Getting to know your students’ interests and talents can strengthen relationships with students, inspire ideas on how to engage students, and provide opportunities for hands-on learning.

Videos

Teacher Omar Salem: My students' many talents
"Rockville's Got Talent": Giving all students a chance to share their talents

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Supporting ELL Success with STEAM and Hands-On Learning (Part 2)

Supporting ELL Success with STEAM and Hands-On Learning (Part 2)

Salina student picking lettuce

Learn how an elementary school serving a high number of newcomer ELLs has succeeded in engaging students with multiple opportunities for hands-on learning.

Photo from Salina Elementary School. Used with permission.

When you visit Salina Elementary School in Dearborn, Michigan, one of the first things you are likely to notice is the dynamic student work displayed throughout the school. Colorful art projects hang on the walls and from the ceilings, and student work is posted along every hallway. Classrooms often have intricate science, social studies, or literature projects displayed prominently in the room.

At Salina, a Title I school, more than 90% of students are English language learners (ELLs). Many of the students are newcomers from the war-torn country of Yemen who are arriving with limited formal education. As part of their approach to providing a safe, supportive, and rich learning environment for their young students, Salina has embraced hands-on learning, particularly with newcomers. In this article, the staff share how they have woven hands-on learning across the curriculum and sustained it during COVID-19 and virtual/hybrid learning.

Special thanks to the Salina Elementary educators who contributed to Part 2 of this series:

  • Cynthia Alvarado, Media Specialist
  • Beth Gorman, Instructional Coach and Garden Supervisor
  • Linda Lock, Art Teacher
  • Susan Stanley, Salina Elementary Principal

To learn more about Salina Elementary and how the school has engaged with newcomer families during COVID-19, see Part 1 of this series, Supporting Young ELLs' Success During COVID-19.

Hands-On Learning with STEAM

One reason that Salina has enthusiastically embraced hands-on learning is that they have seen the power of giving students early successes while they are learning a new language. They have also seen the opportunities hands-on learning gives students to develop their language skills in both their home languages and in their new language of English.

"STEAM-based activities are integral to closing the equity gap for our EL students," says Principal Susan Stanley. "The power to innovate, create, hypothesize, and collaborate does not require the same level of navigating the nuances of new languages that traditional learning requires. With intentional instruction, language barriers are erased. Children spend time exploring, questioning, and making meaning through discovery and collaborating with their peers. Language development is a natural byproduct of this type of learning."

Salina's activities include building and robotics, makerspace, computer coding, a school garden, and an annual STEAM expo where students show the special projects they have created based on their learning. The staff has looked for creative ways to continue hands-on learning during the pandemic.

Here are some examples of Salina's hands-on activities for students:

  • LEGO®: All students participate in LEGO® projects such as problem-solving, model projects in different content areas, and robotics. In addition, Salina Elementary participates in a LEGO® League project to prepare students for the First Robotics program that takes place at Salina Intermediate and Edsel Ford High School. The secondary students serve as mentors for the younger students, which helps them to build a cohesive program. During distance learning, LEGO® League projects were accomplished through family pods since mixed groups were not possible and older siblings mentored younger siblings throughout the process.
  • Makerspace: Salina offers a variety of maker projects at each grade level for students to demonstrate their learning in non-linguistic ways. Staff note, "This really offers all students a chance to shine, especially those whose language skills are still developing." Examples of maker projects include: making game boards, models of story elements, and the Grade 3 State of Michigan artifact project. Salina also has a Makers Club after school with a free choice and exploration format. The school had maker kits delivered to homes while students were learning remotely.
  • One School One Book: In this project-based program, every student in the school gets the same chapter book and the entire school reads the book together at home and in the classroom. The classes then integrate bulletin boards, displays, reading, writing, making robots (this year they are reading The Wild Robot), art displays, directed drawing, math, and robotics. The staff notes, "Even though we were in the middle of a pandemic and in a hybrid model, the kids read and learned and created with enthusiasm."

Community partnerships

Partnerships with local community organizations, companies, and universities have also played an important role in supporting this work, in part because the Dearborn School District has encouraged collaboration with many of the major institutions and corporations in the Detroit area. For example, Ford Motor Company supports LEGO® League, and the Dearborn Rotary supports Salina's Green Schools Initiative. DSHINES (Dearborn Shines for Healthy Kids!), a coalition among the school district, city, local universities, and other community partners, has also supported the school garden.

