S11/E4: School-wide systems of improvement for more equitable instruction with Sarah Ottow

Highest Aspirations

What role do identity and ‘social location’ play for educators and how can we be more intentional about updating the education systems we work in? How can we implement a school wide system of support for educators and a culture that encourages collaboration and empathy? What is some advice or a good starting point for educators who feel overwhelmed at the idea of add-on work to successfully support language learners in their classes?

We discuss these questions and more with Sarah Ottow, a longtime educator with over twenty years of experience in teaching, training, and coaching for English language learner success. She returned to Highest Aspirations to talk with us about creating school-wide systems of improvement for more equitable instruction for ALL students. As the founder of Confianza and author of The Language Lens for Content Classrooms: A Guide for K-12 Educators of English and Academic Language Learners, she has many strategies to share that will help you efficiently apply language instruction in ways that will help all students, including multilingual learners.

You can download the full episode transcript here.

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