I am honoured to teach two courses next academic year about international education at HGSE. in the fall semester 2014 there will be a repeater of A-317 that I taught this past spring. In spring 2015 semester I offer a new course for graduate and doctoral students titled “The Teaching Profession Around the World”. Here is a brief initial introduction to that program.
There are two parts in this course that have both analytical and practical dimensions. The first part of the course explores the concepts of teaching profession from international perspective, including teaching as a profession, and teacher education, professional development, teacher leadership, teacher evaluation and labor policies. This leads to an analysis of the teacher policies in high performing school systems, such as Canada, Finland, Singapore and Korea, and practical lessons for those hoping to enhance teachers and teaching. Students will study some classical texts about teachers and teaching profession combined with contemporary international studies on teaching profession. This course will also help students to use international student assessments and other global data for advocacy and development of teacher policies and practices.
The second part of the course takes a closer look at some distinct teacher education models. These include Finland, Singapore, Canada, The United States and European teachers education policies in general. Study of these teacher education models is done by cooperative learning methods in which students will work in small groups and explore various aspects of these selected teacher education systems. An outcome is a clearer idea of and enhanced skill to communicate possible lessons from one education system to another. This second part of the course also discusses current myths and research about teaching profession as presented in international policy texts and professional literature. Students will construct scheme for a world class teacher education system and tests their ideas using diverse forms of media.
More specifically, students will:
- Explore the characteristics of teaching profession and compare and contrast the differences between teachers and teacher education systems around the world, including the current high-performing education systems (Finland, Canada, Singapore, Korea);
- Learn to think independently, write effectively and communicate powerfully about the central issues related to teachers and teaching profession in the global context;
- Understand the implications of global educational reform movement to teaching profession, and distinguish facts from myths in international discourse on teaching profession;
- Develop professional leadership regarding teaching profession in their work.
This course will help students to understand teaching profession from international perspectives by taking a closer look at what do we know about attracting, preparing and empowering teachers around the world. This course also aims to broaden the understanding of the basic international questions of teaching profession, including: What it is to be a teacher in different parts of the world? What is teacher professionalism in international perspective? How do the most successful education systems recruit, educate and retain their teachers? How do the latest PISA results affect teacher policies around the world? How to make teaching profession attractive career choice for more young people?
Link to HGSE website here