Recent Activities of the Week

Self-directed (autonomous) learning means that learners are in control of their own learning! To be successful while learning outside of the classroom, learners have to consider how they will set goals, what strategies they will use to learn, what evidence they will have to document their growth, and how they will evaluate themselves. To begin their journey, have students watch the video below to learn what autonomous learning is and how they can use it in their everyday lives. And remember, just because they are acting autonomously, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t working with other people! It just means that learners are in charge.

You can find the video here: https://youtu.be/rsohouRV1I0

After learns have watched the video, it's time for them to begin their journey with self-directed learning. Have them complete the following activity to brainstorm some of ways that they learn and practice language. Once they have done it for themselves, look at our ideas. Do these inspire learners to add anything to their original lists?

Brainstorm: Student Guide – Fillable
Brainstorm: Student Guide – Printable
Brainstorm: Our Ideas

July's InterCom has been all about self-care and rejuventation.  Additionally, we know that time for professional growth and development is important.  This week we highlight two upcoming opportunties for langauge teachers.  

COFLT Summer Learning Series

More information and registration can be found here: http://cofltoregon.org/summerlearning 

COFLT recognizes that the transition to remote learning due to Coronavirus has been a challenge for students and teachers alike. In order to help prepare for the start of the upcoming school year, COFLT is offering free webinars with opportunities for question and answers, PDUs, and graduate level credit, all for free to COFLT members! Here is the information for the first series we are offering.  The first three webinars we have planned for you are:

  1. Happy Hour - July 29th, 4pm-6pm - Language Learning Online: 5 Key Concepts for Implementing Effective World Language Experiences (for all language teachers) Session presenter: Julie Sykes

  2. Morning Coffee - August 4th, 9am-11am - From Brick and Mortar To Online Learning (for all language teachers) Session presenters: María Calvo and Claudia Raffaele

  3. Late Lunch - August 14th, 2pm-4pm -The Language Classroom in the Distance Learning Environment: a Lesson Experience (Dual language Spanish teacher specific-in Spanish) Session presenters:             Marisol Kreuzer and Miles Rooklyn

----------------------

CASLS Professional Development Series

More information and registration can be found here: https://casls.uoregon.edu/classroom-resources/virtual-professional-development/

Whether you’re planning for hybrid or remote instructional contexts for your classes this fall, our professional development series about student-centered digital spaces has you covered. Discover how to harness positive affordances of online spaces and extend meaningful student learning.

Our professional development series will introduce you  to a variety of topics related to student-centered, inquiry-based learning in online spaces. Topics covered will include:

• Valuing the unique experiences and skills learners bring to the classroom
• Communication in digital spaces (e.g., message boards, social media)
• Digital and mobile gameplay
• Connecting gameplay and higher-order thinking
• Simultaneous navigation of digital and analog spaces

As is tradition at InterCom, this week's Activity of the Week shifts away from activities for students towards materials that support teachers' own professional development and growth.  The activity introduces, Catalyst, a free online portfolio and networking tool designed for language teachers.  We encourage you to take advantage of this tool and connect with others around the country doing the same.

This week's Activity of the Week walks viewers through ways to use memes for language learning. It describes memes and then gives learners ideas for exploring them in the target language. Extension activities include having learners create their own memes, explore and analyze the associated cultural references, and/or compare the same meme across languages and dialects. 

---------------------------

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

This week's Activity of the Week is designed to help learners explore their dictionaries and consider all of the ways dictionaries can be useful (and not useful) throughout their language learning journey.  Using a scavenger hunt, they are tasked with finding specific cultural references, synonyms, antonyms, and/or words with mutliple meanings. To extend this activity, you can then have learners create their own scavenger hunts for their classmates, friends, or family. 

---------------------------

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

This week's Activity of the Week helps learners get the most out of off-the-shelf mobile apps for language learning. The activity offers five tips to enhance learning while using mobile devices. This is an especially useful activity for highly motivated learners or those who need additional support when working with off-the-shelf mobile apps.

