CATESOL24

Rubrics help students do better work and make grading easier for teachers and fairer for students. This session will start with some background about how to create rubrics, including benefits and cautions. Next, information will be presented about the free rubrics website, Rubistar, which offers more support for teachers. Finally, using and adapting rubrics from ChatGPT will be demonstrated, with pluses and minuses. Participants are encouraged to ask questions and comment throughout.

Assessments in TESOL are not just tools for assessing student progress but are integral to effective teaching and learning. This session explores practical strategies to create more effective assessments by incorporating the six principles of effective assessment: validity, reliability, authenticity, practicality, positive washback, and equity. The session covers aligning assessments with objectives, using clear rubrics, providing meaningful feedback, and making the assessment process more equitable. By the end, educators, assessment designers, and administrators will gain strategies to create goal-aligned assessments, illustrated with real-world examples and success stories. This presentation is ideal for those seeking to refine their assessment practices.

Traditional writing assessment often focuses on a final product as compared to the developmental process that initially brought it to fruition (Hirvela,1999; Stern & Solomon, 2006). As a result, learners focus their attention on perfecting a final product rather than on the process of writing. Unsurprisingly, much instructor feedback addresses technical corrections while comments focused on quality and development of ideas, structure/organization, and cohesion are frequently deficient (Stern & Solomon, 2006). In this workshop, we offer social annotation as a more humanized learning and assessment process.

This study used a written interview format to ask several large language models (LLMs, specifically, Claude, Chat GPT, and Gemini) about their ability to write reading passages restricted to particular vocabulary lists, and with specific restrictions on text complexity. The presentation outlines the background of the study, particularly features that might be included in passage specifications, and provides options for setting specifications in a particular context and/or at a particular level of English proficiency. It outlines the various capabilities claimed by current versions of the LLMs that were interviewed.

This study summarizes the current literature on interventions focused on supporting Latinx children's social and emotional development and which interventions specifically foster mental health in the United States in the last twenty years.

In this session, we address the policy, practice, and instructional shifts necessary to create equitable outcomes for multilingual learners, Participants will explore:
* the essential components of literacy instruction for MLLs
* the implications for foundational skills instruction, backed by research,
* research-based guidelines for high-quality instructional materials designed to include the assets and needs of multilingual learners.
Attendees will use guiding principles to advocate and to identify the highest-leverage areas for improvement, ensuring that language and literacy instruction meets the needs of multilingual learners.

Every day you have the opportunity to make a difference in the life of an English language learner. When you teach with a curriculum that fosters impactful interaction and meaningful engagement with content, you do more than drive academic growth, you cultivate thinkers, doers and achievers. Join this interactive session to learn how teaching with Burlington Core promotes instructional excellence and lets you help your students face today's challenges and grasp tomorrow's opportunities. Together, let's rise to the challenge.

Creating, using, and evaluating rubrics in teaching English presents several challenges. Consistent application is time-consuming and prone to bias. Continuous refinement is essential to align with learning objectives and student needs. Despite their benefits, rubrics demand significant effort and expertise. Rubrics are essential for communication, scaffolding, and assessment, providing clear feedback to guide students' learning and their overall performance. This session explores key factors in constructing and evaluating rubrics for English language learners, highlighting key strategies on how to make them more effective for teaching and assessing language learners. Different types of rubric and characteristics of good rubrics are

Make every reading and listening activity you do in the classroom into CASAS prep! With the new CASAS STEPS tests, students are asked to incorporate critical thinking skills promoted in the English Language Proficiency standards (ELPs) to successfully navigate the assessments. These same skills should of course be part of every student's class experience. In this workshop learn the seven skills students need to prepare for CASAS and how to incorporate many of them and sometimes all of them with every reading and listening activity leading to improved CASAS scores.