Hands-on learning with ELLs

The school has had a lot of success using these kinds of activities with newcomer ELLs in recent years, in part because they have seen the power of giving students the chance to feel successful while they are learning a new language. Staff at the school note that they have seen growth in students' language skills, as well as students' ability to demonstrate things they know but do not have enough language to express. These various activities allow students to enhance their oral language, apply vocabulary in real life hands-on settings, and build peer relationships.

Principal Stanley observes, "Students have learned the value of teamwork and effective collaboration. They are able to make observations over time, solve problems as situations occur, and understand that each one of them is an asset to the team and to the project. As they work together, they build healthy relationships where they take risks knowing that they are supported by the staff and by their peers."

Salina increases participation in these activities by encouraging all students to take part in its hands-on extracurricular activities and giving them the support to do so. For example, directions are given in nonlinguistic formats, such as pictures, diagrams, and videos. In addition, Salina staff are always informed about schedules and opportunities for students. They encourage families to become involved with activities and direct their students toward selected activities. Collaboration plays a role too. According to Principal Stanley, "Weekly PLC meetings and planning times allow teachers to coordinate, which the school is able to implement in part because the Dearborn Public Schools district is also committed to the PLC process, which provides opportunities for team collaboration and planning."

Slideshow: STEAM in action at Salina Elementary

The following slides show examples of student projects at Salina on display in the hallways and presented at the annual STEAM expo. These photographs and video stills were taken during the production of our video project, You Are Welcome Here.

 

Art and English language learners

As noted above, Salina also gives students lots of opportunities for creating art. Art projects are integrated into other content areas and activities such as garden murals, outdoor art, book club collaborations, and Maker Space collaboration. The school has also supported interdisciplinary workshops in Art and Literacy, STEAM, & makerspaces.

Art teacher Linda Lock explains, "Art gives ELLs a place to explore and discover that is engaging and fun. It gives them a place to feel safe, productive, and successful, even with little language. We have many centers available throughout the art studio, from light tables and magnifying glasses to blocks. The students are encouraged to make observations and communicate their ideas by drawing and writing in their sketchbook. They develop fine motor skills as they plan and visualize the steps needed to create their artwork. Being focused on the process of creating as much as on the product helps keep the artistic focus on a growth mindset.

"In the art room all students practice the Studio Habits of Mind. They gain confidence by playing, creating, and discovering with different materials and tools to try and help them express their ideas. Because the room is set up as an art studio, materials and centers are available once basic skills and routines are practiced. This allows the students to build independence in making once they can show (and later describe) the ideas they are planning. Artists create works of art, then reflect on the process by writing artist statements about their work."

The staff also are mindful of embedding language development opportunities in art class. "Scaffolding with pictures, as well as sentence stems and frames, support the young artists in their writing," Ms. Lock writes. "Students often excitedly share the skills and knowledge they learn with each other as they develop a community of creative learners...Being engaged in work you have created can empower and inspire your further learning. This ability to 'see' your ideas concretely enables the young artists' to investigate, describe, and evaluate their process and final artworks."

The Garden at Salina Elementary

Another success at Salina Elementary is the school garden, started three years ago through a grant with the DSHINES coalition, mentioned above. Additional support came from our parent-teacher-student organization and also a local greenhouse, and the school has funded small projects like new seeds and soil.

Students are actively involved in the garden by:

  • learning about different fruits and vegetables
  • deciding on what will be planted
  • preparing the garden beds
  • planting seeds
  • caring for the beds and weeding
  • investigating and observing as the seeds and plants grow
  • journaling about the plants and drawing/label everything in the garden.

In addition, children harvest the food and cafeteria workers have served salads and foods from the garden.

Lead teacher Beth Gorman writes, "Last year, the school started a pizza garden where students grew tomatoes and peppers and basil. The garden also has many herbs. The students pick and smell them and discuss how they are used. Mothers of students will often come by and ask for small bags of herbs to take home. The garden also has a pollinator bed and students have learned about pollinators in the garden, using magnifying glasses to observe butterflies, bees, and grasshoppers as well as other insects like ladybugs and beetles. Other activities include 'Eating the Rainbow' and 'What part of the plant do you eat?' The school is also anxiously looking forward to getting an insect house!"

The Salina Garden during COVID-19

This year, the students started seeds indoors early in egg cartons and then transplanted seedlings after 3 weeks. The school purchased beginning plants and added them in the garden. While students were at home, Ms. Gorman made videos of her gardening at home. Students watched videos and journaled with her over the spring and summer, graphing the height of plants every week. She also documented how she cared for the garden during an unexpected April snow storm.