---------------------------

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

Resources for Language Educators that Address Issues of Race, Diversity, and Social Justice

A special, open-access issue that complies Foreign Language Annals publications designed to provide resources to help world langaueg teachers address issues of race, diversity, and social justice in the classroom and across the profession.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1944-9720.social-justice-and-race-issues

Black Lives Matter: Instructional Library

This resources connects to children's books (read out loud) related to racism, advocacy, and activism.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18pOK3roiwPQ9WF7D2wA0o7Ktr8KwAJeZfn-o6O8T__Y/mobilepresent?fbclid=IwAR2l2y3y0ERZNEYPErgq5dtzFp0tZqk9lDWq8b_yTuQTZoOz7dctUn3lIQ0&slide=id.p

15 Resources for Discussing Racism, Policing, and Protest

An EdWeek blog post with 15 classroom activities for discussion racism, policing, and protest in the classroom.

https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2020/06/15_classroom_resources_for_discussing_racism_policing_and_protest.html

This week's Activity of the Week is designed to get learners exploring their environment, especially when they are out and about or away form classes for the summer. This activity highlights ways to explore both physical and digital environments.  It can be espcially useful for extending learning beyond the classroom and finding examples of multilingualism all around us. 

---------------------------

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

This week's Activity of the Week is designed to get learners connecting what they are learning to their everyday lives by labeling their living space with new words and concepts. Novice learners can do this with concrete items and actions, and more advanced learners can post abstract and complex ideas.  It is also a great way to help make prepositions salient and meaningful. 

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

This week's Activity of the Week is designed to get learners connecting what they know to the culture and language they are studying.  Using commercials from a global company (e.g., Coca Cola, an airline, the Olympics), learners are asked to compare what they see in commercials in the langaueg they are learning versus what appears in their dominant language. The complexity of this activity can be adapted to any level of proficiency by adapting the tasks for the learners. Novice larners might be asked to look for key words or images and more advanced learners could be asked for a writen comparison or video analysis. 

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

This week's Activity of the Week is designed to get learners connecting new words to their own environment. For novice learners, this can be a great way to document the new words they learn. For higher levels, this can be a technique for challenging them to use less frequent vocabulary or brainstorm words they don't typically use. You can even challenge students to see who can come up with the most words for a picutre you provide.  

Each week, the activity is designed as an activity that can be added to your online course, parent email, or other digital delivery system AS IS. That means no modification, minimal extra time, and a way to mix things up while still balancing a whole new system. Each activity is focused on a language learning strategy, function, or interculturality standard and will work in any language. (Note: The activities are created in English but are designed for target language use in any language with adaptations for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners. This format enables remote access while still encouraging target language use.) Some ideas for using these activities include:

• A Weekly Challenge for your students that can be used to earn participation points or extra credit.
• An extension activity that requires reflection on the learning objectives of the course and critical thinking about how what they are learning relates to the world.
• An activity to send home to parents and guardians for them to do with their kids.

by Johanna Lyon, CASLS Graduate Employee

In this activity, a typical feedback process for grammatical correction in a writing sample is altered to be learner oriented. This activity can be done in any language and is appropriate for all levels, but especially for advanced-mid to intermediate-high learners. It is ideally positioned during the course while students are in the middle of draft revision for a larger written assignment.

Learning Outcomes:

Learners will be able to:

• Identify grammatical errors in their own writing

• Propose corrections for common grammatical errors in a peer-assessment format

• Reflect upon common mistakes they make when writing

Mode(s): Presentational

Materials: Previously submitted writing sample draft (1 per student)

Procedure

1. After your students have completed a draft of a writing sample, provide them with grammatical feedback by only underlining incorrect sentences for one component (e.g. introductory paragraph) of the writing sample.

2. Students will work together in groups of four to correct any grammar mistakes that were indicated by the underlined components. Make sure the groups contain students of varied strengths so they can support one another during the activity. They are encouraged to collaborate and ask questions to their group members if there are sentences they are unsure about. You should, at this time, provide minimal feedback. Only confirm or deny if students have done a correction correctly.

3. Once students have worked through their samples, they should collect any sentences that they could not fix in their groups and write these on the whiteboard at the front of the room.

