Call for Participants: Vocabulary and Professional Development Instructional Research Group (IRG) in Los Alamitos, California has announced a professional development (PD) opportunity for school districts as part of a federal research grant. For districts to participate, they must have at least two middle schools involved, and each school must have at least 10% of their students be currently classified as English Learners or former English Learners (identified as early as kindergarten). In addition, each school must have at least one 8th grade social studies teacher who teaches American history and a person who would be willing to serve as a facilitator to conduct 9 teacher group study sessions held over the course of the school year. The sessions are focused on helping 8th grade teachers learn to augment and enhance their existing curricular material by incorporating academic vocabulary instruction. They will learn about effective vocabulary instruction for teaching both general academic vocabulary used across disciplines and content specific vocabulary that are unique to American history. The vocabulary material covered in the PD sessions will help teachers in addressing the English, language arts, and reading standards associated with history/social studies content for 8th grade. Participating teachers will collaborate with their colleagues to develop lesson plans based on effective vocabulary instructional techniques. The PD sessions will be conducted at the school site at a time that is convenient to teachers. All teachers participating in the study will receive a $500.00 stipend, and their school will receive a regular institutional membership to National Council for the Social Studies for one year (a $121 value). The study will be conducted during the 2017-18 school year. Results from this study will help school districts build the capacity of middle school teachers to improve the academic vocabulary of their students—both English learners and other learners in the classroom. Improved academic vocabulary use in oral and writing activities is a potential benefit for students, especially English learners. The PI for this study is Dr. Russell Gersten. The co-PIs include Drs. Joseph Dimino and Madhavi Jayanthi. Contact Dr. Mary-Jo Taylor (440-487-4964; taylormar@inresg.org) to participate in the study or for additional information. Details about the design of the study can be found at http://www.inresg.org/tsg.