Olivia Phillips Dimensions of Diversity Capstone

Dimensions of
Diversity:
Capstone Project
Olivia Phillips
Team 3
Format Credit: Heather Smiles

Contents
Use SlideContents Add-On:
Instructional video →
(This video is also located on the website under the on the Home page under “Quick Links”)
**Yes, you can delete this page from your final Capstone project - this is just to help you get
started

“Students would have more
opportunity to use academic
language through meaningful
small-group tasks.”
(Fisher, Frey & Nelson, 2012, p. 556)
“Since language is one of the most
intimate expressions of identity, indeed
“the skin that we speak,” then to reject
a person’s language can only feel as if
we are rejecting him… if we cannot
understand and even celebrate the
wonders of the language these
children bring with them to the
school—then we have little hope of
convincing them that we hold their
best interests at heart.”
(Delpit, 2002, pp. 56)
***Optional Slide(s) put quotes from our readings
and class into your Capstone

Part 2: Instructional
Portfolio

First Class: Communicating with Families
● I will be incorporating English into my math classroom this year. We’ll be focusing a lot on vocabulary, but
also on the language structures that mathematicians use to describe their work and to make arguments.
● All students will have the opportunity to learn and grow in our class, regardless of their language background.
● Thank you so much, and let me know if you have any questions!

My Identity
sky - how the world sees me
silhouette - how I see myself
ground - my values and foundation

Last Class: Communicating with Families
Many people assume that mathematics is all about numbers and solving problems on paper. While these things are
important, in algebra 2, we focus a lot on communicating mathematical thinking. We work with all students to
practice sharing their thinking both in writing and speaking, as well as reading and listening to what others share. We
accomplish this through many different routines. For example, we recently started working in groups on JamBoards.
Our JamBoard routine helps all students to practice sharing what they think with their classmates. There is additional
support as well in the form of sentence stems, as well as a series of problems that increase in challenge as students
go. In our class, all students are given both the tools and the opportunities to share their mathematical thinking.

Submitted?
Put a ✔ once
completed
Date
What is your goal for
when you will turn in the
assignment?
Assignment
Which personalized task
are you completing?
Possible Points
How many points is the
assignment worth?
Feedback?
What kind of feedback
do you want (Teacher,
Peer, Self)?
Link to
Assignment/Slide
✔ 9/8/20 1R 5 Teacher Slide
✔ 9/17/20 2R 5 Self Slide
✔ 9/17/20 Plyler v. Doe 5 Self Slide
✔ 9/24/20 1A 10 Self Slide
✔ 10/1/20 1T 10 Self Slide
✔ 10/3/20 2A 10 Self Slide
✔ 10/8/20 1P 15 Self Slide
✔ 10/8/20 6R 5 Self Slide
✔ 10/8/20 6C 10 Self Slide

Submitted?
Put a ✔ once
completed
Date
What is your goal for
when you will turn in the
assignment?
Assignment
Which personalized task
are you completing?
Possible Points
How many points is the
assignment worth?
Feedback?
What kind of feedback
do you want (Teacher,
Peer, Self)?
Link to
Assignment/Slide
✔ 10/11/20 2T 10 Teacher Slide
✔ 10/12/20 2P 15 Teacher Slide

1R - Reflection Questions
Reflection questions:
a. I found it useful to see examples of language objectives baked into content objectives. When I started reading this, I
thought I had to write two separate objectives, but now I think I only need to adjust my current objectives.
b. I found it difficult to remember the difference between standards and objectives. To help clarify this, I looked at the
many examples of each of these things presented in the article, and I was able to refresh my memory on the
difference between these two terms.
c. I began thinking that language objectives were cumbersome and unhelpful, and now I think that they are super
important and not as complicated as I thought to add into every content objective, so next I will include a language
objective every time I need to write a content objective.

