CASSO Spotlight

During 08-09 academic year a project faculty of seven was drawn together for professional development activities that encompassed the three major areas of the CASSO project: bilingual education, curriculum and instruction, and literacy. One member from the Modern Languages Department who teaches the only required Spanish course for our program has also joined the project. Project faculty have attended fifteen planning meetings and five professional development sessions. Professional development for project faculty has included a videoconference with Dr. Elizabeth Howard on dual language teacher preparation, Dr. Norma Gonzalez on funds of knowledge, Dr. Alberto Rodriguez on science education for ELLs, Dr. Dee Fink on integrated course design, and Dr. Larry Michaelsen on team based learning. Note also that CASSO supported the professional development of project faculty by enabling individuals to attend the following conferences: NABE, National Council of Teachers of English, and the Society for Information Technology. Preliminary CASSO data were also presented at the research SIG at NABE and the annual UC System conference hosted by the Linguistic Minority Research Institute in Riverside, California.