Artifact # 1: Open Educational Resources Paper

Artifact # 2: Unit Plan with Resources

One of the most enjoyable and detailed assignments that I did at Lehman was to write a paper on Open Resources for English Language Learners. I tried to find and survey a “wide range of print and resources including ESL curricula, AV materials, webquests, podcasts and other forms of multimedia” as well as other internet resources that were designed specifically for ENL learners. This was not for a specific teaching assignment, but as the final project for the class we were required to look at a specific issue confronting Emergent Bilinguals in depth. It did end up helping me teach classes because it was easier to find electronic resources of a higher quality which resulted in an impact on student engagement. I looked for throughly-vetted and in-depth materials that K-12 ENL teachers could use. What was interesting was the contrast between the wealth of actual material, which was almost infinite; placed alongside it’s quality, which was varying but in general not high; and the total lack of accessible resources that organized this material for potential use in ENL classes.

This assignment prepared me for the time-consuming and laborious efforts I would take when later finding resources on the internet to use in my classes. This is one of the things I dislike about teaching. Creating an original lesson plan is and should be valued, but I do not believe teachers should have to devote so many hours to creating lesson plans from scratch.

The additional artifact I include was the result of hours of work on the part of three teachers and only scratches the surface on the amount of resources needed to adequately source ten days of lessons across two content areas.

I felt that the materials were challenging but that we scaffolded them and provided supports — especially vocabulary supports — that made them more linguistically accessible and supportive of student learning.

While my paper on open educational resources did open up some technological tools to enhance language and content issues, I believe it is still very much a developing field and very much lagging behind the actual pace of technological advancement. I have used web-sites like rewordify to enhance language instruction by replacing complex vocabulary with more accessible vocabulary, but I feel like it is not a replacement for well-designed curriculum or “off the shelf”/ready-to-be-taught materials such as that available through scholastic, teacherspayteachers and a limited few other websites. All of these sites need to develop more scaffolded materials for ENL learners as well as more accessible vocabulary in multiple languages.