Jeff Zwiers
Senior Researcher in the Stanford Graduate School of Education
Jeff Zwiers is a senior researcher at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and director of professional development for the Understanding Language Initiative, a research and professional learning project focused on improving the education of academic English learners. He has consulted for national and international teacher development projects and has published articles and books on literacy, cognition, discourse, and academic language. His current research focuses on improving professional learning models and developing classroom instruction that fosters high-quality oral language and constructive conversations across disciplines.
Understanding Language Initiative
Understanding Language's vision is to increase college, career, and community readiness for all students—especially English language learners (ELLs)—by transforming the quality of their educational experiences. When language and content instruction are successfully intertwined, they work synergistically and powerfully to improve student learning. Accordingly, the organization's mission is to support educators and policymakers in transforming systems to advance equity for ELLs by illuminating the symbiotic ways students learn language and academic content. Housed at Stanford University and led by the nation's leading English language learning and content area experts, Understanding Language is uniquely positioned with the practitioner and research expertise, knowledge, relationships and partnerships to help educators successfully teach language and content together.
