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Little, if any, research exists that provides guidance for educators on the use of a dynamic assessment as a tool for better identifying Latinx students for gifted programs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of campus principals and elementary teachers as dynamic assessment was being considered as part of the gifted and talented identification protocol. Data were collected through teacher and principal interviews and focus groups, along with an analysis of current practices and protocols within the studied district. The findings revealed several key themes that emerged from educator perspectives on the ability of emergent bilingual students to be placed in gifted programs and how dynamic assessment could or could not play a part in the assessment process. The study provides support and context for future research about dynamic assessment as applied to gifted and talented identification of Latinx students, including (a) the development of a dynamic assessment, (b) the implementation of a dynamic assessment with presentation of data that supports or do not support its use, (c) training to support the implementation of a dynamic assessment, (d) the human capital and time associated with implementing a dynamic assessment, and (e) educator mindset associated with the implementation of a dynamic assessment for students who do not speak English in the home.

Within the context of foreign language learning, very little research has examined how learners process second language (L2) words in terms of which variables best predict their processing speed and which mechanisms best characterize bilingual lexical processing. The present study set out to address this gap by using a range of learner and lexical variables (such as vocabulary size, word length, and age of acquisition) as points of reference against which to identify the best predictors of children’s and adults' L2 lexical processing, and by comparing response latencies across stimulus conditions so as to identify the processing pattern specific to each age group. Thirty-nine primary-aged and 94 university-level Chinese learners of English performed a picture-naming task in English and then in Chinese, and then completed a Chinese-to-English task. The researcher analyzed and estimated how those learner and lexical variables predicted the recorded response latencies by means of multiple regression and structural equation modeling, and made cross-stimulus-condition comparisons with the use of analysis of variance. The results suggested that different aspects of vocabulary knowledge contributed significantly to predicting children's and adults' processing speed, and that shorter processing time was significantly and directly predicted by the younger age at which an L2 word was learned and its higher degree of word typicality. Both lexical association and conceptual mediation were present in L2 lexical processing irrespective of learners' age but in general the later an L2 word is learned, the greater the likelihood that the word is lexically accessed and processed. These results illustrate the crucial role that language experiences and conceptual structures play in influencing the ease or difficulty with which L2 lexical items are retrieved, and reflect the complexities and dynamics involved in processing bilingual lexicons. These findings will be discussed within the context of the role of research and theory in developing evidence-based pedagogical practice with a specific reference to vocabulary acquisition in children and adults learning foreign languages within input-limited contexts.

Thesis advisor: Maria E. Brisk / This qualitative research study examined how student teachers and novice history teachers learn to teach adolescent bilingual learners (BLs) from coursework to the classroom. The purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent five participants drew upon social justice-oriented pre-service preparation when they taught history to bilingual students in secondary schools in the Greater Boston area. More specifically, this study examined how participants scaffolded history instruction for BLs and taught the language of history to BLs. Classroom data--observation videotapes, interviews, lesson plans, and teaching materials-- were analyzed using the Sheltered Immersion Observation Protocol (SIOP) (Echevarría, Vogt and Short, 2008) and Lucas and Villegas's framework for Linguistically Responsive Teachers (LRT) (2011) to assess trends in how individual participants, student teachers, and novice teachers scaffolded instruction. An analytical framework was created based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) description of key genres of secondary history (Coffin, 1997, 2006; Martin and Rose, 2008) to understand how participants taught the language of history. Findings of this study suggest that as participants gained classroom experience, they increasingly implemented instructional scaffolds aligned with classroom activities to engage students in rigorous content instruction. Yet participants did not consistently teach language demands of history. Based on study results, I suggest outcomes for early phases of a continuum of teacher learning related to teaching history to BLs. I also propose a framework for teaching the language of history that draws from SFL-informed genre pedagogy (Coffin, 1997, 2006; Gibbons, 2009; Rose and Martin, 2012; Schleppegrell, 2005), and I propose a model for language and content teacher preparation specific to history but also applicable to other secondary content areas. A key argument that this dissertation advances is that secondary history teachers need coherent, consistent, and coordinated support from pre-service coursework to student teaching to full-time teaching to learn to teach BLs. Implications of this study can inform teachers, teacher educators, and researchers who seek to improve opportunities for adolescent BLs to receive equitable access to rigorous content instruction and to develop specific literacy skills that could serve as a foundation for individual achievement and engaged citizenship. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.

This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.