1R - Takeaways
1. Reflection questions:
a. What you learned or your most significant take away from the assignment.
i. In this article, I learned that I am not only a math teacher; I am also a language teacher. This is
especially true since I will be teaching many students whose first language is not English. I
learned that I should include language objectives in my lessons, and that this is more in line with
my math objectives than I expected going into this.
b. To learn more, what might your next steps be?
i. I plan on beginning to implement a language objective with every content objective that I write
for my algebra 2 class. I’m still a little unclear about how to write these objectives. Do I change
the language of my content objectives to include the language objectives as well, or do I need to
write a separate objective for each lesson? Also, how explicit should I be with students that I am
simultaneously teaching them language skills? I worry that if I mention this explicitly, they’ll get
annoyed, since I’m teaching math, not English.

a. I loved the advice for creating great discussion routines in my math classroom. I think the idea of elbow partners
before a mini lesson is super helpful, especially at the beginning of the year when I’m still getting a gauge of what
students remember. This is also super helpful in Zoom. I saw just today that putting students into breakout rooms
gets them ready to talk when we all come back together, so I think that this routine would have lots of benefits.
b. At first I was challenged in thinking about how these routines could be implemented virtually. My immediate
reaction was that my students would just completely disengage from my lesson and ignore the routine. But upon
further thought, breakout rooms today seemed to get students talking. I can also make sure I pop into breakout
rooms with my camera off to listen in to conversations. I thought about it, and realized that I can model these
protocols in the whole group first.
c. I began thinking that routines were a nice sentiment, but wouldn’t work in this weird new world we’re living in.
Now I think that I can adapt these routines to a digital platform. Next I will begin to use some discussion routines
when I start content next week! This is especially important, because I’ve met my students and can see how their
ELL levels impact their participation in class.

2R - Takeaways
a. My most significant takeaway is that I need to implement discussion routines in my algebra 2 classes,
especially my class that is mostly ELLs. Talking in pairs or small groups helps students to practice
English language skills, and it also boosts their content understanding.
b. To learn more, I might read some of the additional related literature. I can probably ask Rhonda for
additional literature related to this. I can probably also ask Rhonda for a list of routines that she’s seen to
be helpful in math classrooms with lots of ELLs. Finally, I will definitely learn by implementing some
of these routines in my Zoom classroom and asking my students for input on how the routines are
going!

a. It was so useful to read the case that allows undocumented students to have access to a free education. This is useful
because I now understand the history behind this fact of the education system.
b. I haven’t read many legal cases, so the structure of the reading was slightly confusing for me at first. I ended up
using context clues to learn what the sections about concurrence and dissent meant.
c. I began thinking that the Plyler v. Doe case was very complicated and referred to a very intricate ruling. Now I
realize that this ruling is very simple: students should have access to a free public education, regardless of their
immigration status. Next I will make sure that my classroom is equitable for all my students, even the newly arrived
and potentially undocumented students. I need to make sure I’m not assuming that my students are documented.

2R - Takeaways
a. My biggest takeaway is that this case was so recent! As recently as 1975, children were being excluded
from public education because of their immigration status. I loved the way Justice Blackmun confirmed
that students should not be restricted from opportunity because of the actions of their parents.
b. To learn more, I could look up the cases that have referenced Plyler v. Doe. I really don’t know a lot
about legal cases in the world of education (or legal cases in general, for that matter), so it would be
really interesting to see all of the implications that Plyler v. Doe has had in education.

1A - Reflection
1. This work shows equity for all students because it incorporates opportunities to learn academic language all
throughout the lesson. This helps ELLs to work towards being on equal footing in terms of academic language
with their English-speaking peers.
2. I was challenged because the lesson plans that I chose didn’t have language objectives in their goals and
targets. This is very challenging to find in a math lesson. I overcame this by writing my own language
objectives.
3. I began thinking that language objectives only needed to be addressed at some point in the lesson. Now I think
that I need to keep the language objectives in mind throughout all of the activities in my lesson. Next, I will
look for ways to incorporate practice towards the language objectives within each of the activities that I
include in my math lessons.

1A - Takeaways
a. I learned that I need to reference my language objectives all throughout my lesson. All too often I get
carried away with my lesson activities and I forget to reference the objective for the day. It’s especially
important to make sure that I refer to the language objective. I also see that even lesson plans that
include support for ELL students often don’t even make language goals explicit to teachers, nevermind
to students.
b. To learn more, I should try to find math lessons that have included language objectives explicitly in
their lessons. Although the IM lesson comes very close, it just doesn’t explicitly address language
objectives. This is likely due to the fact that some teachers will use these lessons and not have ELLs in
their class. It would be helpful to find lessons explicitly addressed to math teachers of ELLs. It would
also be helpful to practice referencing my language objectives as I evaluate each activity in a lesson
plan I’m working on.

