Hello colleagues, We are pleased to welcome Paul Kim and Kendall Williams from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service back to lead a discussion on the new Professional Development Guide for Citizenship Educators. This discussion starts today, March 15th and continues through Thursday, March 17th.
Review the new guide and bring your important questions for Paul and Kendall.
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, AELL CoP
Comments
Hello, and thank you, Susan, for the introductions! My name is Paul Kim, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Office of Citizenship. Kelton Williams and I look forward to our discussion over the next three days where we will discuss one of our new resources, the Professional Development Guide for Adult Citizenship Educators.
Feel free to review information about USCIS, the Office of Citizenship, and the naturalization process, covered during one of our earlier LINCS discussions. This should provide a helpful foundation for our upcoming discussion.
We created the Professional Development Guide for Adult Citizenship Educators to help you identify instructional domains and establish a system of professional development for adult citizenship educators.
The guide is organized around five instructional domains, each with correlated competencies and rubrics. These domains and competencies incorporate aspects of instruction that are applicable to a variety of educational settings. You can use the guide to identify areas of strength and growth, and the rubrics can help you create a systematic plan for PD.
Instructional domains cover five instructional elements: Content Knowledge, Instructional Design and Lesson Planning, Instructional Delivery, Assessment, and Learning Environment. These domains outline foundational knowledge and instructional skills that teachers should have when preparing their students for the naturalization interview and test.For each domain, there are corresponding teacher competencies that describe the knowledge and skills that are relevant to teaching in an adult citizenship education classroom.Finally, the guide includes rubrics for every competency. The rubrics are divided into three levels, and each describes the strengths of a teacher at that level, and possible areas of growth.
Now that we’ve described our guide, let’s start with a question to help start our discussion:
Based on your experience, what are the characteristics of quality instruction in an adult citizenship education classroom?
I believe two characteristics are first, a heart for helping immigrants and, secondly-and it should go without saying-a greater than average knowledge of American history and civics. I observed a class some time ago in a church program where the "teacher" was having a debate with a student on who succeeds the President if the Vice-President cannot. Sadly, the student was correct. Needless to say, I could not endorse that program.
I live in Birmingham, AL where there are almost no classes for those seeking citizenship. I am looking with great interest at this booklet. I have many ESL tutors, and I would like to encourage some of them to think about teaching a citizenship class with our agency. There is a huge gap in services here. that needs to be filled.
Linda
Hello! First off I'd like to introduce myself. I work in Lancaster, PA, currently supervising adult ESL, civics, and hopefully once again, citizenship classes. I am really excited to see this guide. Thank you.
I agree with Linda. I’d like to add that instructors need to be well-versed in informal assessment and be able to differentiate instruction accordingly. In my experience, people who come to us wanting to become citizens represent a wide range of backgrounds and readiness. In addition to their ESL and content needs, it’s important to know where they are on their road to citizenship—being familiar with the naturalization process, too.
Best, Lora
Thank you for your comments, Linda and Lora. You bring up great points about the importance of citizenship content and ESL instructional knowledge. We have a variety of educational products that can help instructors prepare their students. Have you used our short video that shows an overview of the naturalization process and test? Also, Linda, check out our Program Development page for resources to help you develop adult citizenship education programs in your community. The Start Up Guide may be a useful starting point.
Hello. I am Iryna and first and foremost in my heart an ESL/Citizenship teacher. I am also responsible for curriculum and staff development for our adult literacy programs at the Shorefront YM-YWHA in Brooklyn, NY, including our ESL/Citizenship Preparation courses for the USCIS Citizenship Integration Grant Program.
Knowledge of the subject is definitely an essential component of quality instruction. But, most important is the way a lesson is designed and delivered to meet the needs of all learners. This comprises techniques and strategies a teacher incorporates into a lesson to keep all students engaged and to ensure their progress towards reaching their goals. Also, it is vital for educators to develop learners’ organizational and study skills. Actually, I found it is important for students to know how they keep progressing at home based on what that learned in class - how to pronounce correctly related vocabulary in sentences, how to develop writing and listening comprehension skills on their own, how to organize and practice vocabulary flash cards, where to find related educational materials, support and information online, etc.
Of course, classroom teaching is still the best! And that is why we have our classes full of students who enjoy practicing in pairs, groups, and with a teacher facilitating and supporting interactions and activities.
The Professional Development Guide is amazing and gives a lot of food for thought, and is an appropriate resource for our PD to ensure all our teachers reach Levels 2-3 in each domain!
Hi, Iryna! Great to speak with you again. Thanks for sharing some of the best practices at your program, especially how you engage your students in the classroom.
