22 Aug2023
By Hiller A. Spires and Shea Kerkhoff
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 bevans@aacte.org.
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, and the 2024 Best Practice Award in Support of Multicultural Education and Diversity that 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.
In response to a continuously changing and connected world, our new book published by Routledge, Critical Perspectives on Global Literacies: Bridging Research and Practice, explores research, theory and practice in the field of global literacies. We synthesized current research to derive our four-dimensional definition of global literacies, which we argue are literacies needed to learn and communicate in, about, with, and for an interdependent world, including:
- Literacy as a human right in all nations around the world
- Critical reading and creation of multimodal texts about global issues
- Intercultural communication with globally diverse others; and
- Transformative action for positive change that traverses borders.
21 Nov2022
By Shea Kerkhoff
Internationalizing teacher education is increasingly important as the world continues to grow interconnected. You are invited to take part in a research study about the current state of internationalization across institutions of teacher education in the United States. This survey was created by researchers at the University of Missouri – St. Louis in partnership with the Longview Foundation and the AACTE Internationalizing Teacher Preparation Topical Action Group (TAG).
This is a follow-up to a survey conducted in 2017 asking deans/directors of teacher education programs to reflect on their efforts to internationalize and will investigate trends over time.
15 Sep2022
By Shea Kerkhoff
The AACTE Committee on Global Diversity is hosting Internationalizing Education in Teacher Preparation, an October 6 webinar featuring the University of Missouri, St Louis College of Education faculty and staff, including Shea Kerkhoff. Below Kerkhoff outlines four initiatives they implemented to integrate a global perspective into its educator preparations programs.
Classrooms in St. Louis, like most of the country, are globally diverse and connected. Realizing the importance of including global perspectives and fostering international connections, the College of Education at the University of Missouri – St. Louis launched a year-long effort to enhance the internationalizing of our teacher preparation programs. The main objectives were to initiate a professional learning community centered on globally competent teaching, integrate global perspectives in our teacher education programs, create and share globally infused curricula, and strengthen international partnerships. The project was a comprehensive approach targeting faculty, staff, and students. Here we will share four of the initiatives from our year.
25 Oct2021
By Shea Kerkhoff, Shannon Tanghe and Tara Mathien
Our world is changing rapidly as cultures, ideas, conflicts, and viruses transcend borders. The global pandemic COVID-19 highlighted the multitude of ways the world is interconnected socially, technologically, environmentally, economically, and politically. Local-level responses alone have not been enough to mitigate the virus. The World Health Organization and United Nations have called for global coordination, information sharing, and most importantly, global solidarity to solve the crisis. As such, COVID-19 also illustrates the importance of globally competent teaching to build global solidarity, combat xenophobia, understand global systems, cut through misinformation, learn from other countries, and respond with empathy. Globally competent teaching prepares students to communicate and collaborate across borders in an effort to solve global challenges.
Figure 1. Created by authors in Piktochart.