When asked what students are doing now that in-person learning has resumed, Ms. Gorman shares this update: "We are making up for lost time, trying to get small groups in the garden ASAP. Teachers may also take their classes out any day and anytime for investigating, watering, weeding, or even just a read-aloud. Instead of just a bulletin board for sharing, I created a presentation (see below) and shared with the school. That way teachers could share and make sure all students are part of the garden. Pictures are donated and slides added throughout the gardening season. We will continue and expand this through our summer school program."

Slideshow: Salina Elementary Garden

Learn more about the Salina garden from this Google Slides presentation prepared by Ms. Gorman for the Salina community.

 

Ideas for Other Schools

When it comes to hands-on learning, the staff encourages other schools to start small, just as each of Salina's projects did. At the same time, however, they note that it's important to not create limitations in terms of what's possible. Principal Stanley says, "My best advice would be to begin with brainstorming which activities educators would like to provide their students IF money and time were no object. Starting big, you create the finish line and then whittle down to the point of entry. Anyone can begin something. Once you begin, it will take on a life of its own and opportunities for funding will present themselves. Create the big picture and go from there." She contiunes, "I have never gotten all the funding needed at one time. Some years, some things just aren't possible but I keep telling myself they are just not possible — YET. I tell EVERYONE I know about what's going on at school or projects we are trying to accomplish. Many times support comes from all areas of my life!"

She also urges teachers to advocate for their students. "Teachers are the best voices for their students," she says. "They know what their students need. The research we have now that is based on best practices was started years ago by classroom teachers who didn't settle for the status quo. They knew there had to be better ways to reach their students. These are the kind of grassroot movements which have informed and will continue to inform programming. What teachers need to do is use the power of their voice."

The role of leadership

Principal Stanley also credits the support of the Dearborn Public School district for all of these initiatives. "We could not do this alone," she says. "It is through their vision we have the support of our outstanding building and grounds who support the garden projects not only at Salina but throughout other schools as well. The district supports our schools and the programs they are creating. Our community partners build upon the foundation set by the district."

Principal Stanley can appreciate the difference this support makes because she knows it's not always available. In districts without this support, she says, "The initiatives were difficult to sustain. They either died after an administrator left or were not able to flourish because it was exhausting going it alone. It takes the support of district leadership to create and maintain these initiatives. Without that, it's like rolling having to roll a huge boulder up a hill each day, watch it come down, and doing the same thing the next. Strong district leadership keeps the boulder on top of the hill."

Videos from Dearborn, MI

You can learn more about Salina in our award-winning film You Are Welcome Here, produced in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers. The film includes a section on Salina's hands-on learning activities and STEAM expo, featured below.

You can also see the film with Arabic subtitles, a preview version, and additional videos from Salina in our related resource collection.

You Are Welcome Here: Supporting the Social and Emotional Health of Newcomer Immigrants

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Making Students and Families Feel Welcome

How Schools Can Support Immigrant Students and Families

Making Students and Families Feel Welcome

Mother hugging daughter

Learn how schools can help make all families feel welcome within the school, why these messages matter, and how to build upon immigrant families' experiences and strengths.

These strategies are part of the Colorín Colorado resource guide, How to Support Immigrant Students and Families: Strategies for Schools and Early Childhood Programs.

I know of one teacher who called all families of her students just to say 'I wanted to thank you for entrusting your child to our school. We're happy you're here. I love working with your student.' I heard about the phone call from an older sibling, and it was the first time I'd seen this girl smile in two weeks. Small gestures make a difference.

 — Educator response to a Colorín Colorado survey on how schools are supporting immigrant families


Overview

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Schools can use a variety of strategies to get to know immigrant families and let them know they are welcome in the school community. Sharing these messages of support during times of uncertainty can strengthen relationships, make communication and problem-solving more effective, and impact student attendance and family engagement.

Take a look at our ideas below to get started in your setting. For more great ideas, see related strategies on:

Let all families know that they are welcome

Why this matters

The best way to let families know that they are welcome is to tell them. This kind of outreach has always been important for ELL and immigrant families; however, it is even more critical for immigrant families who may:

  • feel unwelcome in the school, early childhood program, or community
  • not know if immigration status impacts the right to attend school or early childhood program, or even enter the building
  • be more likely to keep their children home and avoid educational settings themselves
  • keep their children home due to local immigration enforcement activity, threats against the school, or anti-immigrant sentiments
  • come from countries where school records are available to all government agencies

Expressing support signals that you value their place in your community and take those concerns seriously. It is also an important message to communicate to staff who are serving immigrant students and who may be immigrants themselves or have ties to immigrant relatives/communities.

