Poster #67 - How Museum Teachers Facilitate Emergent Bilingual Learners' Meaning-Making During Field Trips

• In Event: 79.052 - MTCC Poster Session 19
  In Poster Session: 79.052-8 - Informal Learning Environments Research Poster Session

Abstract

This study investigates museum teachers’ perceptions and enactment of instructional practices for emergent bilingual students within a field trip setting. Through interviews and program observations, we explore what museum teachers described as meaningful and inclusive experiences for emergent bilingual learners, and how those were enacted in their day-to-day instruction. Findings indicate that museum teachers had knowledge of the resources that were built in to the museum programs and strategies they could enact that would serve the needs of emergent bilingual learners; however, under time pressure those practices were often forgotten. The study points to the need for museum teachers to be supported in consistently enacting best practices for emergent bilingual learners even when time is short.

Authors

• Johanna M. Tigert, University of Massachusetts - Lowell

• Sheila Kirschbaum, University of Massachusetts - Lowell