Solving Problems of Space, Time, and Knowledge: How to Fit Learning about Linguistic and Cultural Diversity into Teacher Education Courses

Abstract

As our work with Project PREPARE-ELLs commenced and we began our attempts to revise our courses to address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse K-12 learners, we encountered an enormous challenge: how do we fi t even more into teacher education courses that are already overfl owing with content? Chapter 4, on conceptual framing, off ers one invaluable approach for infusing new materials and assignments into any teacher education course. Adopting this approach, however, still leaves us grappling with a logistical conundrum. In this chapter, fi ve teacher educators share their insights into how they addressed a number of complicated but related problems that any teacher educator might expect to face in the attempt to explore issues of linguistic and cultural diversity in content area courses. How do we fi t these issues into our courses so that they enhance what we already do? How do we introduce such issues so that they re-contextualize what we already teach and provide a more holistic, inclusionary perspective of skills, methods, and content knowledge?