Building Teacher Capacity to Support Newcomer Students: A Partnership between MVWSD and Heartwise
Who
Mountain View Whisman School District (MVWSD) partnered with Heartwise Learning to support teachers working with newcomer and immigrant students across four elementary schools.
Heartwise team members Kendra Fehrer, PhD, and Cristina Lash, PhD led this work in collaboration with district leadership and participating teachers.
The Goal
To support teachers in launching a new program for newcomer and immigrant students by incorporating research informed practices and strategies into their curriculum and planning.
This training series was designed to build teachers’ capacity to lead targeted instruction for newcomer students in the inaugural year of MVWSD’s program.
What We Offered
Heartwise designed a customized, year long professional learning series to support teachers working with newcomer students. The series included 14 sessions focused on research based instructional strategies that support students’ connectedness, multilingual development, and engagement in academically rich content.
We began by gathering input from teachers and district leaders to identify key areas of need and interest. From there, we developed a series that built on teachers’ existing expertise while introducing new approaches and strategies.
Each session included opportunities for discussion and reflection, along with concrete strategies and dedicated time for collaboration, feedback, and lesson planning.
Working Together
The professional learning series was designed to create a supportive and collaborative environment where teachers could learn, reflect, and apply new strategies in real time.
Heartwise facilitators modeled instructional practices and “teacher moves,” shared sample lesson plans, and brought in real examples from the field. Teachers engaged in ongoing cycles of planning, trying out strategies, and reflecting on their practice.
This approach created space for authentic learning and growth, allowing teachers to build confidence while strengthening their instructional practice.
The Impact
Through this work, teachers developed the foundations of a comprehensive scope and sequence of lesson plans for the year, grounded in research on the science of learning and development, social emotional learning, and multilingual development.
Teachers reported increased confidence in their ability to support newcomer and immigrant students, including supporting students’ home language and English development, incorporating trauma informed and resilience building practices into academic instruction, and leveraging students’ social, linguistic, and cultural assets.
Teachers also developed habits to support their own ongoing learning and resilience, and felt better equipped to support student connectedness, engagement, and confidence in the classroom