Teaching for Global Competence: A Responsibility of Teacher Educators

ABSTRACT

Today’s PK-12 teachers and students navigate an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. This growing interconnectedness and need to navigate life and work in our globalized world have prompted calls for teacher educators around the world to design changes in coursework that inspire teachers to create learning experiences to foster PK-12 learners’ development of global competence. The present study applied action research to address this goal in an asynchronous, online graduate teacher education course. Using a principled framework for teaching for global competence (TfGC) across four domains and Global Thinking Routines as pedagogical tools, participants explored an issue of global significance – the lived experiences of refugees and immigrants across time and contexts – to learn about TfGC. The article incorporates rich examples of participants’ learning and ideas for application of teaching for global competence in PK-12 classrooms in national and international contexts. Participants’ responses to key learning activities suggested that including a specific focus on TfGC can be beneficial for current and future teachers. Findings suggest that a thematic approach to TfGC with opportunities to apply pedagogical strategies that can be used in PK-12 classrooms may be productive for encouraging teacher education students to embrace teaching for global competence.

KEYWORDS:

• Action research
• global citizenship education
• global competence
• intercultural competence
• refugees
• teacher education

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to acknowledge her colleague, Dr. Kristin Skinstad van der Kooij, associate professor, Faculty of Education, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, for her inspiration in sparking the idea to integrate attention to the theme of inclusion of immigrants and refugees in teacher education coursework. Most importantly, the first author would like to thank Dr. Skinstad for her lifelong commitment to social justice in critical multicultural education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.