Adding International Elements to a Social Studies Teacher Education Program

Abstract

Here the author shares his attempt to add, without financial cost, substantive and dynamic international experiences to the secondary social studies teacher education program he facilitates. He provides thick descriptions of (1) the overarching goals of a collaborative, online, international learning project, (2) the curriculum materials he helped design and the classroom experiences he orchestrated, and (3) the project’s international context. Moreover, this paper advocates for internationalization by describing a 5-week, inquiry-based project that featured university students in Japan and the US using an online video discussion platform to asynchronously introduce themselves to international peers, share their understanding of powerful social studies instruction, explore similarities in social studies education between the two nations, refine their understanding of international education, and share ideas for a wise-practice classroom activity that could be taught to secondary students in both nations. Because this article shares the project’s rationale, schedule, assignments, and assessment rubrics, it may prove helpful for teachers and teacher educators as they envision ways to further prepare students to think and act globally.

Keywords:

• International education
• global education
• social studies
• teacher education

Acknowledgment

The materials presented here were sponsored in part by the American Council on Education and its U.S.-Japan COIL Initiative; Chiba University; Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT); The University of Alabama’s Capstone International Center; and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.