Our Approach

When it comes to improving educational outcomes for multilingual children, we recognize that seeing is believing. That’s why we are the first collective in the National Writing Project's fifty-year history to leverage lesson study and laboratory classrooms as learning tools. This change model leverages experiential learning to inspire collective vision.

Our goals at the Multilingual Inquiry Collective are twofold:

  1. To improve writing curriculum and instruction for multilingual students.

  2. To create leadership opportunities for public school teachers.

Once talented practitioners complete our Distinguished Fellowship, they are invited to join our regional network of laboratory classrooms, welcoming researchers, policymakers, and educators into their classrooms.

The Multilingual Inquiry Collective is inspired by founder Jane Charlotte Weiss’ experiences with the Public Education Business Coalition, a Fulbright Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Finnish Education System.

A diverse group of students posing for a photo on the steps inside the Berkeley School of Public Health at the University of California.

Photo by Ryan Zhang

Our Team

A woman with long black hair smiling, wearing a green top and black pants, standing in front of a sign that reads '2025 Annual Meeting, American Educational Research Association, Denver, Colorado, April 23-27, 2025.'

Jane Charlotte Weiss

Jane Charlotte Weiss is a doctoral candidate at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education studying Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education. She researches collaboration, inquiry, and learning environments that support multilingual children and help teachers to thrive. Prior to Stanford, she taught K-6 multilingual students for more than a decade and traveled to Finland on a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching.

Founder

A young woman in a graduation gown holding a cap, smiling outside a building with white columns and green trees in the background.

Isaiah Yisrael

Director of Communications

Isaiah Yisrael recently graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she studied Psychology, Spanish, and Linguistics. At Emory, her research focused on how the bilingual language experience impacts literacy development and executive functioning. She is excited to learn more about multilingual education pedagogy with INC!

Our Partners & Collaborators

Stanford’s Understanding Language Initiative

A Stanford Graduate School of Education initiative to help policymakers, researchers, states, district staff, and schools better serve multilingual learners.

Our work utilizes materials from the Understanding Language initiative to support teachers and encourage collaboration in the multilingual education space.

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The National Writing Project

One of the longest standing examples of practitioner and researcher collaboration, the NWP has sustained 50 years of changing standards, assessments, and policies through a simple commitment to creating space for educators to learn from one another.

Funding from the Bay Area Writing Project will support the 2025 INC Distinguished Fellowship Cohort.

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The Public Education and Business Coalition

A nonprofit dedicated to supporting educators on all levels. The PEBC developed the Learning Labs model, which situates teacher learning right alongside students as the nuances of planning, instruction, and assessment come together.

INC Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in three full-day Learning Labs as inspired by the PEBC model.

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Contact Us

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Photo by Ryan Zhang