4. At this time, open the error correction discussion up to the class. No sentence should be left uncorrected. Even if students are not confident in their corrections, they should at least try something based off of the rules they know. Again, only confirm or deny the accuracy of the corrections.

5. Facilitate evaluation of each correction made on the board. Ask the student who corrected each sample to explain their correction and why they made it. Correct the work only if necessary. After each sentence, allow the class to ask clarifying questions and leave room for extended explanation if necessary.

6. After the group corrections, provide time for students to reflect upon the errors they most frequently make when writing. They should come up with at least two common errors they experience.

7. For homework, students are charged with finding and correcting any errors in the remaining portion of their writing sample.

The purpose of this activity is to guide educators in developing a practical reflection tool that can be used in modeling and supporting the development of critical evaluative and reflective skills within learners. These skills support a learner-centered classroom.

Learning Objectives:

Teachers will be able to:

• Draft a handout that guides self-evaluation and reflection and/or peer review.

Modes: Any

Materials: Formative or summative assessment(s) and related evaluation criteria

Procedure:

1. Examine an assessment (formative or summative), a series of related assessments (formative or summative), and the evaluation criteria for those assessments. Identify critical skills and characteristics that are indicated by the evaluation criteria (e.g., organized presentation of ideas, use of cohesive and/or rhetorical devices, the ability to repair miscommunication).

2. Create a list of those skills. Some example lists are provided below.

Presentational Mode

• Has a clear purpose/objective
• Uses effective transitions
• Has clearly developed ideas
• Has clearly supported ideas
• Organizes ideas in an effective manner
• Employs an appropriate tone and register throughout
• Structural features are appropriate to genre
• Uses varied and engaging language

 Interpretive Mode

• Articulates main ideas
• Identifies supporting details
• Uses genre-specific cues to predict meaning
• Uses contextual cues to predict meaning
• Comprehends pronoun usage
• Provides evidence to support conclusions
• Corretly interprets implicature

  Interpersonal Mode

• Communicates ideas
• Demonstrates awareness of breakdowns in communication
• Repairs misunderstandings
• Uses gesture and/or images to appropriately emphasize and communicate ideas
• Handles unexpected complications
• Actively negotiates meaning
• Pronunciation and/or written emphasis contribute to meaning making

3. Use your list to create a guide to direct learners in their own self-evaluation and/or peer  review.  Provide space for them to identify their strengths, provide evidence of their strengths, and to provide one goal for improvement. An example guide is included here.

4. Identify specific times within your upcoming lessons to model the skills you identified in Step 2. Provide learners time to evaluate examples as you model so that they understand what the skills look like in practice.

Notes:

The lists indicated in Step 2 are agnostic of proficiency level. Teachers may want to adapt these lists to their specific contexts. For example, teachers of novice learners may indicate that the ideas communicated and interpreted are familiar and/or practiced and may omit skills related to adapting to unexpected complications.

This week’s Topic of the Week illustrated the reality that learners have incredible access to language learning opportunities in the informal market (via apps and the like). However, attrition within these platforms is high, and may contribute to general dissatisfaction with language learning. This activity was designed with this reality in mind and is intended to leverage the learners’ activities within popular tools from the commercial market while simultaneously increasing their explorations of communicative competence.

Outcomes:

Learners will be able to:

• Explore decontextualized sentence-length utterances in the target language and connect those utterances to meaningful communicative contexts.

Modes: Interpersonal (though any may arise at the activity’s close)

Materials: Popular language learning apps and/or fill-in-the-blank exercises

Procedure:

1. Ask learners to consider a phrase with a meaning that changes drastically depending on communicative context. For example, learners might consider, “Shut up!” This phrase is both a command to tell someone to stop talking and an exclamation of excitement shared between friends when something exciting or amazing transpires.

2. Ask learners how they know the illocutionary force (intended meaning) when they hear an utterance such as “Shut up!” Brainstorm relevant context and communication cues as a class.

3. Next, tell learners that they are going to play a game. Within the game, they will collect as many potentially ridiculous utterances as they can from decontextualized grammar and vocabulary exercises found on popular language learning apps (or within other fill-in-the-blank classroom activities). By the end of this search, each learner should have collected at least five different phrases.

