Rita Macdonald Email and Phone Number

As a former K-12 ESL teacher, then a teacher educator, and now as part of WIDA Research and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, I’ve worked for almost 20 years for the equitable engagement of multilingual children in robust and rigorous learning. We’re at a point in our nation where the persistent exclusion of multilingual students from STEM education and opportunities threatens our shared future, and will leave them and their families downstream of life-impacting decisions made by others. They need and deserve to be at the table, and I’m proud to co-lead Making Science Multilingual, a joint program of WIDA and the National Teaching Association. We are dedicated to providing resources to help overturn the inequities in STEM engagement and lead to a brighter, more secure future for our students and all of us.NSF-funded research to develop and pilot EL-inclusive STEM discourse support resources can be found at the project website: http://stem4els.wceruw.org.Selected ReferencesMacDonald, R. (2017). WIDA Focus On Bulletin: STEM Discourse: Strengthening Reasoning, Strengthening Language. Madison, WI: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Retrieved from: https://www.wida.us/get.aspx?id=2095MacDonald, R., Miller, E., & Lord, S. (2017). Doing and talking science: Engaging ELs in the discourse of the science and engineering practices. In A. Oliveira & M. Weinburgh (Eds.), Science teacher preparation in content-based second language acquisition: ASTE series in science education (pp. 179-198). New York, NY: Springer.Experienced Academic with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Skilled in Educational Consulting, Instructional Design, Curriculum Development, Public Speaking, and Teacher Training. Strong information technology professional with a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics with a TEOL focus from Saint Michael's College, Vermont.