World Class
The Goldman Sachs Prize is one indication of the college’s
strong commitment to internationalizing k–12 teaching.

At many schools of education, international education is an island unto itself. There might be a few professors who have expertise in international development projects or in the study of educational systems abroad. Yet, for
the most part, knowledge about their research and development work is confined to a relatively small circle of peers in the field.

There simply isn’t much spillover. That tends to be the traditional model—and it no longer applies at the College of Education. In fact, the college has sought to turn that model upside down. Over the years, the Office of International Studies in Education has made a concerted effort to integrate an international dimension across all of the college’s departments and programs. The effort has manifested itself in a number of ways, the most essential being the hiring of a critical mass of faculty members who have interests in research and outreach at home and abroad.

That, combined with a commitment to internationalizing the preparation of teachers and the k–12 curriculum, has proven effective, so much so that the university was honored in November with the Goldman Sachs Foundation’s Prize for Excellence in International Education. MSU was the only postsecondary institution to receive the honor for its multiple initiatives to help teachers learn about the world and incorporate that into their teaching. “The model
has worked better than I could have ever imagined,” said Jack Schwille, who
as assistant dean for international education has been a key architect of the approach. “But it’s not something we can take for granted because higher
education is very fragmented and faced with competing demands.

“Nonetheless, the award is tremendous recognition. We’ve been different from other universities in doing everything we can to integrate an international dimension into the research, teaching and service throughout the college and throughout MSU. I think receiving the award is a big step in validating this approach and an indication of how well that integrated approach has been working.”

Some Remarkable Successes
Having scholars with national and international interests has led to some remarkable successes. One of the largest projects in the college’s history is the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which became so important across the country that former President Clinton himself briefed the press on the results. The TIMSS project director was University Distinguished Professor William Schmidt, whose research had long encompassed both domestic and international interests. Today, Schmidt is co-director with Professor Joan Ferrini-Mundy of the $36 million project known as Promoting Rigorous Outcomes in Mathematics and Science Education (PROM/SE), which builds on TIMSS and involves hundreds of school districts in Ohio and Michigan.

Professor Yong Zhao also has pursued research and outreach with an international dimension. Zhao recently led the effort to establish the United States–China Center for Educational Excellence with the goal of developing models of teaching and learning that incorporate the best of Eastern and Western traditions. (See story on Page 21). At the same time, he has published widely on education and technology in American schools.

Many other faculty members also engage in the same kind of dual work, bridging domestic and international research and outreach interests and perspectives. In fact, faculty members have published 22 books of international research in the last 10 years.

In addition to research, the effort to integrate the international perspective extends to k–12 teaching and teacher education. This commitment was the main reason for MSU receiving the Goldman Sachs Foundation prize. For example, the college has worked hard to incorporate an international dimension in the preparation of its teachers. One of the course requirements for teacher preparation students is TE 250, Human Diversity, Power, and Opportunity in Social Institutions. Professor Chris Wheeler, who has a strong interest in international education and currently heads a project in Vietnam, coordinates the various sections of the course.

Through Wheeler’s efforts, and those of Associate Professor Maria Teresa Tatto, some sections of TE 250 were modified to include the study of schooling in other parts of the world. The college worked with MSU’s area studies centers in the Office of International Studies and Programs to develop content for the course. The result is that teacher preparation students are now exposed in their coursework to the nature of educational systems abroad.

Enriching the Student Experience
Providing novice teachers with an understanding of how other countries educate their students as part of a required course would be distinctive enough, but at the college it is only the beginning. MSU, for instance, has among the highest number of study abroad programs in education at any U.S. university. Opportunities for undergraduates range from Australia and the Netherlands to South Africa and England. Moreover, the college is one
of only a handful of universities that offer opportunities for students to actually teach as part of their overseas
experience.

Developed by Anne Schneller, an academic specialist in the Office of International Studies in Education, the “pre-internship” program places teacher preparation students in mostly rural and impoverished South African schools for six weeks of teaching in the summer after they graduate and before they begin their yearlong internship. Begun in 2001, the program has been a transformative experience for more than a few of the MSU students, Schneller said. “If you can handle 60 students in South Africa, you can better handle large classes in Michigan. Many of our
students in the program come from white, middle class rural or suburban towns in Michigan and don’t have many international or intercultural experiences.”

