Knowledge mobilization and innovation in the development of a PBL cohort for teaching English language learners: Successes, challenges, and possibilities

Abstract

Professors Margaret Early and Steven Talmy are specialists in teaching English language learners at the University of British Columbia, where they established and coordinated the teaching English language learners (TELL) preservice teacher education cohort. In this chapter, they discuss results of a study they conducted that investigated the merging of TELL with an existing problem-based learning (PBL) cohort. The newly merged teaching English language learners through problem-based learning (TELL/PBL) cohort would adopt a PBL approach in preparing teacher candidates (TCs) to work successfully with elementary school students for whom English is an additional language. The chapter reports on the results of the first year of the merger to provide an account of knowledge mobilization that occurred as cohort coordinators, faculty advisors, and instructors collaborated to design, plan, and implement TELL/PBL curriculum and pedagogy, as well as important challenges that arose when specialists in TELL worked to integrate a PBL orientation and, conversely, when specialists in PBL worked to integrate a TELL orientation. The chapter is aimed at providing an empirical base to inform next steps the TELL/PBL cohort can take.