Mission
Project MELTS aims to improve the preparation of elementary teachers to support academic achievement and language development of English learners.
Goals
To improve Pre-Service Teacher (PST) training practices for teaching ELs, in-service teacher EL support skills, and EL academic performance through enhanced PST training and credentialing.
PROCESS: In order to do this, the MELTS team will develop in K-5 generalist PSTs a set of key instructional micro-skills for supporting ELs that are differentiated by level of proficiency and have evidence of promoting second language development and achievement in academic subjects.
TIMELINE: Through a four-semester sequence of ten increasingly complex instructional activities that foster mastery of EL instructional micro-skills at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of English proficiency, PSTs can attain micro-credentialing Digital Badges either through micro-teaching or simulation to recognize their enhanced skill in working with ELs.
MICROCREDENTIALING RESULTS: Summative data collected through examination of both groups’ impact on EL gains on unit tests compared to the gains of non-ELs on the same tests during the PSTs’ final internship, and the use of objective observation instruments, will demonstrate the effect of EL micro-credentialing on PST performance in the classroom. The output from these data will also reflect which PST instructional model (micro-teaching vs. simulation) has greater impact on PST performance. The final comparison will be between the learning gains of ELs taught by MELTS (both simulation and microteaching groups) PSTs compared to the ELs taught by non-MELTS PSTs.
IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES: The immediate outcomes from the data collection will focus on continuous improvement of PST training models for working with ELs through micro-credentialing, while the long-term outcomes include enriched in-service teacher knowledge and skill supporting ELs and their families, and increased EL academic performance in the classroom.