1T - Reflection
a. Translating lesson objectives into students’ native languages helps them to get a better sense of whether or not
they are meeting the objectives in my math class. If students are presented with a lesson objective they don’t
even know how to read, how could they know where they’re at mathematically? For example, after looking at
my translations, an ELL 2 student who speaks Spanish might have a better idea of what the goals are in
understanding radian measures and can therefore have a way to measure their progress towards that goal.
b. By identifying cognates in my document, students can see that some of our vocabulary connects to words
they’re already familiar with in their home language. For example, the word función in Spanish is very similar
to function in English. This will help a student to feel more confident in the math classroom, since this is a word
that feels more familiar. This helps them better understand the objective so that they can work to meet it.
c. One challenge was having many translations for a single word. In some cases, I looked through the synonyms,
and tried to pick the translation that seemed most appropriate based on my limited understanding and Google’s
limited translating capabilities.
d. I began thinking that Google Translate was a terrible way to get information into students’ home languages. I
now think that there is some merit to using Google Translate, because I didn’t know that there were features like
the synonyms tool. Now I will investigate Google Translate more by using what I know about English and
Spanish, and in this way I can get a better handle on how much I should or should not trust Google Translate.

1T - Takeaways
1. My most significant takeaway from this assignment is that I need to be careful when translating
student materials. When I translate into Spanish, for the most part, I have a good sense of how to
translate the words. I’m comfortable enough in the language that I can use translation services to
better understand which words to use in the given context, but I’m not as comfortable in other
languages. Google Translate uses some synonyms to give a better idea of which word to use for
the translation, but I was very often still at a loss for which word to use. This is good to be aware
of, since I don’t want to mislead my students with a word with the wrong definition.
2. To learn more, I want to dive deeper into Google Translate. What is the best way to know which
of the several translations to use when I’m translating a vocabulary word? How does Google
create its translation software? Is it built by humans, or is it mostly AI interpretation even at the
input stage? I took a class about translating materials between English and Spanish, so I have a
good idea of how to be careful in translations and how strong the shortcomings are with using a
computer translator and not a human. I want to research ways to accurately translate materials so
I can get human input on my translations instead of just the Internet.

2A - Reflection
a. Manuel mentions being patient with ELLs. This helps to foster greater equity, because when you are learning a
new language, you need someone to talk the time to listen to you and to possibly repeat what they said many
times. Also, putting students in groups that strategically help them to be comfortable and process the lesson
better helps increase equity as well.
b. I faced the challenge of not being sure who to interview and if it was even appropriate to ask a particular student
in my class if I could interview them. I didn’t want to be weird or anything, especially since I’ve only known
these students for less than three weeks. I solved this by using the interview that Sarah Harrington recorded.
c. I began thinking that I take too much time in class speaking slowly and repeating myself, and that other students
might be getting annoyed. Now I think that I am helping my ELLs to better understand the material and that I
am building my relationship and trust with them through my patience, though I still worry that other students
will get annoyed. Next, I will make sure that I continue to have patience with all of my students, and I will try to
be super purposeful about the way I create breakout rooms in Zoom classes so that my ELLs feel more
comfortable participating in class.

2A - Takeaways
1. I learned that I need to be more intentional about the relational part of working with
ELLs. I usually make random breakout rooms so that my students can get to work
with different people in the class, but after some recent experience as well as this
interview, I realize that I need to be very intentional about strategic grouping to help
my students to feel comfortable learning and sharing in class. I also should probably
have set norms at the beginning of the semester about respecting other students
regardless of their English. Finally, I also learned to spend more time listening to my
ELLs and how they feel about things instead of making assumptions.
2. To learn more, I hope to “interview” my own students. I plan on having one-on-one
chats with each of my students, since I don’t have that many students, and in so
doing, I can ask my ELLs about what I can better to help them in class and outside of
class.

1P - Links:
Lesson Plans 1, 2, and 3

1P - Reflection
a. I use SEI in these lesson plans in a few different ways. I first of all include language goals right inside of the
content objectives by asking students to be able to explain their reasoning using “because” (lesson 1), use
precise mathematical notation and vocabulary (lesson 2), and interpret cases notation using the specific
vocabulary terms “input” and “output.” Additionally, in different parts of the lessons, I include models and/or
sentence stems to help ELL students.
b. I still find it challenging to write language objectives. I overcame this by using the resource provided that gives
a “cheat sheet” for writing language objectives.
c. I began thinking that language objectives were too much work to include in my lesson plans, but now I think
that they’re actually already present, or at least part of the way there, in the lesson plans that I already use. Now
I will try to think about language as I create my lesson plans, and I will look for specific instances throughout
the lesson where I can foster my students’ language growth in the areas addressed in the language goal.

