Peggy Morrison

Peggy Morrison joined CLMER as a Professional Development Specialist in 2002. Her areas of expertise include bilingual education, two-way immersion education, teacher collaboration, English Language Development, thematic interdisciplinary curriculum development, home-school interaction, early literacy, and multicultural and anti-bias children's literature. She is a co-developer and Senior Facilitator of CLMER's Standards-Based Professional Development for Teachers of English Learners: Differentiated ELD Instruction. Since 2003, Peggy has taught CLAD courses for CLMER's Title III ESOL credentialing program in central Oregon, developing and implementing a hybrid online and face-to-face instructional format. She is also a presenter at local, regional, and national education conferences. Her recent workshop topics include: "ELD Institute," "Flexible Grouping Strategies for Differentiation of ELD Instruction," "Songs for English Class and Songs for Spanish Class," "Key Ideas for the 90:10 Dual Immersion Classroom," "Concept-Based Curriculum Development Using Backwards Design and Home-School Interaction," "Del campo a la mesa: A Thematic Interdisciplinary Unit," and "Structured Teacher Collaboration."

A native of Long Beach, California, Peggy began her teaching career at the Colegio Americano of Guatemala City, Guatemala, in 1980. She then worked for eighteen years as a bilingual classroom teacher in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District of Watsonville, California. She has taught every grade level from preschool through high school, and most recently taught first grade for six years in aSpanish/English Two Way Immersion Program at Alianza Charter School, where she was instrumental in developing structured teacher collaboration and home-school interactive curriculum initiatives. Peggy also taught courses and supervised teachers in the Masters of Education program at University of California, Santa Cruz.

Peggy Morrison holds California teaching credentials in Multiple Subjects-BCLAD, and Secondary Biology and Life Sciences, Chemistry and Physical Sciences, English Language and Literature, and Spanish Language and Literature. In 2002, she was awarded the prestigious National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) National Teacher Certification for English as a New Language, Early and Middle Childhood. She holds a Master of Arts in Education from California State University Monterey Bay.

Peggy Morrison's commitments to respect for linguistic and cultural diversity, anti-bias curriculum and practice, critical pedagogy, and high educational expectations for all students reflect the shared core values of the Center for Language Minority Education and Research. She is happy to be a part of the Professional Development Team and appreciative of ongoing opportunities to help improve schools.

Teacher professional development

Collaborative models for teacher professional development

Web-based educational environments

Hybrid environments and interaction structures

Structured teacher collaboration

Home school interactive curriculum development

English Language Development Instruction

Differentiated instruction strategies

Flexible grouping strategies

CLMER Professional Development for Teachers of English Learners: Standards-Based Differentiated English Language Development(ELD) Instruction: Peggy Morrison is co-author and principal professional development facilitator(2003-present) for this two-year professional development program, offered by CLMER on a contract basis to schools, districts, and county offices of education throughout California. Further information is available at www.clmer.csulb.edu

IES Program Evaluation Grant: Peggy is collaborating with CLMER colleagues in a two-year(2006-2008) federal evaluation grant project related to determining the efficacy of the "Standards Based Differentiated ELD Instruction" professional development program.

CLMER/WESD (Willamette Educational Service District) Title III Rural Willamette Valley Professional Development Project(2002-2008) For the Willamette project, Peggy is the CLAD course instructor and principle architect of the multi-leveled hybrid support structure for teacher professional development. The purpose of the Willamette project is to prepare teachers to work with English Learners. One of the magical things about it is that we are working in with inservice, not preservice teachers. This is a professional development program designed to build on the skills and experience of working teachers. It is designed to be relevant to working teachers and also to be manageable for working teachers. The basic premise of the program is to value the skills, knowledge, expertise, and professional judgment that teacher participants bring to the table. Starting from a social constructivist paradigm of learning, new ideas, or content, consisting of an exploration of the body of research and best practices on working with English learners, are presented, collaboratively processed with colleagues, implemented in real life classrooms, and collaboratively debriefed. The program instructors are experienced practicioners with long experience in working with English Learners, This guarantees their credibility with teacher participants. The instructors interact with teachers as more experienced others, as mentors, colleagues, and collaborators. The program was conceived and designed in 2001 in response to the need of Oregon teachers in rural areas to obtain professional development and coursework regarding theory and practice for working with growing populations of English learners in their schools. Imagine teachers who have been successful in teaching native English speaking students, who have developed a repertoire of successful strategies for teaching the students they have had in their classrooms. As English Learners and immigrant students begin to occupy more and more of the seats in their classrooms, they find that their successful strategies fall flat. How do teachers react? How do they feel? They feel incompetent, confused, ineffective, discouraged, even angry. Offering modifications in practice that support success for English Learners is the way the Willamette program has answered this need.