Our Approach

 

Inclusive Learning Environments, Built to Last

Confianza’s Theory of Action

With a focus on shared learning and action, we provide leaders and educators with practical tools like scaffolded learning blueprints and language development playbooks, designed to create sustainable, positive change.

Above all, we focus on building psychological safety in inclusive environments where everyone can thrive.

 

Do you need SELF-DIRECTED support?

We offer anytime, on-demand, stand-alone support through our professional learning products to guide educators on their own journey to support inclusion, diversity and equitable practices:

Do you need targeted, technical support?

We offer tailored professional learning services* where we listen to your unique goals and needs and provide customized guidance to support classroom practices and school-wide culture:

*We have a limited number of spots available for tailored support each school year.

Confianza’s Equity, Language and Literacy Framework

 
 
 

  • As an invited speaker and panelist for Harvard's first English Learner Summit, I was asked the question, "What's one thing that we should know about English learners?" And my answer is this.

    The achievement gap per se isn't necessarily with the students, it's with us. As educators, we're vastly underprepared to meet their needs in schools. We need to change the way that we work and bridge the gap to make sure that our schools are culturally and linguistically responsive for English learners and for all students.

    All too often, I hear my kids versus your kids. I hear my kids from the EL department and I hear your kids from content or quote "mainstream teachers," when in fact, every educator across the school, leader, teacher, support staff should be saying our students, our kids. Everyone should be able to welcome our students and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, make sure that they're part of our community, and work hard to provide them access and opportunity to reach their fullest potential.

    Throughout my entire career as a teacher of English learners from over 40 different linguistic groups, and more recently as a trainer and coach and consultant working across the United States and internationally, I hear all of these labels and more. And you might recognize some of them. And while labels can be somewhat useful in terms of designating students into a group or naming programs, they are also problematic.

    One problem is that they limit our understanding of the rich diversity and assets within this subgroup of students. Another problem is that they, again, perpetuate these silos of my kids versus your kids and thus abdicating the responsibility of who meets their needs. I say we turn it around. I say we take the acronym, the label of ELL, and make it about what we need to do to bridge the gap.

    Because in fact, it takes a whole school. If every educator encompasses mindset and practices around equity, language, and literacy, the whole ecosystem will respond and adapt to meet their needs, thus becoming culturally and linguistically responsive school for every student. Let's unpack this. Equity. We can have all the programs and strategies and standards in the world, but we're not gonna get very far unless we start with an equity-based mindset. What does that mean?

    First of all, it means that we have to start by building strong relationships with our students and our families built on mutual respect and trust. We need to get to know their stories and bring their culture and language into the classroom and into the school culture at large. We need to make sure, as well, that it's not just those at the epitome of privilege benefiting from the status quo. No, we need to question the status quo and we need to interrupt bias and prejudice and all work to make sure that our schools are transformative for social justice.

    Language. This is what I like to call the language lens. That means that it's not just the responsibility of the EL teacher to know how to plan, teach, and assess with the language lens to understand the language of the content area that they teach. It's not enough just to work with the ESL teacher for 30, 60, or 90 minutes a day in order to bridge the gap. Plus, we know that all the college and career readiness standards promote academic language across the curriculum, thus making every student in our school an ALL, academic language learner. So when we teach and work with a language lens, everyone wins.

    Literacy. Of course, by literacy, I mean making sure that we're building proficient readers and writers. But sadly, that's not the case in every school yet. We certainly wanna make sure that our students are highly literate and we also wanna think about literacy as something more expansive as reading and writing as well. And by this I'm talking about literacy power. I'm talking about critical thinking, problem solving skills so that students can become not just college and career ready, but life ready as well. They need to be able to navigate our complex world and see the power of their actions on their own lives and those in their community. So imagine if everyone in a school embodied these practices.