Hello Everyone:
My name is Lorraine Zoeller and I have been teaching Citizenship/ESL to adult learners for nearly 12 plus years.. In the early years I was given a book,(New Press Readers) some worksheets, the 100 questions then told to do my best thus my journey began...Today I have a classroom that provides a multitude of learning strategies with differentiated instruction along with bulletin boards that evolve as the lessons grows...that being said the art of teaching Civics to the adult ESL population has improved greatly. The www.uscis.gov website is regularly uploading new materials/lesson plans with interactive activities. All of my classes are now a combination of ESL/Civics instruction the two had once been separate but I feel that all adult English Language Learners need both... I am very fortunate that my supervisors support my choices.
The Professional Development Guide for Adult Citizenship Educators is wonderful... I believe that it will generate a higher level of instruction for all Civics/ESL classrooms.
What are the characteristics of quality instruction in an adult citizenship education classroom?
Content Knowledge is key, combined with varied instructional techniques and strategies that engage the learner. Too often adult learners memorize the information but have not developed an in-depth understanding therefore making it difficult to fully participate as a citizen even if they pass the interview.
Hi, Lorraine. Thank you for sharing your story about how you – and your classrooms – have grown over the years. You bring up a great point about engaging learners. We believe it’s an important part of effective instructional delivery (Domain 3). Engaging your students help you learn about their prior knowledge, aids during your formal/informal assessments (Domain 4), and creates a safe and respectful learning environment (Domain 5).
To facilitate a little discussion, I thought I would ask a few questions about the PD Guide specifically.
How do you think professional development tools like this should be used in adult citizenship education programs?
How do you think professional development tools like this should be used in adult citizenship education programs?
Currently my program has a PD every 6 weeks; a pair of teachers work together to share a specific instructional tool. e.g. collaborative activities, reading strategies, using rubics in the ESL/Civics classroom etc. As a team of teachers we organize ourselves based on experience.... thus a new instructor will develop a PD with a more seasoned instructor...
This PD Guide is a well designed tool to help facilitate specific strategies that can be shared and discussed during a PD... providing the platform for constructive dialogue
Lorraine
We used to have a similar set of domains and competencies for our evaluations in the past. At that time, teachers chose an area of strength and one for growth and developed goals for improvement. I like the idea using something like this guide for reflective practice. Even the best instructors can benefit. Perhaps we would start as a team and think about where we can focus as a program and then worked down to the individual goals. I also like Lorraine's approach of pairing instructors. We have use a lead teacher as a coach successfully, specifically for new instructors or instructors teaching something new, like citizenship. This year we are doing lesson studies across the program as well.
Hi, Lorraine and Lora. We like your idea for using teams during PD. It’s important to work together – both teachers and administrators – to develop strategies for professional growth. An experienced instructor is a great resource for your newer staff, but as you said Lora, even seasoned teachers can benefit. Just as it is important to have systematic approaches to instruction (e.g., regular use of diverse resources, technology, teaching methods, and assessments), we also think it’s helpful to have a set schedule and topics for PD.
Hello colleagues, I want to affirm an approach to PD that engages teachers in collaborating with one another. I think this guide can be used in this way. I totally agree with what Lora says that even seasoned teachers can benefit from collaboration. I love interacting with new teachers. They bring many fresh and creative ideas to the table, which is inspiring and refreshing to me -- someone who has been around for some time!
What are some ideas for how teachers might collaborate on PD using this guide as a tool?
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, AELL CoP
Thanks for helping generate discussion, Susan! We are very interested in everyone's promising practices with PD. It is helpful to know what types of PD activities have worked for you. We believe our guide is a helpful resource to identify the domains in which you excel, and those which you would like more PD. It also pairs well with our Content Standards and Foundational Skills in promoting consistent instructional content and practices for the adult citizenship education classroom.
Hi everyone,
I’ve been teaching citizenship in a variety of institutions in San Francisco and did a lot of mock exams with students that are about to take the test. I agree with what my colleagues have said: I find the USCIS guide for teachers useful. I especially appreciated the focus on technology and the importance of differentiated learning. I also agree that as CiT teachers we need to focus on students’ needs and use some background material to give the context for the question. This will allow going beyond mere memorization.
Since I see this forum as interplay between citizenship teachers, students and administrators (USCIS), I would like to use the opportunity to ask you, Paul and Kendall, some more open-ended questions.
1. What prepared you best in taking citizenship exams?
2. During a citizenship interview, what do you personally focus on most?
3. What difference do you see between candidates who took citizenship classes vs. candidates who studied on their own?
4. How helpful is it to know a second language as a USCIS officer during a citizenship interview?
5. What was the most memorable interview you have ever taken and why?
I am looking forward to your insights on the administrative level and I really appreciate to have the chance to talk to you.
Aurelia
Hello all, I want to express thanks to our guests from USCIS, Paul Kim and Kendall Williams. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing this useful professional development guide and for leading us in a conversation about ways to use the guide in practice. We appreciate the many resources that are available to the many adults who are seeking citizenship and the teachers who support them.
Warmly, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, AELL CoP