Change Idea Overview: 

Incorporate identities: All students, especially Multilingual Learners, need to feel seen and heard as members of their learning communities. It’s feasible and important to thread student identities into the fabric of the class. This will allow all learners to build their sense of self across all content areas. Learning should offer abundant opportunities for all members to build connections between life experiences learners bring to the classroom and the content being learned. With every new concept, the learner’s brain “wants to understand how it is connected and the role it plays as it interacts with other events, objects, or concepts”(Hammond, 2015). 

Incorporate interests: In order for students to engage in rigorous grade-level content, educators can ensure they’re intrinsically motivated by incorporating their interests. Learning communities can cultivate students’ interests, allowing opportunities for all members to become facilitators of content. The role of learner and facilitator of content becomes interchangeable from student to teacher, especially as students gain more agency with new concepts being learned. This allows peers to learn from different perspectives and build connections with each other. Further, the ability to facilitate a concept to their peers will intrinsically motivate students because they know they are playing an essential role in the collective goal of the learning community.