1P - Takeaways
1. My most significant takeaway is that my current lesson objectives often already have
many elements of a language objective. One of mine required barely any
modification, which was encouraging. In this way, I realized that using language
objectives isn’t always as much work as I assumed it was. I just need to take a little
bit of time to make sure that I’m thinking about them as I plan my activities, so that I
can work towards those goals.
2. To learn more, I will continue to reference the language objective cheat sheet and the
other language objective resources that we’ve talked about in this class. I can also
read lesson plans in math that do incorporate language objectives and work towards
these in the lesson activities. In this way, I can see productive language objectives in
action.

6R - Reflection
a. I read the article about WIDA’s Can Do Philosophy. My major takeaway is that I need to focus not only on what
my ELL students are able to do in terms of language, but also on what they bring to our “classroom” (re: Zoom
room). I already struggle to change my mindset and to focus on what students can do rather than what they
struggle with, and the ideas presented here take it one step further. Of course my students are bringing a
diversity of experiences and culture to my class, so why am I ignoring or not addressing that? It was helpful to
see the different aspects of what students bring to the classroom.
b. To learn more, I can look at the WIDA standards. This doesn’t relate as much to the culture and experiential side
of things, but it will definitely help me to better understand what my ELLs are able to do in the classroom in
terms of their language development. I can even look up my ELLs’ACCESS scores on Aspen and use these to
look up the corresponding levels in WIDA. In this way, I will learn more about where my ELL students
currently are so that I can design the classroom accordingly.

6R - Takeaways
1. I found it both interesting and useful to read about the different strengths that my students,
especially my ELLs, bring to the classroom. I focus so much on the language barrier, and
it’s useful to remember that my students are bringing so much more to the classroom than
their language. They bring diverse cultures and experiences, and I should interact with my
students and design my class with that in mind.
2. No challenges
3. I began thinking that WIDA’s Can Do Philosophy focused only on students’ language
ability, but now I think that the Can Do Philosophy extends to students’ diverse culture, life
experiences, family, etc. Now I will do my best to find out more about what my students
are bringing to the classroom in addition to their current language skills. I plan to have
1-on-1s with all of my math students, and I will plan on ways to find out the cultural
capital that my students are contributing to our community.

6C - Reflection
a. This initial survey serves as a starting point for my students. As they progress through the year, they can
reference what they wrote and they can see how their school experience now compares to then. They can also
analyze their English level in their writing as they progress throughout the year. They can see if any of their
survey responses would have changed. At the end of the year, they can write this up in a reflection.
b. It was challenging to analyze this as a math teacher. I just decided that even if they’re not directly applicable,
these are still interesting questions for me to ask my students so that I can get to know them better and I can
figure out how to incorporate my students’ various funds of knowledge in class.
c. I began thinking that I had an okay survey that didn’t need too many adjustments, but now I think that I was
way too short-sighted. Next I will modify my current student survey so that when I meet new students in the
spring semester, I can learn more about my students and their various educational backgrounds.

6C - Takeaways
1. My most significant takeaway is that I realized that I barely know anything about my
students. Yes, I did a survey at the start of the semester, but it was so focused on math that I
really don’t know much about my students’ educational backgrounds. I remember talking
to one of my ELLs who was telling me about how the math notation is different in his
home country, and this was something that I hadn’t thought about. By completing this
personalized task, I’ve realized that I need to change my survey for when I start teaching a
new group of students next semester!
2. To learn more, I want to investigate a bit further. Are all of these questions applicable for
all of my students? If a student has been at Chelsea High School for the previous three
year, is it helpful to ask about their middle school? I’d love to read lots of other surveys to
learn more about what seem to be common threads in these surveys that I might be missing
this year.

2T - Reflection
a. Students can see how much they’re learning in the material because the problems are sequenced as mild,
medium, and spicy. In this way, pairs/groups of students can see themselves advancing through the levels of the
problem. Over time, they can also see how they get more comfortable sharing their “noticings” and
“wonderings” out loud with their classmates.
b. JamBoard supports students because it provides a shared viewpoint. Students struggle to share their screens
during class, and this also makes it difficult for students to be annotating the same math work. In JamBoard,
students can be writing their math on the same board as if it were an actual whiteboard. Additionally, because I
can create a separate JamBoard for each group, I can differentiate for different students’ language of content
knowledge needs by scaffolding appropriately, therefore creating greater equity.
c. PearDeck doesn’t allow for JamBoard to be embedded in the slides. However, I can still include the link to
various JamBoards on the Pear Deck slides, so this isn’t too much of a problem.
d. I began thinking that there was no way for me to get students to actually talk about math together, but now I
think that I just need to provide different tools and scaffolding. Now I will try to implement group work in class
using JamBoard and a new routine like this one. I will also try it a couple of times to see if it will work or not,
and I will make any adjustments as needed.

