Schools worldwide – internationalisation@home for teacher education students

The ‘Schools Worldwide’ programme was designed as part of the ELsA (‘Erfurter Lehramtsstudierende im Ausland’) project for Erfurt teacher education students abroad. It is designed to allow students to experience “internationalisation@home” for themselves. A distinctive feature of the programme is the use of multi-perspective classes to represent school practice or even entire education systems from other countries in a practice-related way for contextualisation and discussion.

Multi-perspectivity was not only reflected in the range of thematic focuses, but also in the heterogeneous selection of speakers and the variety of formats.

The programme was able to attract people who had a career-related connection to the country concerned. One graduate of a teacher education programme in Azerbaijan presented that country’s education system, for example, leading a discussion with Erfurt students on the expectations of educators in Azerbaijan and Germany and the significance of education in the two countries.

The programme also brought in Erfurt alumni for input on specific countries. One former teacher education student who completed her teaching placement semester in the Philippines and subsequently relocated to Manila shared fascinating insights into her working life. She took the students on a live tour around the school building where she is a teacher, and led a discussion with Erfurt students comparing questions of methodology and didactic principles in Germany and the Philippines.

The events in the programme adopted a range of formats as means of offering students individualised opportunities in the context of intercultural learning opportunities. To this end, the programme included talks, workshops and drop-ins on stays abroad. The programme always involved intensive discussions related to the topic which reflected students’ individual questions and needs.

Students could take part in sessions in person at the University of Erfurt Learning Workshop, or in hybrid or digital-only form. The thematic sessions were also used to advise teacher education students on stays abroad as part of their studies. Participants felt that there was a productive and beneficial connection between input on internationalisation and being able to access advice at the same time.

Reflection and summary

Ongoing reflection on session planning and delivery made it possible to generate learnings about specific groups in areas such as session timetabling, choice of media technology required for hybrid sessions, and prioritising certain publicity channels. This meant that there was a steady upward trend in the number of people who were interested in the format.

Project homepage

Contact

• Dr Madlen Protzel, Project Lead, Erfurt School of Education: madlen.protzel@uni-erfurt.de
• Clemens Ernst: clemens.ernst@uni-erfurt.de