This WIDA Snapshot offers an introduction to connect to learning, one of the six ABCs of Family and Community Engagement. The ABCs of Family and Community Engagement are six key considerations for educators who support multilingual learners and their families and communities.
Connect to learning in action: Engaging with multilingual learners, families and communities
When implementing linguistically and culturally responsive and sustaining instructional practices for multilingual learners, educators must engage with their families and communities as part of the process. This WIDA Snapshot offers considerations and resources for connecting with families and communities, whether you are just starting out or wish to strengthen collaborative practices in your setting. Engage with this brief introductory video, and use the guiding questions to reflect and deepen your understanding about making connections in your own context.
Introduction to Connect to Learning video transcript
Guiding questions
- How do we build from our multilingual families’ knowledge and goals in our instruction, environments and curricula? Is there more we can do?
- How do we engage in ongoing conversations with families around their children’s language development and learning in clear and understandable ways? How do we know families are getting the information they seek in comprehensible ways?
- How do we join with multilingual families for planning, implementing and evaluating language development and learning opportunities and services? What feedback do we have from families about how we collaborate with them?
Uplifting multilingualism and multiculturalism
In this video, multilingual learners, families and educators reflect on what it means to honor languages, celebrate cultures and build learning environments where everyone belongs. The stories they share remind us of the importance of valuing multilingualism and multiculturalism when connecting learners’ languages and cultures to their learning. Listen to their voices, reflect on their stories and consider how these experiences connect to your own context. Then, explore the Tips for Uplifting Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in your classroom and district.
Uplifting Multilingualism and Multiculturalism video transcript
Explore this video to learn from third-grade students and their teacher, Miriam Peña, about their participation in a state-wide student art and writing contest focused on multilingualism. Miriam also fosters multilingualism and multiculturalism in her classroom and district. Read the Vignette: Uplifting Multiculturalism and Multilingualism in Learning to learn more about these contexts and deepen the ways that you uplift multilingualism and multiculturalism in your setting.
Art, Dialogue and Learning video transcript
Connecting to curriculum: Engaging families in student writing
WIDA Fellow Samhita Basuthakur draws on her multilingual students’ lived experiences, as well as input from their families, to create meaningful connections to the district writing curriculum. Watch the following video and engage with the tool Connecting to Curriculum: Engaging Families in Student Writing to better understand how Samhita implements culturally and linguistically responsive practices in her teaching and engages families as part of the process. You can also view a curated list of her students’ Writing Samples.
Engaging Families in Student Writing video transcript
Connecting to units of study: Honoring and building on students’ knowledge
WIDA Educator in Residence Maryna Hedeen identified an opportunity to develop her multilingual learners’ knowledge and connect their experiences and perspectives to several units of study. Explore Connecting Units of Study: Honoring and Building on Students’ Knowledge and Sample Unit Plan: Immigration to engage with Maryna’s unit planning and implementation process and make connections to your own teaching and learning.
This illustration represents connect to learning and shows multilingual families and an educator watching and documenting migrating birds. It aims to show how a unit on migration can connect the concept of bird migration with students' backgrounds, experiences and local context to foster deeper engagement and meaningful learning.