    Imagine if everyone became an ambassador for equity, language, and literacy. After all, ELLs are all of ours. Thank you.Description text goes here

 
 

Confianza’s Principles of Professional Learning

  1. One shot “sit and get” professional development (PD) workshops can be costly and are not proven to be effective at changing teacher practice. Our blended professional learning sequence is proven to be more effective at changing educator practice and saves on time out of the classroom. (2, 3, 10)Adult learners must build on prior experience and collaborate to co-create goals. Self-assessment and data analysis is central to our teacher-driven, student-centered approach. (1, 8, 10)

  2. Adult learners must practice what they learn in real world contexts. Confianza’s personalized Action Cycles and practical tools/protocols engage teachers in application-based PD. (2, 4, 6, 8)

  3. Professional development needs to be student-centered and data-driven focused on continuous improvement. Confianza creates opportunities for educators to connect PD to student data, SMART goals and school improvement goals and district initiatives. (4, 10)

  4. Professional development must include empirically-validated content. Confianza’s toolkits are consistently updated with curated, research-based content. (7, 8)

  5. Professional development must include opportunities for discussion and reflection addressing teacher beliefs. Our foundation is reflection and application through an equity-based mindset for providing access and opportunity for all learners. (2, 6)

  6. Educators need time and space to collaborate through embedded professional learning structures, including observing other teachers in practice. We promote teacher efficacy by developing teacher leaders who can establish and support ongoing professional learning structures (e.g. coaching, PLCs, observation cycles). (3, 5, 8, 10)

  7. Leadership is critical to establishing school culture and promoting an expectation of professional learning.  We work directly with leadership to help model a vision of high expectations that is culturally responsive and socially just. (7, 9)

  8. All students and families need to be included into the school culture where their “funds of knowledge” are honored and integrated. Confianza shares ideas on how to foster relationships within the community with families and other community stakeholders. (7, 9)

  9. Analyzing assessment data and using the results to plan action steps is an integral component of professional learning. Confianza promotes an equitable assessment approach that informs improvements in student performance and tracks language development consistently across time. (4, 10)

 

    1. Batt, E. G. (2010). Cognitive coaching: A critical phase in professional development to implement sheltered instruction. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 26(4), 9971005.

    2. Choi, D. S., & Morrison, P. (2014). Learning to get it right: Understanding change processes in professional development for teachers of English learners. Professional Development in Education, 40(3), 416435.

    3. Elliott, J. C. (2017). The evolution from traditional to online professional development: A review. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 33(3), 114–125.

    4. He, Y., Prater, K., & Steed, T. (2011). Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’: ESL professional development for all teachers. Professional Development in Education, 37(1), 718.

    5. Lay, C., Allman, B., Cutri, R. M., & Kimmons, R. (2020). Examining a decade of research in online teacher professional development. Frontiers in Education, 5, p. 167.

    6. Molle, D. (2013). The pitfalls of focusing on instructional strategies in professional development for teachers of english learners. Teacher Education Quarterly, 40(1), 101.

    7. Ottow, S. (2019). The Language Lens for Content Classrooms: A Guide for Educators of Academic and English Learners. West Palm Beach, FL: Learning Sciences International. (See list of references for The Language Lens that inform Confianza’s research-based toolkit.)

    8. Short, D. (2013). Training and sustaining effective teachers of sheltered instruction. Theory into Practice, 52(2), 118127.

    9. Tung, R. et al. (2011). Learning from Consistently High Performing and Improving Schools for English language Learners in Boston Public Schools, Center for Collaborative Education and The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy.

    10. The Council of the Great City Schools. (2021). Advancing Instruction and Leadership in the Nation’s Great City Schools A Framework for Developing, Implementing, and Sustaining High-Quality Professional Development: Council of the Great City Schools.

 
 

Collaboration With the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Confianza has collaborated with Harvard Graduate School of Education in multiple ways to support, study and share our research-based approach.

Joel Drevlow’s portrait entitled “Confianza: From Connecting to Reflecting” was done as part of a portraiture social science inquiry-based research class with Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot in 2018.

Harvard Graduate School of Education shield

Here are a few excerpts from the Harvard Graduate School of Education Confianza portrait:

”They have trusted her [Confianza Director Sarah B. Ottow] to lead this process, but she also trusts them to communicate those issues and goals most relevant and important in their own unique context. They learn not through any prescriptive measures which she applies but through a conversation of shared experience.” (pg. 20)

“I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m going to help you discover what you can do.” (pg. 7)

”Its mutual nature implies the respect and trust to allow its partner the autonomy do define it in their own terms, from their own perspective. In practice, this framework that places the elemental and foundational aspects of relationship as priority allows [Confianza Director Sarah B. Ottow] in interactions with both her clients and her partners at Confianza to create a framework specifically tailored to the unique context and perspective of the respective actor, asking what it is they need and trusting their perspective rather than ignoring their unique context and prescribing what it is they should do—forging sincere relationships through the respect and trust offered from those moments of first impressions.” (pgs. 21-22)