Newcomers in Your School: Cultural Connections and Instructional Strategies

This engaging and interactive two-day workshop provides practical resources for building a welcoming environment, both socially and instructionally, for all students.

Given the increasing tide of newcomer youth entering U.S. schools, it is critical to address the cultural, social, and academic needs of these students to help them succeed in the classroom and beyond. Building on CAL’s decades of experience working with newcomers in educational and community settings, this workshop focuses on two key components for optimizing success for newcomer students in the classroom: Cultural Perspectives, Influences, and Key Resources and Adapting Content Instruction for Newcomer Students 

Participants will receive proven strategies and practical resources they can use right away to create a welcoming environment for newcomer students and facilitate their learning. Designed for PreK-12 teachers, administrators, and other practitioners who work in educational settings with newcomer students and their families, such as social workers, counselors, and after-school specialists, who work in educational settings with newcomer students and their families, CAL encourages teams of educators and practitioners to attend.

Participants will learn how to:

• Recognize the diversity of newcomers in the schools, including special populations such as unaccompanied youth, students with limited and interrupted formal education, and students who have experienced displacement and migration
• Identify their own cultural perspectives, assumptions, and biases, and how these interact with others’
• Interact with immigrant and non-immigrant educators, students, and families
• Use effective approaches and instructional strategies with newcomers in the content classroom
• Access and create ready-to-use resources for classroom instruction

Each attendee will receive a workshop packet with materials that explicitly address how to promote welcome for newcomers within educational settings. Presenters include CAL experts in immigrant and refugee integration and PreK-12 EL education, building on CAL’s decades of experience in working with language learners, immigrants, and refugees.

CAL can work with you to customize a workshop or series of workshops to best meet your needs.