Schneller said she also has seen firsthand the students’ commitment to internationalizing their own teaching, developing instructional lessons based on their experiences in and knowledge of South Africa.

Supporting Teachers in the Field
A final component of the MSU international effort has been to reach out to teachers in the field. For Schwille, helping educators internationalize their curriculum had been a longtime goal. But it wasn’t until retired East Lansing teacher and principal Sally McClintock approached Schwille a decade ago about starting a collaborative project with local teachers and international students at MSU that such efforts began to take root.

The idea McClintock had in mind was straightforward: Get Lansing-area teachers and international graduate students together to discuss issues of interest to both. The idea would become lattice, or Linking All Types of Teachers to International Cross-cultural Education. McClintock sees the relationship as a win-win proposition. The mid-Michigan teachers come away with an international perspective that can inform their teaching, and the international students gain a better sense of the American educational system.

LATTICE, in its tenth year, has had 450 participants, about half of them teachers in various subjects and grade levels from 13 school districts and the other half international students from 54 countries. The project has emerged as a model of professional development in international education. Other efforts to help teachers have included organizing Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad grants that have taken Michigan teachers to Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nepal and, most recently, Vietnam.

Schwille said that one of the most important aspects of MSU’s efforts is the sustained nature of the involvement. The one-shot workshop is simply not effective. lattice and the intense exposure through experiences like the Fulbright-Hays projects move beyond one-time workshops and thus are the kinds of opportunities that can truly change practice, he said.

More Needs to Be Done
Schwille is the first to point out that more needs to be done to help both teacher preparation students and experienced teachers to incorporate an international dimension to their teaching. And that work is underway. MSU is one of a select few universities in the country that are part of the Carnegie Corporation’s Teachers for a New Era initiative. As part of that project, the college is taking a fresh look at its teacher preparation program, including how students can learn to look at teaching from a global perspective during their coursework. Internationalizing K–12 teaching will be a tougher task. There is still a tendency, Schwille said, to view those advocating for internationalizing K–12 teaching as yet another interest group trying to crowd into an already jam-packed curriculum.

For Schwille, however, it is a struggle worth waging, and he has found that teachers are increasingly discovering that international perspectives can be infused across the curriculum. “The bottom line is that we are more than a special interest group,” he said. “In a broader sense, we are asking what our future teachers should know about the larger world and our place in it. This is an essential question, especially in this day and age.

“So I’m proud of the focus we’ve had at MSU on international education that can improve teaching and learning at home and abroad, lead to collaboration with other countries to bring about development of educational systems, and imbue American schools with a more international dimension and perspective.”

 

FYI #1
Internationalizing Teacher Education

The College of Education has been active in efforts to significantly increase the international competency of MSU teacher education students and their commitment to incorporate international issues and themes in their own teaching. A major focus has been on TE 250, an introductory course required of all teacher education students. In the summer of 2004, six of doctoral-level course instructors worked with MSU area and international studies units at MSU to prepare case studies on themes related to the course (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, disability, socio-economic class and their impact on education) with a focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The case-study materials were used by the six instructors in their TE 250 classes. The materials developed and instructors’ experiences in teaching the internationally infused TE 250 are being shared with teacher preparation instructors nationally. MSU will sponsor a conference of educators in the fall at which the instructors and area studies specialists will share the results of the initiative.

FYI #2
International Online Teacher Resources

MSU’s Office of International Studies and Programs (ISP) and affiliated centers have developed an array of free online curricular materials and background resources for k–12 teachers and students (www.isp.msu.edu/resources/web ). Three of the Web sites are region-oriented: Exploring Africa from the African Studies Center; LASER, Latin American Schools and Educational Resources from the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; and Windows on Asia from the Asian Studies Center. The African site was developed under the leadership of John Metzler, director of outreach for the African Studies Center, who also played a key role in MSU’s application for the Goldman Sachs award. All three sites were developed by faculty experts in consultation with area teachers. In addition to general background information on their respective regions and the countries in them, they provide access to current news and offer a variety of special features. All of them offer curricular materials such as lesson plans for teachers to use in their classrooms. They also provide links to select external resources of many kinds.