How might new approaches to assessment create more equitable opportunities for multilingual learners? In what ways could local and professional accountability help motivate teachers to encourage students’ home language use? Why is it so important that relationships and a deeper understanding of our students be at the center of how we design and analyze assessments? 

We discuss these questions and more in these questions in Part 1 of our 2 part series with Dr. Margo Gottlieb, co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Starting her career as an elementary school teacher and bilingual coordinator, she served as the longstanding director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center.  In addition, she has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Santiago, Chile and has keynoted, presented, and consulted in over 21 countries and almost every state in the U.S. In recent years, Margo’s scholarship has focused on designing language development standards frameworks, co-constructing linguistically and culturally sustainable curriculum, promoting student agency through assessment as, for, and of learning, and evaluating language education policy in K-12 settings.

Over her career, Dr. Gottlieb has published more than 90 articles, monographs, handbooks/ guides, encyclopedia entries, and chapters as well as authored, co-authored, or co-edited over 30 books on language standards, academic language use, and classroom assessment. As everyone, the worldwide pandemic forced her to pivot; as a result, she has actively participated in podcasts, webinars, blogs, and has even learned how to tweet. Besides co-authoring Beyond Crises with Debbie Zacarian and Margarita Calderón, Margo’s most recent books include Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for School and District Leaders and its companion, Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for Teachers (Corwin, 2021). Throughout her educational career Margo has been a staunch advocate and warrior for multilingual learners. You are welcome to contact her at [email protected] or @margogottlieb.

You can find additional resources and episode takeaways on our ELL Community page at ellevationeducation.com/ellcommunity. If you haven’t done so already, we invite you to join our ELL Community while you’re there so you get weekly resources, strategies and tips from that you can use right away.