engagement, and action etc. Go, Lynn.

Lynn Shafer Willner: Wasn’t it that we had a big discussion because there had been receptive and productive modes of communication in the previous Edition, and we were looking at – how can, do we update these terms? And we, we explicitly chose to update these terms because we wanted to tie in with expressive modes of communication which is also found in universal design for learning. So we really wanted to connect there. And then for interpretive mode we really, we wanted to make this a more active process. So that as students are reading, listening and viewing they are actively bringing their resources and interpreting. So, I love the – WIDA’s resources where you look at how students are coming at text, not just as decoders but they're analysts, they’re language users.

Fernanda Kray: Yeah, and it has to do with that expansion of what we mean by academic language and multi-modality. So all of this. All of the ways that students are making sense in the classroom even if, even if in your output you want a more formal academic form of English in a particular discipline. As the students are making meaning in that very UDL like way, they should be using every resource available to them.

Elizabeth Warren: We don't have a lot of new questions. People are very anxious to make sure that they will have access both to the presentation itself but also to either the chat or some sort of summary of the information that's been shared today. And then we do have a question. Let's see – what are the supports for English learners to be able to meet the language expectations? Sorry, let’s see – there’s a little flurry. I do know that these recordings will be shared afterward. I'm sure we can probably look at means of providing this information.

Fernanda Kray: So just a little bit on, on scaffolding as Lynn was talking about earlier. So the proficiency level descriptors and the way that students progress – it's predicated upon the idea that appropriate scaffolding supports is happening. So we talk about it slightly, but there is a shift that you can see if you are familiar with previous Editions of WIDA and where we are now. Whereas before we had the, the MPI’s where the scaffold was built in. And we heard from stakeholders that and from you know from teachers really across the globe saying that they wanted something that was more concrete, that was more stable. So we have the language expectations now and this Edition.

Fernanda Kray: So when we talked about how the language expectations, they're more like academic content standards. So, like when you use academic content standards it doesn't tell you how to differentiate. It's super important to differentiate and scaffold, it's critical, it's essential. Again the notion is predicated on appropriate support but what the Standards are doing. They’re saying this is the language that students need to be successful in the content areas – so this is, and then we get there.

So the way that WIDA is supporting – how do we support and scaffold students? So we have focus bulletins, we have Professional Learning, we have different types of research and other tools that are out here. But the main goal of Standards as it works and Standards based systems is to say – what is the goal that we want all students to move towards? I hope that makes sense. Do you want to add anything Lynn?

Lynn Shafer Willner: I think it's also an accessibility issue, and I think a lot about students who are identified as having a disability. And even if the student, we have multi-tiered systems of support, RTI models. So how we make sure that we extend support to all students at, regardless of proficiency level. And so by assigning supports only to certain levels, we may be limiting that support. We really want to be open to how we can support students from an accessibility perspective – a broader category but also with students who may have accommodations.

Fernanda Kray: Yeah, it's a more nuanced view of support where we're not equating support with a particular level but aware that student learning and proficiency changes based on interest, based on the topic, based on the day. And as they're becoming more independent all the time and sometimes they step back. So that support is going to be fluid, responsive in conversation and dialogue with the student.

Elizabeth Warren: Alright. Well we are actually at 2pm, and people are just now saying thank you and things like that. I don't see additional questions at this time.

Fernanda Kray: Okay, so we are coming at 3:00. Thank you so much for coming. I hope we get to have more conversations. Please come to the other Q and A’s and tell us maybe on social media. I don't know how to stay in touch with everybody. It's difficult to have community and regularly meet these days but tell us whether it's on social media or in another way – how are you meeting with your communities? How are you figuring this out and what ways are you doing this work? You know hopefully joyfully with love for the work that we bring for the students that we serve. And being kind to ourselves, to each other in the very difficult world. So let’s find ways to stay connected and hear about how everybody is working through this. Thank you so much for coming, and have a great afternoon. Bye bye.

Annemarie Banas: And thanks everyone for joining us. I'm going to end the recording here.