- Collaborative network to internationalise teacher education in Hesse
- Creating visibility and networking
- Teachers in the 21st century
- In the future
- Further information & contacts
Creating visibility and networking
Recruiting new teachers who are well prepared for the demands of the profession is one of the most highly-charged issues in socio-political discourses around education.
Hence it appeared all the more important to those involved in model projects at the Hessian universities of Marburg, Giessen and Darmstadt not only to take a common approach to networking students, but also to raise visibility about the ‘Lehramt.International.Hessen’ collaboration. The collaboration brings together Module A (Model Projects at German Universities) projects aimed at internationalising teacher education as a common goal for universities in Hesse. At the time of writing, the projects involved are: LiMa (Marburg: Dr Zina Morbach & Inga Steinbach), IMPACCT (Giessen: Dr Wiebke Nierste & Katharina Schäfer), and PraxisPro (Darmstadt: Dr Ruth M. Mell & Dr Tara Rensch-Hewitt).
Each project focuses on a different area of content, which made it possible to reach a broad range of teachers and teacher education students.
Teachers in the 21st century
In terms of content, the network focuses on the challenges facing teachers in the 21st century. Teachers need to find their way through a globalised, often heterogeneous environment, in that the classroom is increasingly both a space for diversity but also of conflicts which can emerge when there is a lack of time, space and skills needed to learn from and about one another.
Promoting skills around diversity, methodology and subject disciplines
The network is committed to improving preparation for future work in intercultural classrooms, and promoting skills around diversity, methodology and subject disciplines. To this end, the network has been offering workshops, talks and summer schools since 2022, which are open to students and staff of the universities involved. The programme aims to make ‘internationalisation@home’ as rich and varied as possible by focusing on areas such as ‘Difference Matters: handling diversity in the classroom in a sensitive and professional way’ (summer 2022) and ‘Travel to teach – experience school abroad’ (winter 2023/2024).
In the future
With a view to networking, project staff hold regular meetings online and in person to plan new events and advance the internationalisation of teacher education in Hesse through the Hesse Network. Through these meetings, the network has been able to understand and address the needs of teacher education students on different study programmes in Hesse.
Continuing collaboration
New legislation on teacher education in Hesse does not explicitly prioritise internationalising teacher education, but it does include a requirement for placement semesters. As such, it is planned to continue the collaboration beyond the DAAD projects. Following a workshop at the 2023 Federal Conference of Centres for Teacher Education and Professional Schools of Education and a resulting publication, it was decided to make the topic of sustainability in internationalisation a new priority. In addition, the network was represented in 2024 at a workshop on this topic at the 44th annual conference of BaSS, the German national working group for studies of school placements
Further information & contacts
Contact
Dr Ruth Maria Mell
Praxisphasenkoordination international, Zentrum für Lehrkräftebildung, TU Darmstadt
ruth_maria.mell@tu-darmstadt.de