Teacher Training for the 21st Century

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday II)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Innovative models to improve recruitment and professional learning of female teachers in low income fragile contexts

Proposal

A Critique of the literature on the sustainability of teacher training programs abroad in developing the intercultural competence of pre-service teachers

Introduction
In 2010, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) created a whitepaper emphasizing the need to transform teacher education programs to meet the demands of the global economy and adequately prepare students with essential 21st century knowledge and skills (AACTE, 2010). As such, the need to educate for sustainable, higher level competencies such as global awareness - which aims to address and understand global issues, learn from and work collaboratively with diverse people, and understand other cultures and nations -has become critical in 21st century education. Unfortunately, teachers in the US entering the teaching profession continue to have limited cross-cultural experience, with little knowledge of different learning styles, pedagogies, worldviews and perspectives (Gay, 2000). In order to meet the imperative to graduate globally-minded educators, institutions have started to reorganize their teacher education programs to offer culturally-immersive experiences such as teaching abroad opportunities.

Review of Literature
Malewski and Phillion (2012) assert that pre-service teachers who decide to go abroad wish to gain not only global awareness and diverse perspectives, but also seek to improve their self-confidence, experience other cultures, acquire foreign language skills, and learn diverse teaching methods. Similarly, by observing and working collaboratively with teachers from other cultures, Cushner and Brennan (2007) believe pre-service teachers form core philosophical beliefs, leading to alternative approaches to curriculum development and teaching and help to understand and compare strengths and weaknesses in a society’s educational system.

Although a teacher training program abroad can have a transformative effect on the intercultural development of pre-service teachers, these effects cannot be assumed outcomes for participants. It is therefore essential to continually measure the extent in which these programs are meeting their objectives to prepare pre-service teachers to be culturally competent in diverse classrooms, and which features are the most effective in doing so.




Methods of Analysis
This theoretical paper offers a critique of twenty current studies on intercultural development and teacher training programs abroad from leading academic journals in the fields of teacher training and intercultural education, and seeks to answer the following questions:
1. What are the objectives of teacher training programs abroad?
2. In what ways are these objectives being met?
3. What are the learning outcomes of participants?
4. What is missing from the literature? Demographics? Program locations? Outcomes? Sustainability of program models?
5. What are the recommendations given for future program developers?

The paper concludes with a comparative analysis of the synthesized findings and presents possible solutions to the gaps found in the research.

Significance
The demand to train culturally competent, globally-minded educators to meet the demands of a sustainable, 21st century education has never been stronger. As such, it is the aim of this paper to contribute to the growing research on intercultural development in pre-service teachers through improving teacher training programs abroad and harnessing the transformative potential of these programs.

Author

• Holly Donzetta Hutton, PhD Candidate FIU/ High School English Teacher