Tips for getting started

Educators and school/program leaders can communicate this message by:

  • regularly expressing that families are welcome
  • posting welcome signs and messages of support on doors in multiple languages
  • making statements of support available online in multiple languages

Other kinds of outreach

Schools, districts, and early childhood programs can also share welcoming messages through:

  • parent information meetings
  • phone calls
  • public remarks in the community or local press
  • collaboration with community organizations that have a relationship with families (i.e. houses of worship, community centers, and immigrant rights groups)
  • Public Service Announcements and interviews with local media outlets in families' native languages, especially for communities with low levels of native language literacy.

Create a welcoming environment

Why this matters

The environment of a school or early childhood program has a significant impact on students and families. There are a number of things that educators can do to create a welcoming environment for immigrant students and families.

Tips for getting started

Make families and students feel welcome by:

Removing barriers to engagement

  • ensuring that families are greeted warmly at the front office in their language
  • introducing them to parent liaisons, Family Resource Centers, or other resources
  • helping families understand the U.S. school system
  • providing transportation, meals, and child care for family events
  • identifying specific stressors, such as stimuli that trigger post-traumatic stress
  • publicly dispelling myths that are harmful to immigrant communities

Communicating in families' languages

  • having access to someone who speaks their language
  • making information available in their language and format they prefer
  • teaching staff how to use a language phone line or other services with an interpreter
  • learning how to pronounce student and family names correctly
  • learning a few phrases in families' languages
  • welcoming and using students' home languages in the classroom
  • connecting students with peers, staff, or volunteers who speak their language

Celebrate students' countries and cultures

  • hanging flags of students' home countries
  • displaying artwork, photos, and mementos from students' countries
  • including culturally responsive books in families' home languages in the library and in classrooms (including books by diverse authors who share students' heritage)
  • providing opportunities for students and/or families to share songs and stories from their country or culture if they feel comfortable doing so
  • being mindful that some students may not wish to share information about their home country, immigration story, or place of birth and others may not remember or know much about it (see more on this topic in our related section on immigrant students' silence)

Engaging the school-wide/district-wide community

  • encouraging students to brainstorm ideas on how to make peers feel welcome
  • encouraging activities that foster students' empathy
  • reminding the community, including all students and adults in the building, of existing policies on bullying, bias, and discrimination
  • taking steps to prevent bullying and addressing bullying incidents when they occur
  • sharing these strategies and ideas with colleagues.

In addition, consider adding immigration status as a form of difference that merits equitable treatment in your classroom. Any time you engage in conversations with students about why it is important not to discriminate against others due to their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or other form of social difference, include immigration status (as is developmentally appropriate). If you have signs in your classroom that name different kinds of bullying or hate speech, include immigration status as well (Gallo, 2018).

Addressing bias

For recommendations on how to discuss and address bias, How to Address Bias and Bullying: Resources for Schools.

Recommended resources

Resources from Colorín Colorado

Toolkits

News headlines

Recommended videos

Video playlist: Creating a welcoming environment for ELL and immigrant students

Video playlist: Building relationships with ELL and immigrant students

Video: What happened when the students realized the Yemeni flag wasn't on stage

 

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Get to know your students and families

Why this matters

One of the most important steps educators can take is to get to know students and families, developing a personal relationship that establishes trust and rapport. It is much easier to address a difficult situation, such as changes in a student's behavior, when you already have a solid relationship.

Tips for getting started

  • Learn more about family backgrounds and strengths by talking with families, cultural liaisons, and ELL/bilingual colleagues.
  • Invite members of the community or local organizations to share their insights.
  • Look for ways to increase the amount of interaction between staff and families.
  • Get into families' neighborhoods by planning events in local venues and home visits.
  • Give students the chance to tell their stories with tips in this Colorín Colorado article.

Recommended resources

Strategies and background information

Books and guides

Student populations

Recommended videos

Video Playlist: Home visits with immigrant students

Video Playlist: Getting to know your ELL and immigrant students

Video: One principal's journey to a refugee camp

More recommended videos: Documentaries

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Learn more about special populations of students

Why this matters

It is critical to learn as much as possible about your students' backgrounds and educational experiences, as well as their talents and gifts, as you look for ways to help them succeed. You may also meet students who have unique experiences, strengths, and needs.

Here are some examples of those experiences:

  • Refugee students may have experienced trauma, difficult journeys, and lengthy stays in refugee camps or temporary accommodations with little access to schooling.
  • Students with interrupted education may have little or no schooling, or a patchwork of experiences.
  • Children of migrant farmworkers may have moved frequently around the country following different harvest seasons. They may not have school records from prior schools. They may be living in poverty and particularly vulnerable to events such as natural disasters.
  • Unaccompanied children and youth may have endured long, traumatic, and violent journeys and may be reuniting with family they haven't met or seen for a long time.
  • Students displaced by natural disasters may have gone through traumatic experiences, upheaval, and long separations from immediate family members.
  • Indigenous students from Latin America may mask their Indigenous identity and language; while schools may provide support in Spanish to these students based on their country of origin, Spanish may actually be a second or third language.

