Students with Interrupted Formal Education: A Toolbox for Instruction

The research question addressed in this capstone project is: What are best practices for schools to support students with interrupted schooling? This paper and three-session professional development series showcase ways that content teachers can help facilitate learning for a growing multilingual learner population, students with limited formal education (SIFE). Within the professional development series, there will be three strategies that are highlighted including: Culturally Relevant Teaching, using aspects and background knowledge from a student’s own lived experience to facilitate knowledge acquisition; Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm which bridges the skills that students with limited formal education come to classrooms with to how Western classrooms teach; finally, the importance of family and community engagement in connecting the student with a wider network of support. Included with the project are the literature review of research, professional development presentations, and suggestions on follow-up