The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift to virtual learning across many countries and school systems. It is worthwhile to examine the specific ways in which this shift is significant to teacher trainees preparing to work with multilingual learners (MLs). Considering the perspectives of teacher trainees preparing to teach MLs offers an opportunity to identify the questions and concerns that they are likely to have upon graduation. Examining these perspectives can also help to identify ways that teacher trainees can use virtual and remote teaching approaches more constructively. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of an educator preparation program focused on preparing trainees in content areas along with English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), with a focus on the perspectives of teacher trainees who worked with MLs through virtual and remote modalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper draws on data from an analysis of nine teacher trainees’ response journals and course assignments, and includes themes identified from the teacher trainees’ perceptions of virtual learning for MLs. The findings from the analysis revealed that teacher trainees emphasized the importance of establishing meaningful professional relationships in the virtual setting with their MLs, especially as a way to facilitate effective instruction and online classroom management. Participants also spoke about the importance of developing culturally responsive and sensitive instruction, and stressed the importance of engaging students and families in appropriate, linguistically accessible ways. Implications for future virtual instruction as well as teacher preparation are also discussed.
I n the mid-1990s, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) identified a link between recent streptococcal infection and the development of neuropsychiatric symptoms such as separation anxiety, tics, behavioral regression, rage, restricted eating, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD;Swedo et al., 1998).
ETIOLOGYResearch has found that in pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS) and pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS), exposure to an infection or other agent that activates the immune system creates an immune response that goes awry, causing autoantibodies (or immune cells) to attack brain cells instead (Chang et al., 2015;Platt et al., 2017). The resulting inflammation causes obsessions, compulsions, hallucinations, restricted eating, motor difficulties and tics, behavioral challenges, and other symptoms. PANDAS and PANS typically have a distinct onset (Chang et al., 2015); however, if symptoms are mild at first, parents and clinicians may initially overlook the change in behavior as part of typical development (Rice Doran, 2016b).
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