Services

Online and district-based professional learning, instructional design and leadership support. Using the power of systemic functional linguistics and genre pedagogy to improve academic outcomes.

Ruslana facilitating a session

How We Can Work Together

Professional Learning

We provide high-impact professional learning designed for classroom educators, instructional coaches, and district program leaders. Our services range from comprehensive district-wide partnerships to specialized online opportunities, including interactive book studies and cohort-based courses. We help your staff make language-centered instruction a permanent part of your district’s instructional DNA.

Contact Us
Contact Us
Upcoming Courses
Upcoming Courses
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Pedagogical Thought Partner

Academic subjects demand a specialized kind of literacy. We partner with school districts and curriculum publishers to look at literacy block and beyond —evaluating if challenges require amplified instructional materials, targeted professional learning, or a restructuring of tiered supports. Through strategic advisory, program reviews, and strategic planning support, we help make sure your organization is investing in the right high-leverage strategies rather than repeating "trial and error" cycles.

Request a Consultation
Request a Consultation
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Curriculum Coherence for Multilingual Learners

We help ensure intentional instructional design so that MLs experience learning as connected, cumulative, and meaningful—rather than fragmented across subjects, programs, or supports. This approach guarantees, first and foremost, high-quality core instruction and ensures that interventions and assessment work together to build disciplinary knowledge, language and literacy over time and across all learning spaces.

At its heart, curriculum coherence defragments learning for students. Literacy is not treated as a separate block, and language is not an add-on. Instead, language is at the heart of all learning.

  • Teachers learn how to support Multilingual Learners during the core instruction to access grade-level texts and tasks through language-based tasks.

  • Interventions are aligned to the core instruction to support students to succeed in core instruction.

  • No “double curriculum” for multilingual learners or “struggling” readers or writers.

Work with Us
Work with Us

Our Clients

School Districts & Education Agencies

Publishers & Content Providers

Postsecondary Partners

Examples

Black Hills Special Services School District, SD

Center for the Collaborative Classroom

Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation Professional Learning Convening

Colorín Colorado / WETA

EdQuity LLC

EducationPlus Resources

English Learners Success Forum, NM

English Learner Portal

Fargo Public Schools District, ND

Fargo Special Education Cooperative, ND

Gwinnett County Public Schools

Kennesaw State University

Mehlville School District, MO

Old Dominion University, VA

Skokie School District

SeeSaw Learning

St. Cloud Area School District

The Reading League, Cicero, IL

University of Wisconsin-Madison - School of Education

Verona Area School District, WI

Washtenaw Intermediate School District, MO

What They Say

  • Immediately Applicable

    The resources Ruslana shares are immediately applicable. Teachers walk away with a deeper understanding of the relationship between content and language and how to leverage that in the classroom through planning, instruction, and assessment.

    - Gwyneth Dean-Witte Fastnacht, South Dakota Title III Consortium Coordinator

  • Impactful Teaching

    I am reaching out because I would love to share something that you helped shape. I became the EAL Coordinator at my school in Istanbul. I walked into a system with no organized EAL program, no standardized proficiency screening, no real structure behind the support plans. Teachers expected the EAL department to do all the differentiating for them. Students were falling through the cracks. And the frameworks that were supposed to protect them had become paperwork that nobody followed.

    That experience broke something open in me, and what came out was a book. It is called The Differentiation Trap: From Framework to Belonging

    Thank you, Ruslana. The seeds you planted are bearing fruit on the other side of the world.

    - Luisa J., Istanbul

  • Clear Results

    In the Shorewood School District, both multilingual learner specialists and classroom teachers have partnered with Ruslana, and we are seeing clear results: more inclusive and rigorous instructional practices, stronger student engagement, and improved outcomes. Her work builds capacity across entire systems, and her influence extends beyond the classroom.

    I even experienced growth in my own writing through her sessions! Ruslana is a trusted partner for any district committed to advancing equity and strengthening instruction for all learners.

    - Dr. Laurie Burgos, Superintendent, Shorewood School District, WI

  • Brought Standards to Life

    Dr. Ruslana Westerlund led a full-day professional learning session for St. Louis educators on advancing equity for multilingual learners through the WIDA ELD Standards. The feedback from workshop attendees was overwhelmingly positive. Her deep knowledge of Functional Linguistics brought the standards to life, and she had a real gift for showing teachers how to "make language visible" across content areas and grade levels in ways that felt immediately practical and applicable.

    - Rob Greenhaw, EducationPlus

  • My Students Love It Too!

    As a result of this learning with Dr. Westerlund, I feel as though I have become more confident in teaching writing curriculum. I know where to start, the extent of what I need to teach my students and how I can help them become successful writers. My students love it too!

    Participant, Writing Across Disciplines Course


  • Expertise and Passion

    Dr. Westerlund's expertise and passion for SFL were evident from the outset. Her webinars were meticulously organized, engaging, and enriched with her deep understanding of the subject matter. She adeptly navigated through the complexities of SFL, making the content accessible and relevant to educators of varying backgrounds and levels of experience.

    - Maryna, TESOL Ukraine


  • Transformative

    Working with Ruslana was transformative for my understanding of the 2020 WIDA ELD standards. Her expertise and guidance not only clarified complex concepts but also empowered me to effectively implement them in my own work with teachers in my school district. This training gave me some great lesson ideas that can supplement and fill in gaps where our school’s writing curriculum is lacking.

    - Anna Y., Gwinnett County Public Schools