Massachusetts is a member of the WIDA consortium. Educators can create a free profile on the WIDA page and have access to a variety of resources such as ACCESS sample items, instructional materials, and training courses.
WIDA has also made selected online professional learning courses available at no cost to educators.
At this time WIDA does not provide credit for the PD, but educators can bundle the time spent on the course along with other professional learning, self-directed activities and/or documentation of sharing of knowledge with other educators in your district.
Excerpted from the WIDA website:
Taking Action for ELLs: Foundational Concepts has a linear presentation for educators to build their awareness of ELLs, explore the WIDA ELD Standards Framework, and take action in your classroom.
Engaging ELLs: Teaching to Student Strengths allows you to explore based on your interests and learning style. You will create a student portrait to help leverage students’ interests, strengths, and cultural and linguistic backgrounds to support language development and academic success.
Use
You will have opportunities within both modules to interact with content and apply it to your practice. You may proceed through the modules independently or you may wish to join up with colleagues to enhance the experience. WIDA encourages local educators, coaches, administrators, or professional learning facilitators to develop collaborative activities to enhance and reinforce the ideas and practices presented in each module.
Cost
Professional learning modules are available free to Consortium members via your secure website login. Never share your personal login credentials, as you are legally responsible for the security of materials that are accessed via your login and your personal training record is tied to your account. Please encourage your colleagues to acquire a WIDA login to view the modules.
Completion/Credit
WIDA is currently exploring credit options to be made available in the future. Please check back to learn more about how you can submit evidence of completion for continuing education credit, subject to approval of your local credit-granting entities.