San Diego State Prepares Cohort of Globally Competent Teacher Candidates
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 AACTE’s Brooke Evans.
Note: the AACTE Call for Awards is open for the 2024 Best Practice Award in Support of Global and International Perspectives, which recognizes exemplary practice in the intercultural, global, cross-cultural, and international arenas. The 2024 Best Practice Award in Support of Multicultural Education and Diversity is also open and recognizes the infusion of diversity throughout all components of a school, college, or department of education (SCDE) as critical to quality educator preparation and professional development. If you wish to apply for one of these awards, please visit aacte.org. Applications must be received by September 1, 2023.
We believe preparing educators to be globally competent should be at the heart of our work as teacher educators. At San Diego State University, my colleague Gina Vattuone and I co-lead a single-subject credential cohort with the goal of preparing globally-competent teacher candidates. Each year, the cohort invites secondary teacher candidates from all subject areas to self-select into the cohort. After eight years, we have realized the importance of helping teacher candidates understand their own positionality in relation to others. We invite them to reflect on their own cultural ways of knowing and being and how these relate to the dominant, mainstream cultures of most American schools. We also want them to understand how they relate to the histories, geographies, and cultures of the young people they teach. By better understanding themselves in society, we believe teacher candidates are more able to understand their students and how to teach them.