CLAVES™

Contextualized Learning for Access, Validation,
Equity and Success – CLAVES™

CLAVES™ is a framework that provides educational stakeholders with the professional learning needed to create an environment of differentiated, inclusive, and validating instruction in schools that serve culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, with specific emphasis on English Learners (ELs).

Within the CLAVES™ framework, professional learning is organized and supported by leaders who embrace professional learning that is:

  • focused on improving and building teacher skills for classroom practice,
  • mediated through a learning community,
  • led by a skilled and knowledgeable leader,
  • focused on the everyday work and practices of classroom teachers, and
  • data-informed and evidence-based.

The key beliefs that serve as a foundation of CLAVES™ are that English Learners:

  • Deserve equitable access to content and language development.
  • Have linguistic and cultural assets that are validated and built upon in all aspects of their school community.

The specific objectives for participants are:

  1. To learn the fundamentals of specific scaffolding needed in order to fully support CLD and EL students.
  2. To understand and be able to effectively plan.
  3. To analyze your current situation and to identify action strategies building upon the instructional and leadership capacity on your campus.
  4. Overall to gain the ability to sustain the use of the 8 Pathways of Contextualized Learning within the entire school.

The CLAVES™ modules are organized so that participants have the opportunity for new learning, practice, and reflection.

We have organized this framework around 8-days:

Day 1: The Essence of Our Work

Day 2: Keys to Sustainability

Day 3: Building Instructional Capacity

Day 4: Pathways to Instruction and Learning: Part 1

Day 5: Collaboration, Professionalism, Transparency, and Preparedness

Day 6: Pathways to Instruction and Learning: Part 2

Day 7: Pathways Realized in Each Classroom

Day 8: The Essence of our Continued Work Together

"CLAVES™ training has elevated teacher understanding of the components or pathways of sheltered instruction. In the classrooms this year there was much more specific focus on language than in previous years"

Debbie Westbrook
Principal Lockwood Elementary School
Clovis, New Mexico

“I have been in many collaborative groups over the years … and this year's has been very productive. I never wanted to ditch it, or find an excuse for not attending ... The VISITAS™ experience was a good learning opportunity. The protocol for debriefing after the visits was educational and made teachers (including me) think about our strategies and how to improve, whether we were new or veteran teachers.”

Rio Grande High School Teacher
Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Presenters were adaptable and receptive to the people in the room”

Del Norte High School Teacher
Albuquerque, New Mexico

“All of the eight pathways are needed to teach both content and language. They all flow together”

Comment from CLAVES™ Days 3 & 4 Evaluations, August 2017

“My favorite group activity was the consensus frame because it was fun, and the topics were more real-life relatable. I also liked how we could [express] our own opinions and what we thought about the topic.”

Rio Grande High School 9th grade student
Albuquerque, NM