4. Next, ask learners to offer their phrases to the class. Provide a small prize for the utterance that the class finds to be the most ridiculous.

5. After voting, have learners work to articulate communicative scenarios in which they would use the ridiculous phrases they collected. For example, they may collect a sentence like “I have three rocks in my shoe.” and brainstorm that they are track champions explaining to the press why the lost a race. 

6. Discuss the scenarios as a class. If time allows, have the learners practice the scenarios is small groups or pairs.

In addition to this week's activity, we invite you and your students to offer your opinions and insights concerning critical innovation in language learning. This give you an opportunity to weigh in on some of the key ideas noted in this week's Topic of the Week.

Survey for Learners: https://oregon.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5hwWfyjoBxKemsR

Survey for Educators: https://oregon.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9nRNs5bBg4SDjuJ

The purpose of this activity is to provide intermediate learners with awareness and knowledge of the factors contributing to the spread of misinformation via the various media they engage with. It was designed in concert with this week's Topic of the Week. 

Objectives:

Learners will be able to:

• Identify features of news articles, blogs, and social media postings that indicate the level of credibility of the source.
• Write a blog post explaining major factors contributing to the national and global spread of misinformation.

Modes: Interpersonal, Presentational

Materials: Vocabulary list (an example is provided here for adaptation), butcher paper or poster board, Plague Inc. (available on Steam, Google Play, and in the App Store), target language news posts

Procedure:

1. Divide learners into groups and introduce them to vocabulary dealing with media and mass communication by providing them with a vocabulary list (a sample list that provides words that may be helpful during gameplay is here). After a few minutes of silent reflection and review of the list, the learner groups will engage in a gallery walk/carousel in which they answer various questions posted on butcher paper or poster board around the classroom:

     a. What media are most likely to promote the spread of (mis)information?

     b. What local (country-level) factors may contribute to the spread of (mis)information around the globe?

     c. What do you think makes a person believe false news story and/or misinformation?

     d. Do you think that viral news is credible? Why?

     e. What people groups are the most persuasive in sharing misinformation?

2. After discussing some of the responses as a class, have the learners play Plague Inc. (the Fake News Update, accessible in the top right corner of the home screen) for twenty to thirty minutes. As they play, learners will take notes of major events as they occur on their own sheets of paper. Encourage learners to start the fake news story in a large country so that gameplay is achievable during the allotted time.

3. After gameplay concludes, revisit the questions from the gallery walk/carousel using the Think, Pair, Share format. Ask your learners to explain the extent to which their answers have changed based upon their gameplay experiences.

4. Next, provide learners with an overview of tips for spotting false news. A good example is https://www.summer.harvard.edu/inside-summer/4-tips-spotting-fake-news-story. After discussing the tips, show learners target language posts (e.g., social media posts and article headlines). For each post, learners will form a line based on how credible they think the posts are (indicate which side is low credibility and which side is high credibility). Ask various students to justify their opinions using the tips you discussed.

5. Using the tips, their notes from gameplay, and handouts as inspiration, learners will write a short blog in which they identify three factors that contribute to the spread of false news. They should encourage counter action in their blogs.

Notes:

• If necessary, review blogs and appropriate rhetorical and structural devices learners may need to be aware of before completing Step 6. You may also wish to review commands or other structures appropriate to making suggestions in the target language.
• Language teachers may want to delve more into country-specific data when exploring this issue with learners. This post is a couple of years old, but it provides a nice synthesis of what specific countries are doing to target misinformation campaigns.
• Language teachers are encouraged to adapt the vocabulary list provided for their learners’ specific needs.
• As is the case with any game, teachers should play Plague Inc. before using it in class.
• Plauge, Inc. is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Kroean, Norwegian, Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.

This Activity of the Week is based off of a game created by Sarah Serwe, a library professional and French teacher at Vandergrift High School in Austin,Texas. It was written by Michaela Parisi, the author of this week's Topic of the Week.