2T - Takeaways
1. My most significant takeaway is that it is possible to have a discussion routine online. I felt like
there was no way that I could create a collaborative environment in my online math classroom,
and that there’s no way for my students to talk, but this is proof that it honestly doesn’t have to
take very long to come up with a routine that I can consistently implement for my students. I
hope I can actually use something like this in my classroom!
2. My next steps are to look up my class rosters and to create some potential breakout groups ahead
of time. I need to learn what all of my students’ language levels are so that I can group them
accordingly. Of course, they won’t always be with students in their same language level, and I
can also create some more heterogeneous groups for different purposes. This would be super
helpful so that I don’t stress out while trying to come up with groups in the moment. Also, I can
see if there are any sites in addition to JamBoard that might be good for math collaboration.
Sadly, JamBoard can’t be integrated with Pear Deck right now, but it’s not too bad-- I can still
link to JamBoard from the Pear Deck slides.

2P - Reflection
a. Here I am using SEI strategies by providing lots of appropriate scaffolding through things like
sentence stems and lots of modeling. Students also start very low-stakes before moving into
mathematical discussion, which hopefully reduces a bit of the anxiety.
b. I still find it really challenging to plan discussion routines online. I am trying to overcome this by
realizing that even if a discussion routine like this doesn’t work the first time, that doesn’t mean
that I should give up on it. Some of these things take more time than others. Remembering that
helps to ground me.
c. I began thinking that including explicit language instruction in my class would be super
challenging, but now I think that it’s totally manageable; I just need to make it a priority and give
it the time and space it needs. Next I will do my best to incorporate some explicit language
instruction in my math class.

2P - Takeaways
1. My most significant takeaway is that I can include focus on language objectives in my lessons
pretty seamlessly. Math discussion is actually a great place to practice these speaking standards!
I just need to be very explicit about it and actually plan time for it.
2. To learn more, I’d love to research other math teachers who incorporate WIDA speaking
standards in their classroom. I’m also super curious what educators are doing to make sure that
these types of rich discussions happen in Zoom breakout rooms, since I find that my students
stop working when I send them to breakout rooms.

Other Materials ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

Task Reflections
Insert a slide and then copy and paste the reflection prompts for each task
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mdaDl-OYBgxaWOCD4_t4UBBgst3UkwtFeU-cfR
2D-nU/edit?usp=sharing
Some of them are slightly different for different tasks, so make sure you’re choosing the right
one!

Part 3: Reﬂection
of Concepts
Learned

Part 1: Synthesis of Concepts
This course has been so helpful for me to better support my ELLs! One really important thing I learned is that I need to
make instructions really clear for my ELLs. In reality, making instructions short but very clear helps all of my students.
This was another takeaway: creating supports for my ELLs is beneficial to all students, not just the ELLs to whom they
are directed.
I also learned that there are so many ways that I can support my students in their language development even though I
teach math. I really loved working on the tasks 2T and 2P, because I was able to create discussion routines that I’ve
actually begun to implement in my own classroom. In the routines I developed, students have time to think through a
problem in a low stakes way, such as through a notice and wonder routine. They then share with each other what they
were thinking about before they move into the more content-specific questions. By creating and also implementing
routines like this, I’ve begun to see my students in more nuanced way. I’ve learned to take my students’ perspective on
things, instead of looking at everything through my own eyes.
As I’ve also talked about with many of my classmates, Krashen’s writing about the affective filter has been something
I’m trying to think a lot about. Even just today in class, a student shared with me how he felt so embarrassed in class
because of his English level, and that was the point in class where he stopped contributing, both out loud and in our
shared slides. I can see not only through the readings but in my own experiences that I need to always keep my students’
experiences in mind. Even if I feel like we have a comfortable learning environment, I need to make sure all of my
students also feel that way.

Olivia Phillips Dimensions of Diversity Capstone

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