Karla Stone

Dr. Karla Stone serves as Senior Lecturer in Multilingual Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. In this position since July 2017, she coordinates the initial licensure and M.Ed. programs for Minnesota K-12 ESL and World Language teacher candidates and teaches courses in second language acquisition, methods of teaching ESL, and assessment in multilingual classrooms. Stone earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota in 2008, with a dissertation titled "Making Sense of Testing: English Language Learners and Statewide Assessment," an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with a minor in Second Language Education from the same institution in 1994, and a B.A. in Russian Civilization from the University of Chicago in 1991. Prior to her university roles, she worked over 15 years as a K-12 ESL teacher in Robbinsdale Area Schools, including as Title III Professional Development Specialist from 2007 to 2013, and held positions such as Coordinator of DirecTrack to Teaching and Community Faculty at the University of Minnesota from 2010 to 2017.

Stone's academic interests focus on preparing teachers to be responsive to multilingual learners in PreK-12 settings through asset-based and humanizing approaches that emphasize students' languages and languaging. Her key publications include "Teach like it’s yoga," an invited manuscript in the MinneTESOL Journal (2017); "Preparing teachers to reach English language learners: Pre-service and in-service initiatives," a chapter co-authored with C. Walker in Teacher Preparation for Linguistically Diverse Classrooms (2011); and earlier contributions such as "Educating English language learners in a rural district: A case in point" with T. Edstam and C. Walker (MinneWITESOL Journal, 2007) and her dissertation (2008). Among her honors are the Harold B. Allen Award for Excellence in TESOL from MinneTESOL (2016), the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award (1999), National Board Certification in English as a New Language, Early Adolescent through Young Adulthood (2001-2011), and the Advanced Equity and Diversity Certificate from the University of Minnesota (2014). Stone has presented at conferences including TESOL International Convention, MELED, and the International Conference on Language Teacher Education, and holds memberships in TESOL, MinneTESOL, and the American Educational Research Association.

Professional Email: ston0032@umn.edu