February 5, 2023

Dear Administrators at CCISD,

With our district invested in the work of Personalized Learning, I am proposing to create an Online Blended Learning EB (Emergent Bilingual) Instructional Coaching Initiative amongst the district’s EB Instructional Coaches and teachers providing ESL services to promote an authentic learning environment where our elementary EB students have choice, ownership and voice in their learning (Horn et al., 2014; Elements, n.d.; Harapnuik et al., 2018).

We only have eight elementary EB coaches in our district.  However, there are over 27 elementary campuses, and all have EB student populations. We have limited district-wide opportunities to support these ESL certified teachers along with their EB students.

I propose creating an Online Blended Learning Initiative for Emergent Bilingual Coaches and teachers providing ESL services through the use of cutting-edge technology with online discussions and meetings, as well as, in-person gatherings to share curriculum, strategies and resources. (Horn et al., 2014) Through this initiative, teachers providing ESL services will receive resources for instruction and for the creation of authentic learning environments where our elementary EB students have choice, ownership and voice in their learning (Harapnuik et al., 2018).

This initiative would allow flexibility in the learning due to time constraints with classroom teaching in order to provide the support of an EB Instructional Coach when a teacher providing ESL services does not have an EB Coach on his/her campus.

I would like to pilot this initiative as an EB Instructional Coach with the elementary campuses in my feeder who only have teachers of ESL supporting their EB students. Then, through a use of a survey and discussions, get feedback to improve this initiative so that it can be replicated throughout the district with other EB Instructional Coaches and the elementary campuses in their feeders who only have ESL certified teachers supporting their EB students.

In order to launch this initiative, I will need the continued support to co-create and co-teach with ESL-certified teachers on my campus with EB students in their classrooms as we collaborate on the Personalized Learning strategies and artifacts created in our ongoing work (Elements, n.d).  I will also need your permission share my ePortfolio along with these created items and other resources with the teachers of ESL on the other campuses participating in the pilot and with my EB coaching colleagues (Elements, n.d.; Harapnuik et al., 2018). 

Thank you for the consideration of my innovation proposal with this new initiative.

Sincerely,

Angela Deschner

EB Instructional Coach

References

Elements, E. (n.d.). The Ultimate Personalized Learning Guide. Education Elements. https://www.edelements.com/personalized-learning

Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018). COVA: Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning (0.9) [Ebook]. Creative Commons License.

Horn, M. B., Staker, H., & Christensen, C. M. (2014). Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools. Wiley.