International Perspectives on Teaching

Course goals

This course aims at getting an international perspective on education in general by comparing one or more aspects of the teaching profession between the Netherlands and abroad.

After the course the student is able to:

• describe and analyse the goals and philosophies of (a part of) the Dutch national system for secondary education and use generic criteria to compare this with the educational system of the country visited;
• describe the cultural norms and values of a foreign context and explain why the foreign educational system reflects  these values;
• relate theoretical concepts to practice;
• independently carry out a small scale qualitative research on one or more educational aspects in a foreign country;
• reflect on differences between two educational systems and one or more educational aspects and indicate the relevance of the findings for his/her own teaching practice.

Content

Introduction
Education takes many shapes and forms, and formal education is no different. All across the world, students from age 4-19 enter buildings and systems with the end goal of ‘being educated’. But these goals can vary vastly between country, region and even school type. What is the function of education? How does this differ in Norway, or Germany or Singapore?
In Norway students are not split into different levels until the age of 16, and schools are not allowed by law to differentiate or give formal assessment until this time. Conversely, pupils in the Netherlands students are placed into a stream at the age of 10 or 11 which they could follow for the next 8 years of their lives.
When analysing education systems, we can look at different aspects: Structural, Organizational, and Teaching aspects.

Contents
In this course you will start with studying some general literature on analysing educational systems and the Dutch National curriculum and that of the country you will visit during this course. Based on this first exploration of educational systems, you will choose a topic that you would like to focus on and submit a research proposal for a small scale study. Such themes could be ‘Classroom interaction’, ‘Multi-cultural teaching’, and ‘Pedagogical Climate at school’. You focus your research through a theoretical lens, or framework, and base this on the situation at school or in the target country.  The research can be focused on pedagogical or didactic themes.
 
After your proposal has been approved, you will visit a country abroad where you will collect data by means of classroom observations at one or more schools and interviews with members of staff of a school and/or teacher trainers. You will organise and finance the trip yourself. At present, the Graduate School of Teaching has contacts in:

• Konstanz,Germany (4-6 places per year)

• Kreuzlingen, Switzerland (2-4 places per year, preference for visits in fall semester)

• Wroclaw, Poland

• Copenhagen, Denmark

• Saba, Caribbean Netherlands (1-2 places per year)

• Sint Maarten, Caribbean Netherlands

• Pretoria, South Africa

• Brno, Czechia

• Riga, Latvia

• Singapore

Our partner institutes abroad will help you in making contacts with the schools and other people you would like to interview.   The stay abroad is expected to last between three days and max two weeks. You are free to choose dates for you visit and align these with the receiving institution. Please note that the receiving institution needs to be informed about your visit at least 6 weeks prior to your visit and that certain dates are more convenient than other dates (school holidays, study periods at the university, etc. Please contact course coordinator for details.
After your stay abroad you write a final research report and short reflection about the research process. There are no classes and no time slots for this course, you will use online materials and formats, and during the course there will be two individual tutorials with the instructor of the course. One to discuss your tentative plans and a second one to discuss your research proposal. You will be assessed on the proposal, final report and final reflection.

NB: Students from the NL-Teach track will not go abroad, but complete their research at a Dutch (bilingual) school.