 “Trio” is a game that can be adapted for many different languages and can be played with language learners of all levels. This simple game increases student vocabulary while enhancing their internal schemata through the classifciation of words into categories and subcategories. Importantly, the grouping of words must be meaningful because the player’s teammates must be in agreeance before announcing their answers. 

Learning Outcomes:

Learners will be able to:

• Use existing knowledge to create robust schemata for target vocabulary words
• Demonstrate understandign of multiple target vocabulary words at once.

Mode(s): Presentational, Interpersonal

Material(s): Trio cards (in French and English)

Procedure:

1. Divide learners into pairs or small groups. These pairs and small groups will face one another as teams. Provide each set of teams with Trio cards (examples in French and English). Each Trio card consists of three words and one category or conjoining word. These words can be interrelated, such as cat, dog, and fish, or part of a larger phrase, such as rise, set, shine. The goal is to find the word that links the three words. In the examples above, “animal” relates cat, dog, and fish, while “sun” relates rise, set, and shine.

2a. To start the game, one person from the first team draws a card and reads the three words. Their teammates must infer the word that relates the three words on the card. If the first team finds the correct answer, they score two points. Then, the second team has 30 seconds to respond in one of the following ways:

1. The second team finds a word in the same category to score a point for their team.
   1. Example: If the first team found the word "animal," the second team may add the word “farm” to score one point.
2. The second team finds a more precise category to score three points for their team.
   1. Example: If the first team finds the word "animal" to unite the three words (cat, dog, and fish), the second team scores three points if they find a more precise category such as “pets.”

2b. If the first team does not find the word after one minute, they pass the card to the second team, who has 30 seconds to find the right answer. If no one finds the right answer after 30 seconds, someone reads the right answer, but no one scores any points.

3. Repeat Steps 1-2 for the allotted time (decided by the teacher).

4. The team with the most points at the end of the final turn wins.

Notes:

After gameplay, teachers may wish to debrief with learners by discussing the cards that were most meaningful and most difficult. This discussion will provide the opportunity for teacher input and clarification.

Shannon L. Hill, M.A., is a teacher of high school Spanish, including AP Spanish Language and Culture, at The John Cooper School in The Woodlands, Texas. Her career spans 28 years of teaching experience at both the high school and college levels.

This activity is designed for use in my AP Spanish Language and Culture classes. Students will be called upon to speak, listen, read, and sometimes write in the course of this activity. Teams of students will use critical thinking, deductive reasoning, and problem solving skills to successfully complete this activity.

Objectives:

Learners will be able to:

• Develop critical thinking and problem solving skills
• Communicate with their teammates only in Spanish, which will require circumlocution, creativity, and both speaking and listening skills
• Acquire and retain information related to the Basque witch trials of the 17th Century

Materials: PowerPoint  that provides context, Puzzles (included in this file)

Procedure:

1. Review the rules. Empasize that no translation engines are allowed.

2. Divide students into teams of 3 or 4 (larger teams become too cumbersome.)

3. Each team chooses one of the available colors.

4. Give each team the first puzzle (all of the puzzles used are available in this file) and any introductory context. This PowerPoint  has the puzzles as well as answers for teachers. For teachers who don't speak Spanish, the first puzzle provides background historical information and is solved by using the underlined letters. The second puzzle provides more specific information related to the Basque witch trials, and the answer is discovered by noting the miscapitalized letters. The third puzzle requires learners to count letters to discern the targeted Basque word. The fourth puzzle requires learners to find mispellings to uncover critical terminology. The fifth puzzle requires learners to equate letters with certain numbers to uncover a critical historical fact. The sixth puzzle requires learners to look at all of their other answer to uncover the final word.

5. Each team must solve their puzzle and present it to the instructor to earn the next puzzle in the series. They will repeat this process until they solve all puzzles. Please note that they should keep each completed puzzle as they will need all the pieces for the final challenge.

Notes:

Depending on the types of puzzles in play, students may be called upon to send and receive emails, visit websites, research clues online, solve equations, break codes, and apply all information acquired to complete the series.

