Dr. Doran: We’d love to share a little bit about the ELEVATE Project at Towson University. This is our national professional development grant funded by the office of English Language Acquisition. And we provide training to teachers in Anne Arundel County Public Schools, through a master’s program, focused on literacy and ESOL. We also provide concurrent professional development support to three schools in the county that have significant numbers of English Learners. That professional development support includes coaching, opportunities for book studies, or individualized professional development, support with coteaching, support with planning, and access to materials, such as bilingual literacy or language resources. We also provide support to a cadre of teachers in our preservice program here at the College of Education. Those students have the opportunity to pursue elective coursework in ESOL, along with a series of one-day workshops to build their skills in particular areas where our grant focuses.
Dr. Neville: One of the opportunities that we had from the grant, was to offer, for the first time, an ELEVATE Conference, and it was held in September (2022). Participants included, both teachers, the faculty from Towson, and some of the teachers from the school in which we do outreach, as well as the preservice students from Towson University. We had over 130 participants at the conference, which hosted two strands of presentations. One on Social-Emotional Learning, the other on Literacy Practices for English Learners.
Dr. Martinez-Alba: Through the grant we’ve also been able to provide parent workshops in English and in Spanish and we use things such as wordless picture books. When the parents come and learn how to work with their children using literacy, they can see that they can participate, regardless of their language or regardless of their own literacy level in their native language.
ELEVATE’s M.Ed and ESOL endorsement program is designed to help educators gain competencies in data collection and analysis for literacy and language learners, to gain skills and conceptual understanding needed to make accurate decisions for literacy instruction, intervention and placement of linguistically diverse learners.
This fully online program requires cohort members to pay a $750 self-payment for tuition each Fall and Spring semester. Cohort members can apply to their school districts for reimbursement for this self-pay portion after each Fall and Spring semester (teachers should check with their HR departments for more details on this process). The ELEVATE Program fellowship award funding pays for all other tuition and fees for each Fall and Spring semester, and all of the tuition and fees for Summer coursework.
M.Ed. in Reading Education and ESOL endorsement fully online program overview:
Professional Development Opportunities:
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- Annual half-day conference
- Design and deliver Professional Development to AACPS schools
- Specialized PD
- Family support for literacy
- Informal peer support and mentoring
- Provide literacy materials and training support to teachers and families
- School-based service projects