Professional Development

Khmer is the national language of Cambodia and the heritage language of over 300,000 Cambodian Americans in the United States. This chapter presents a qualitative case study of the presence and use of Khmer in Greater Los Angeles. This study includes a linguistic landscape survey of Long Beach’s Cambodia Town which analyzes the extent to which Khmer has a visible physical presence. The linguistic and cultural diversity of Cambodia Town extends beyond the concentration of Khmer speakers. The symbolic function focuses on the uses of a language for value and status in relation to other languages. Community-based Khmer heritage language programs provide another avenue for Cambodian Americans who wish to further develop their Khmer language. The library offers programs targeting Spanish-speaking patrons, and English conversation programs to help adults improve their English. Many of United Cambodian Community’s programs provide services for older residents and spaces for Khmer language use.

Preschool teachers can help support families and children successfully transition to kindergarten by utilizing transition practices that support parental involvement and create smooth linkages between early care settings and formal schooling. Additionally, parents’ perceptions of invitations for involvement may also play an important role in shaping parental involvement. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth cohort (N ≈ 4100) a structural equation model was estimated to examine the relationship among preschool teachers’ transition practices, parents’ perceptions of invitations for involvement, parental involvement, and measures of school readiness during the transition to kindergarten. Results indicate that parent’s perceptions of invitations for involvement are positively associated with home-based parental involvement. Additionally, home-based involvement was predictive of school readiness measures. More specifically, findings suggest that parents who have more positive perceptions about preschool teachers’ invitations for involvement report engaging in more home-based involvement activities, which in turn, was positively associated with children’s academic achievement and prosocial behaviors and negatively associated with conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention. Results from this study have important practical implications for educators who aim to encourage parental involvement that supports children’s transition to elementary school.

As today’s classrooms become more and more diverse, there is a growing need to explore the intersection between English Learners (ELs) and students with learning disabilities (LD) in the content-specific instruction of mathematics problem solving. The aim of this study was to determine which types of instructional scaffolds may be used by math teachers to effectively support ELs with LD learning multiplicative reasoning. To this end, we employed an exploratory case study based on a frequency count analysis of four scaffold types used by the students and the teacher in their sessions. The results showed that kinesthetic and linguistic scaffolds were the most beneficial for helping ELs with LD to cultivate mathematical thinking with both concrete and abstract units, while also helping to increase the sophistication of their mathematical content-language usage. In combination with small-group interactions, these scaffolds provide an effective instructional method for improving multiplicative reasoning among ELs with LD.

During the development of large-scale school achievement tests, panels of independent subject-matter experts use systematic judgmental methods to rate the correspondence between a given test’s items and performance objective statements. The individual experts’ ratings may then be used to compute summary indices to quantify the match between a given test and its target item domain. The magnitude of alignment index variability across experts within a panel, and randomly-sampled panels, is largely unknown, however. Using rater-by-item data from alignment reviews of 14 US states’ achievement tests, we examine observed distributions and estimate standard errors for three alignment indices developed by Webb. Our results suggest that alignment decisions based on the recommended criterion for the balance-of-representation index may often be uncertain, and that the criterion for the depth-of-knowledge consistency index should perhaps be reconsidered. We also examine current recommendations about the number of expert panelists required to compute these alignment indices.

This article describes an approach to designing a scalable career development curriculum for elementary school students using minimal-cost and readily available resources. Content experts, veterinary medical students, university staff, teachers, community partners, evaluation experts, and a children’s book illustrator developed a library of low-cost, culturally responsive, fun, and educationally engaging lessons to expose elementary school-aged students to scientific knowledge and careers in veterinary medicine. The home team piloted and evaluated the approach at a local community center. Teams in eight other states were provided materials to pilot and assess the program. Seven of those teams successfully piloted the program and provided evidence of child engagement. Although models, props, and other costly supplies enhance delivery of Science Technology Engineering and Math lessons, our experience with the delivery of this curriculum was proof of concept that a low-cost curricular model is one strategy to facilitate scaling and sustainability of an engaging veterinary science curriculum.

This article is available Open Access, and will appear in the inaugural issue of the new academic journal, Educational Linguistics, published by De Gruyter.