It is critical to encourage persistence and problem solving, as well as to monitor consistent use of the target language. The competitive nature of the task encourages students to stay focused, and the collaborative problem-solving aspect forces them to manipulate and apply the information, which in turn reinforces retention.

Six puzzles typically take a team of four students about an hour to complete.

This activity was created by Becky Peterson, this week's author of the Topic of the Week, in collaboration with CASLS staff.

This week’s Activity of the Week was created to support world language teachers and departments in exploring Erik Carter’s research related to belonging.

Objectives:

Teachers will be able to:

• Build awareness of Carter’s ten aspects of belonging
• Articulate a plan for increasing belonging in the classroom

Materials: This week’s Topic of the Week, butcher paper

Procedure:

1. As a department (or with at least one other collaborating teacher), read this week’s Topic of the Week. As you read, consider the potential of the world language classroom to reach learners of all abilities, and star any parts of the text that you find particularly poignant and insightful.
2. Discuss the parts of the text that each of you starred. Explain what you found to be insightful.
3. On butcher paper, write each of the ten aspects of belonging (one per piece of paper) and post them around the room.
4. Provide each participant with a green marker and a blue marker. In museum walk/carousel format, each person should walk from paper to paper and document strategies they already implement in the classroom to enhance belonging in green. They should document ideas for improvement in blue. If an idea is already listed, each participant can simply star the idea with the appropriate color.
5. Once the museum walk/carousel is complete, participants should speak about the different strategies that appear on the board. Specifically, consider the extent to which each strategy involves multimodal approaches to communication and incorporates/supports learners with limited communication abilities.
6. After this discussion, establish a department goal for improving strategies that promote inclusive practices and belonging for all learners. This goal may include gathering more research related to multimodal approaches, reaching out to trainers, or engaging in peer observations to better understand the strategies in practice.

Notes: 

As an extension, practitioners may consider adapting this activity to include learners in the classroom. 

This week's Activity of the Week is an inventory for educators to use when planning for, and establishing, a rigorous, individualized environment for neuroatypical learners.

Objectives:

Teachers will be able to:

• Examine personal awareness of the needs of individual learners.

• Articulate a plan for promoting a rigourous environment for individual learners.

Materials: Inventory 

Procedure:

1. Read the Inventory with a specifc learner in mind.

2. Read the Inventory again. Circle every statement in the inventory that you feel confident of when thinking of the student.

3. Select one statement you did not circle as your goal. Articulate your plan for achieving the goal by stating specific steps you will engage in, setting a timeline for yourself, and establishing a way to measure your progress.

4. Share your goal with a trusted colleague for feedback and guidance.

5. Reflect regularly on your progress and change your goal when it is appropriate to do so.

This Activity of the Week provides teachers with the opportunity to examine and implement the classroom strategies in “Supporting World Language Learning for Students with Disabilities,” a guidebook for practitioners published by the Virginia Department of Education.

Objectives:

Teachers will be able to:

• Evaluate classroom strategies designed for the inclusive classroom.

• Implement one of the strategies within a lesson.

• Reflect on the implementation of the strategy to articulate a plan for the next instance of implementation.

Materials: “Supporting World Language Learning for Students with Disabilities” 

Procedure:

1. Read p. 31-43 in "Supporting World Language Learning for Students with Disabilities.”  As you read, star 3-5 strategies that you want to implement in your own class.

2. Select one strategy. Consider the cautions about the strategy outlined within the document and articulate a plan to contend with the cautions. For example, if the strategy calls for use of materials that might call attention to learners with diverse needs, think of how to replicate the same materials for other learners in the classroom.

3. Write a lesson plan that features the strategy that you selected.

4. Implement the lesson plan. Pay close attention to whether your strategy reached all learners and to the ways in which the strategy promoted (or failed to promote) inclusivity.

5. Ask the learners to complete an exit ticket at the close of the lesson in which they articulate their favorite aspect of the strategy as well as offer any questions or concerns they had related to the strategy.

6. Upon reading the exit tickets, consider your own observations from the class and decide what went well for you with regards to implementation. Make a note of those successes so that you remember to replicate them in the future. Then, note one change that you would like to make to ensure prolonged success in future implementations of the strategy.