pRojects

Project Parasol: ESOL Paraprofessional to Teacher Pipeline. 

National Professional Development Program, Office of English Language Acquisition. T365Z220078. $2,061,703.

Project Parasol is a five-year project funded by the National Professional Development Program, Office of English Language Acquisition (Smith, Osborn & Walker-Egea, T365Z220078; $2.1M). Project Parasol will build an ESOL paraprofessional to credentialed teacher pipeline with wrap around services to help bilingual paraprofessionals become ESOL certified classroom teachers ready to teach in dual language settings. This grant is a collaboration with School District Manatee County (SDMC). The five-year project will build a career pathway for 60 ESOL Paraprofessionals to earn a degree, teaching credentials with ESOL and Reading Endorsements, and ultimately secure a teaching position. Project Parasol will provide ESOL paraprofessionals with a viable pathway to postsecondary education with wraparound supports designed to improve success. Project Parasol will increase the number of highly prepared ESOL teachers in SDMC. We hope to develop a scalable program that can be replicated elsewhere. 

"BilVocab": Effect of Bilingual vs. Monolingual Methods of Explicit English Vocabulary Instruction on 4th grade Spanish-Speaking English Learners (ELs). Institute of Education Sciences. R305A200047. $1,398,975. 

BilVocab is a four-year project funded by the IES explores whether bilingual instructional methods are more effective than traditional English-only methods for academic language development among 4th grade elementary Spanish-speaking English learners (Carlo & Smith, R305A200047; $1.4 M). This is a technology-enabled intervention and will provide valuable data for understanding how technology can be leveraged for increased bilingualism, more effective instruction, and greater educational equity. Our remote delivery intervention involves one-on-one bilingual instruction with strategic use of Spanish vocabulary to support English academic language. Our findings will shed light on the potential for remote delivery bilingual instruction within a mainstream monolingual educational context, which will benefit children from less commonly spoken language backgrounds and children in districts with bilingual personnel shortages. 

MARVL: Multimedia Augmented Reality Vocabulary Instruction. National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps). 2114933. $50,000.

The goal of the MARVL project is to develop a rich repository of multilingual content and a corresponding Augmented Reality delivery mechanism for teaching and learning.  

 2020-2021 Multimedia Augmented Reality Vocabulary Learning (MARVL). Foundation Bull Ring Accelerator Grant, University of South Florida. $25,000.