Professional Learning Opportunities

• Virtual Self-Paced Workshops are available September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2025 for Colorado K-12 public school educators with a school district email address. Educators must complete SY24-25 workshops by August 31, 2025 to receive credit.
• No cost and no participant limit. Participants can log in at any time, from any place where they have access to internet services.
• To participate educators must have a WIDA Secure Portal account. To assist with this process, Districts must create and send a bulk upload list with educators' names and email addresses to the WIDA Client Services Center (CSC) at help@wida.us. Once WIDA CSC receives and processes the bulk upload, an automatic email will be sent to the educators on the list inviting them to create an eLearning account through the Secure Portal. Download Bulk Upload Template. 
• Log into WIDA Secure Portal, open the Professional Learning tab to view self-paced, online eWorkshops available this school year. 
• The Workshops are aligned to the English Learner Quality Standards.To view a list of the Workshops and which standards they align to, please read the WIDA Self-Paced Workshop FAQs. 
• Certificate of Completion can be printed and/or downloaded once an Workshop is completed. CDE will not be able to reproduce certificates or verify participation.

Colorado K-12 public school educators have access to attend virtual WIDA Facilitated Workshops at no cost. These opportunities are available to educators with WIDA Secure Portal accounts during the current school year. Registration for each Facilitated Workshop may have participant limits. If you registered and are unable to attend or you would like to request information about WIDA Secure Portal Accounts, please email CLDE.

February 2025: Nurturing Speaking Growth encourages participants to explore the connection between the ACCESS Speaking Test and classroom practices that promote oral language development. In the webinars, educators will engage in meaning making activities that provide ways to nurture students’ speaking growth. This workshop is unique in that participants will be asked to speak and share ideas with colleagues during the webinars. Two live webinars occurring from 2:30pm-4:00pm on February 19 and March 5. Registration Closed.

November 2024: When Language and Disability Meet: Planning for Instruction to Support Dually Identified Students workshop is designed for K-12 educators who work with multilingual learners who are dually identified for language and disability. Participants will explore principles of Universal Design Learning and think about shared responsibility and advocacy when planning for multilingual learners who are dually identified for language and disability. Two live webinars occurring from 3:00pm-4:30pm on November 4 and November 18. Registration Closed.

September 2024: Scaffolding Learning through Language is a three-part webinar series which encourages educators to consider a dynamic set of classroom practices that support multilingual learners as they move toward increasing independence and expertise in grade-level content. Participants will explore how rigorous, well-sequenced curriculum within the content of meaningful experiences contributes to rich classroom interactions that mediate learning. Topics that educators will explore are a) valuing students' resources for learning, b) developing a strong community of learners, and c) engaging students in rigorous curriculum. Three live webinars occurring from 3:00pm-4:30pm on September 26, October 3, and October 10. Registration Closed.

WIDA In-Person Workshops

Writing with Multilingual Learners in the Elementary Grades is a two-day in-person workshop held in early May 2025. It focuses on writing instruction that supports the use of the Teaching and Learning Cycle as a way to empower multilingual writers, not only to produce successful academic writing but, more importantly, to communicate effectively for a variety of purposes and different audiences. Students need opportunities to leverage writing as a powerful tool to understand the world, express themselves effectively, learn from one another, and argue for the things they believe in. This vision requires intentional, language-focused instruction and is strengthened when it occurs through authentic writing tasks in the content areas. In this interactive workshop, educators will explore a pedagogical approach that apprentices multilingual learners into writing in various academic genres. Specifically, looking at examples of this in science and consider how this approach develops multilingual learners’ writing skills and their awareness of how language works in written form, allowing them to become effective and informed writers not only in science but across content areas. For more information about this workshop, including cost and location, please visit WIDA's Licensed Workshop.

WIDA Academies are in-person professional learning workshops focusing on topics relevant to educators of multilingual learners. Educators from within and outside of the WIDA Consortium are invited to attend open-enrollment workshops facilitated by WIDA professional learning specialists. Registration for Afirmando la Experiencia Bilingüe con el Marco DALE occurring on May 6, in Denver is now available. This one-day bilingual academy is designed for Spanish/English bilingual K-12 educators, administrators, coaches, curriculum coordinators, and support staff with minimal experience using el Marco de los estándares del desarrollo auténtico del lenguaje español de WIDA (Marco DALE). Early bird registration available through February 24. Please contact WIDA for more information about WIDA Academies.

ACCESS Overall and Literacy scores from the current test year will be added to Multilingual Learner (ML) reports found in CEDAR/COGNOS to assist districts and schools in meeting the civil rights and educational needs for students, and to provide accurate reporting of student’s language proficiency level. An inquiry into prior ML history and English language proficiency assessment scores provided by CDE is an important step districts and schools take to avert students from being redesignated prematurely and/or losing language assistance upon enrollment, therefore, increasing a student’s ability to succeed in the classroom. Please join a webinar hosted by CLDE and Data Services on Wednesday, July 23rd at 9am to learn more about the ML Enrollment updates and ML data reports used to make designation and coding decisions prior to determining student’s location on the language progression sequence for Student October and End of Year Data Pipeline collections.  

A focused webinar on Colorado's Standardized Identification Procedures for SY25-26 is intended for new or veteran district data and program coordinators and personnel who identify and code multilingual students. SY25-26 Virtual Training Date Coming Soon!

New English Language Development Coordinators

The CLDE Office will be hosting monthly meetings to support the implementation of Colorado standardized procedures at the local level. The goal during office hours will be to build federal and state knowledge around requirements for Multilingual Learners (MLs), provide support to strengthen district processes and procedures, and establish networks between districts and schools. If you are a new English Language Development (ELD) coordinator, director, educator, or have recently been asked to support with the instructional programs for MLs in your district or school, please consider joining monthly meetings held on Tuesdays at 12:30pm -1:30pm. SY25-26 Dates Coming Soon!

CLDE Office Hours