The School of Education’s Diego Román and Lisa M. Barker are working on a project that aims to improve education for Latinx students in rural Wisconsin by training their teachers in how to engage English learners (ELs) in discussion about topics that directly affect local communities.
The project, titled “Teaching local socio-scientific issues to Latinx English learners,” is one of 15 chosen to receive grants through the through UW–Madison’s Understanding and Reducing Inequalities Initiative.
Román, the principal investigator of the project, is an assistant professor in the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Barker, a co-investigator, is the executive director of the School’s office of Professional Learning and Community Education (PLACE). Patrick Robinson, associate professor and associate dean of agriculture and natural resources in the Division of Extension, is also a co-investigator on the project.
A project description explains that rural school districts in the United States often struggle to find teachers that are prepared to work with shifting student demographics.
It notes that in Wisconsin, for instance, “the Latinx population is the fastest growing racial/ethnic group — accounting for 46 percent of the state’s population growth — yet many English Learners encounter educational barriers due to teachers who do not speak their languages and are not trained in culturally and linguistically relevant pedagogy.”
“This inequality is compounded by the health problems that minoritized communities face because they disproportionately suffer the effects of environmental degradation,” the project description says.
To address these issues, the study will bring together science and social studies teachers working in rural Wisconsin for training in how to engage their EL Latinx students in examining local, controversial, and socio-scientific topics, such as water quality.
The goals of the study are to understand how participating in this professional learning influences teachers’ understanding of the local socio-scientific issues facing their students and their ability to facilitate classroom discussion about these controversial topics.
Learn more about this project.