Over the past few months, the IRC has asked members of our community to nominate Illinois teachers working with multicultural, multilingual students who are going above and beyond, and now, we’re celebrating them and highlighting their work. Keep an eye out for these features in the coming months – and if you’d like to nominate someone, email leanet@cntrmail.org.
Next up is Alise Gaughan, an instructional coach at CCSD 15 in McHenry.
Says Maureen Cassidy, who nominated her: “I am writing to enthusiastically nominate Alise Gaughan to be a featured educator by IRC. Alise possesses the unique combination of educational expertise, coaching prowess, and ML programming knowledge that makes her an outstanding educator in our district.
Having worked with Alise for 15 years, it is evident that her dedication to fostering a positive learning environment aligns seamlessly with our district and program’s mission. Her ability to communicate effectively in both English and Spanish, partnered with her wealth of knowledge, has proven invaluable in connecting with students, staff and families from diverse backgrounds regarding what is best for student learning.
As an experienced educator, Alise Gaughan has consistently demonstrated a commitment to professional development and a deep understanding of effective instructional strategies. Her leadership qualities have had a positive impact on colleagues, contributing to a collaborative and supportive teaching community.
In addition to her exemplary teaching skills, Alise exhibits a passion for promoting cultural awareness and inclusivity within our school. Her involvement in writing our Biliteracy Unit Frameworks (BUFs) showcases their commitment to enhancing the overall educational experience for our students. I am confident that Alise would is an excellent educator to highlight by the IRC. Others will be inspired by her ability to leverage language and instructional expertise to benefit both students and educators. Her dedication to creating an inclusive and engaging learning environment makes her a perfect nomination.
Thank you for considering Alise for this important distinction. I believe her unique qualifications and commitment to educational excellence make her an outstanding choice to be spotlighted.”
Alise Gaughan stays busy.
As the district EL Instructional Coach, she travels to five different educational buildings throughout the week, working with a variety of different teachers and staff to support multilingual learners. “Building those relationships is so important and what keeps us an education family,” she says.
Gaughan seeks to lead with empathy and understanding, ensuring that in addition to her physically showing up in these spaces, she is available as a sounding board and collaborator for colleagues via phone, email or Google Meet, and advocates for dual staff across the district to meet whenever possible.
One conduit for learning has been a dually identified book study, with a variety of staff from different departments across the district to identify ways to create a more equitable MTSS process for our multilingual and identified learners. Gaughan is also part of the EL Department’s Newcomer Committee being established to welcome students and families and develop guidance for instructional support and connecting families to community resources.
The focus, Gaughan says, has been on culturally responsive teaching, and how teachers are instructing multilingual students in dual classrooms and supporting the whole child. “We need to look at their linguistic repertoire as an asset, not a deficit,” she says. “They do come to us with their own knowledge and experiences. We’re educating staff across the district on EL strategies that all teachers have at their disposal—they’re great strategies for all learners.”
Materials are important, too, she says. When the team is looking at new curriculum, Gaughan works to ensure a bilingual and biliterate perspective so that texts and materials are culturally relevant and authentic, in which students can see themselves and their experiences.
Gaughan helped write the district’s BUFs, or Biliteracy Unit Frameworks, living curricular documents for dual language instruction aligned to our content and language allocation. They’re created by mapping and aligning literacy (ELA and SLA), WIDA, social science, and science standards into thematic, content-integrated units. Our paper maps were transcribed into a digital template.
“It’s a work in progress and teachers can comment and add things in a collaborative fashion,” she says “We have a dedicated BUF curriculum team for K-5 and we collaboratively revisit and enhance the BUFs. It has been a process, but it’s amazing to see this concept where we started mapping standards on butcher paper develop into our present curriculum.”
Currently, the EL Department, Gaughan, and grade-level team leaders are working to create a foundational skills scope and sequence to define their Spanish foundational skills, transferable skills between languages, and English foundational skills that need to be explicitly taught.
“I’ve taken the district math pacing guides and adjusted the time to ensure we are bridging the language of math at the end of each unit, and guides to help with cross-linguistic transfer,” she says.
Her advice for fellow multilingual educators is simple and important: “Build relationships with students, their families, and your educational peers to foster a collaborative and supportive community. Continue to learn, grow, and adapt using current research to best serve our MLLs. Keep students at the forefront. Educate to advocate.”
