“’You can’t close your door here:’ Leveraging teacher collaboration to improve outcomes for immigrant English Learners”

Assistant Professor Adriana Villavicencio (right) is lead author of an article in Teaching and Teacher Education examining the importance of teacher collaboration.

​The title of the article is “’You can’t close your door here:’ Leveraging teacher collaboration to improve outcomes for immigrant English Learners.”
 
Co-authors are Assistant Professor Reva Jaffe-Walter (Montclair State University) and Senior Researcher Sarah Klevan (Learning Policy Institute).
 
Villavicencio’s research focuses on K-12 educational policy and school practice that deepens or disrupts inequities for minoritized communities of students and families. Her work includes mixed-method studies on turnaround middle schools, small high serving newly arrived immigrant English Learners, and a racial justice program embedded in culturally diverse elementary schools. Villavicencio has conducted research at MDRC, the RAND Corporation, and Westat, and taught high school English in Oakland, California and Brooklyn, New York. Prior to joining UCI, Villavicencio was Deputy Director at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools at New York University. 

Villavicencio's recent publication - Am I My Brother’s Keeper: Educational Opportunities and Outcomes for Black and Brown Boys (Harvard Education Press) - examines how districts and schools can embed racial equity work into the very fabric of how they serve students.

Abstract
 
In this paper, we examine the role of teacher collaboration in a school that produces positive academic outcomes for immigrant, English Learners (ELs). We also draw on a comparative case study of another school in the same district that has not achieved the same level of success. We illustrate how the high performing site supports and implements deep and sustained collaboration, while the professional conditions of the comparison site results in fragmentation and the isolation of EL teachers. In doing so, we provide qualitative insight into how schools can foster authentic teacher learning and collective responsibility for EL students.