How Lipscomb University is Integrating Intercultural Understanding in Teacher Education
This blog article is part of the Global Education Faculty PLC Professional Development Series, sponsored by the Longview Foundation. The writing series aims to elevate the perspectives of international scholars, including teacher educators, graduate students, and alike, to offer insights into how Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) can integrate intercultural understanding within their programs. AACTE members interested in participating in the series should contact Brooke Evans at mailto:bevans@aacte.org.
Faculty members often help candidates build intercultural understandings during individual courses. Still, embedding this into already packed teacher/leader preparation at a programmatic level can be a challenge. Those of us in educator preparation programs (EPPs) can agree with Andreas Schleicher, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) director for education and skills, who says, “It takes deliberate and systematic efforts to create the global competence through which we can share experiences, ideas, and innovation with others, and increase our radius of trust to other countries and cultures.”
Programmatic global competence requires intentional planning, consistent implementation, and thoughtful reflection to ensure candidates see these understandings as integral to teaching and leading. While every college develops these skills differently, in this blog I detail some of the ways our college works to integrate intercultural understanding, depending on the level (undergraduate, post-baccalaureate, graduate) and the program (teacher or leader).