Tips for getting started

  • Look for clues about your students' experiences without asking direct questions.
  • Build relationships with students and families.
  • Find out if colleagues such as ESOL teachers, parent liaisons, or community partners have information about students' prior experiences. If so, invite these colleagues to share their insights with staff.
  • Learn more about the context for your students' experiences, such as a civil war that caused them to flee or the conditions that migrants face along particular routes.
  • Keep in mind that some students may be reluctant to share their experiences. See ideas for supportive ways to engage students that don't put them on the spot in our related section and our article on student stories.
  • Keep in mind that refugees and asylees have different kinds of rights in the U.S.; not everyone that used to live in a refugee camp has resettled through the State Department and has access to the rights and privileges that such a process entails.
  • You may also wish to look at students’ schedules and look for ways to reduce the number disruptions and transitions where possible, particularly for newcomers. See our related section on this topic.

Recommended resources

Serving Afghan refugee families

If your school is welcoming new refugee families from Afghanistan, please see the following:

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Identify student and family strengths

Why this matters

All students and families have strengths and assets.  Recognizing those strengths can create a foundation on which to build an effective partnership. It is an important shift from a "deficit" approach, in which families and students are defined by their needs and challenges.

Tips for getting started

  • Be sure to highlight student and family strengths and celebrate them publicly and regularly within the entire school/program community. 
  • Look for families' strengths and successes in overcoming and managing their challenges and caring for their children.
  • Ask students and families to describe their skills, interests, and talents, and ask for additional input from colleagues and community partners.
  • Look for ways to do this in the classroom. Encourage teachers to look for students' strengths (using this chart of asset-based language as a starting point), as well as contributions that members of the students' communities have made locally and to American society.

Recommended resources

Recommended Videos

Video: Building upon students' strengths

Video: Getting to know students through parent letters

Video: Our parents value education and their children's teachers

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School Attendance

Finally, making families feel welcome can have a positive impact on attendance. Talking with families about the importance of attending school regularly and scheduling long family trips during vacation times can help improve attendance overall. (These multilingual tip sheets from Attendance Works highlight helpful information for families at all grade levels.)

At the same time, there may be other pressures on families that are prompting them to keep children home, especially if they feel that school may be unsafe. For example, schools in Springfield, OH have received several threats that have led them to close for periods of time and left families wondering whether it is safe to send children to school.

Immigration enforcement

Researchers at UCLA studying the impact of immigration enforcement on schools reported that 68% of school administrators who were surveyed in late 2017 and early 2018 report an increase in absenteeism among immigrant students to be a problem, with nearly 11% considering it to be a big problem.

A number of districts have also seen attendance drop sporadically when immigration enforcement activity is reported in the local community, as in the case of a 2017 raid in Las Cruces, New Mexico, or the case of a 2018 immigration workplace raid in Tennessee. Other districts have been concerned about school enrollment and registration at the beginning of a new year. These absences not only impact student achievement and teacher planning; they have a financial impact on school districts as well in states that fund districts based on average daily attendance (Gándara, 2018).

An administrator from New Jersey reports, "The kids are scared and sometimes they hide for days when there are immigration raids in the area. Some of the students have no food or place to live because the parents do not have a job and they go day by day" (Gándara and Ee, 2018a, p. 14).

The same is true in the early childhood community. Due to heightened concerns, researchers from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) interviewing early childhood educators documented "drops in attendance, fewer applicants, trouble filling available spaces, and decreased parent participation in classrooms and at events," in addition to fewer trips to community activities at the library, park, or even shopping (Cervantes, Ullrich, & Matthews, 2018, p.3).

The CLASP researchers note that young "children are losing out on enriching early childhood experiences that are important to prepare them for success in school and in life."

Related research: The impact of police cooperation with immigration enforcement on school enrollment

A Stanford University study released in the Fall of 2018 indicates that local police cooperation with immigration enforcement officials can impact the enrollment of Latino students in nearby schools. The researchers estimated that such partnerships in 55 jurisdictions nationwide displaced more than 300,000 Latino students between 2000 and 2011.

Related resources

See more from the following:

 

References

See our complete reference list for works cited in this article.

Reprints

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact info@colorincolorado.org.