Thank you for participating in the 2017 CUMU Annual Conference: The Urban Advantage. Take some time to explore the program and create a customized schedule. Use the search and filter functions to view presentations by date, presentation type, keyword, presenter, and home institution. You can also save a seat for yourself in limited-occupancy sessions.
The US has seen an unprecedented growth in the number of Emergent Bilinguals (EBs) enrolled in K-12 schools. Not surprising, the highest concentration of EBs are in urban areas. This linguistic diversity offers teachers and students rich opportunities to expand worldviews, deepen understandings of culture and identity, and collaboratively develop language and academic knowledge. To realize this potential, however, takes skills and resources that many mainstream teachers do not have. Research shows that schools continue to struggle to meet the needs, much less foster the promise, of their multilingual students.
In 2011, Pennsylvania became one of only five states to mandate a stand-alone course be included in all teacher education programs, and currently more states are considering similar requirements. In support of this effort, this workshop will share how a Philadelphia-based public College of Education, committed to preparing teachers to work in urban schools, has implemented this mandate – and how its transformed since inception. Specifically, I will address the questions, “What do non-ESL teachers need to know and be able to do to include EBs in content area classrooms?” And, “how can teacher educators develop these in a semester’s time?” In this workshop, I will share the evolution of this required course from its initial design to what it is today, discuss the K-12 school partnerships and learning gained through the field component, and facilitate the exploration of state mandates related to EBs and how other urban universities are preparing teachers to lead linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms.
