01-11-2021
31-10-2024
Teacher Education (TE) in universities has remained one of the least internationalised subjects in higher education. Yet, teachers are expected to educate future generations to become global citizens. In other words, students of teacher education are so far ill-equipped to transform their prospective pupils into individuals with a global mindset. Since international projects in schools are comparatively rare and most teachers do not have or take opportunities to engage in further education in internationalisation at a later stage, (high) school education shows comparatively few international components. DITE focuses on the element of internationalisation to increase capabilities of future teachers by sensitising TE students to international perspectives.
DITE pursues six concrete objectives:
1. Internationalisation at Home (IaH) as key instrument for inclusion. We know from the Erasmus Impact Study 2014 and various follow-up studies that mobility is not the solution if a large percentage of students (90%+) are to be reached by internationalisation. Therefore, DITE relies on internationalisation at home (IaH) to develop a model of globalised teacher education through diverse internationalisation with a focus on students becoming teachers in upper secondary education since that is the level of school education closest to higher education itself and most relevant for direct impact on future global citizens. IaH will allow to include many more individuals including those for whom mobility would not be an option for different reasons.
2. Internationalisation to improve key competences. Internationalisation is understood as a means to an end, not a goal in itself. DITE aims to improve key competences.
3. Better understanding of international/global interconnectedness. Internationalisation will help to improve the understanding of how concepts and problems are intertwined across national borders, not by reading about it but by actively engaging with individuals in other countries.
4. Comprehension of international diversity of perspectives. DITE aims to contribute to the innovation of perspectives and approaches of lecturers as well as students of TE with regard to the complexity of the major social challenges. It also aims to find ways to improve the teaching with respect to these aspects. Direct Interaction with lecturers and students from other countries in the train-the-trainer (TTT) (PR2), the in-house modules (PR3) and the network (PR6) as well as the reports produced in PR1, PR4 and PR5 will provide diverse insights (e.g. that challenges to democracy might be viewed differently, that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are addressed and understood differently in different countries, etc.).
5. Use of online/digital/virtual tools via international engagement to improve inclusion and diversity. Since most students and lecturers in TE will never be physically mobile, digital mobility as part of IaH will be a key competence to achieve international perspectives. DITE aims to link the experience in digitalisation from the COVID crisis in general to its power for internationalisation, showing how seamlessly integrated such international components can be integrated via these means and tools.
6. A more complex concept of change. A key competence for a global mindset is the acceptance that change is the only constant. Where TE curricula and frameworks for school education tend to be extremely static, internationalisation can be a powerful way to open the mind towards change and prove its value in school education. DITE will use the different stages of the project to confront the participants with this change concept and the usability of internationalisation to integrate it as a standard component in education.
UPORTO's team
Fátima Pereira, CIIE/FPCEUP (Coord.)
Amélia Lopes, CIIE/FPCEUP
António Teixeira Gomes, FLUP
Carla Susana Lopes Morais FCUP
Clara Vasconcelos, FCUP
Cláudio Guerreiro Farias, FADEUP
Elsa Teixeira Pacheco, FLUP
Henrique Malheiro Vaz, CIIE/FPCEUP
José Alves Teixeira, FLUP
Laura Machado Soares, FLUP
Maria João Couto, FLUP
Paula Pinheiro da Silva, FADEUP
Paula Queirós, FADEUP
Paulo Ferreira de Carvalho, FCUP
Paulo Oliveira Santos, FLUP
Paulo Nogueira, CIIE/FPCEUP
Rosa Tomás Ferreira, FCUP
Sónia Rodrigues, FLUP
European Commission, Erasmus+ programme
Project number 2021-1-PL01-KA220-HED-000031129
University of Szczecin, Poland (Coord.)
Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland
University of Porto, Portugal
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain
Global Impact Institute, Czech Republic
SGroup - Universities in Europe
Associated partners
Martina Baseggio, eTwinning ambassador, Czech Republic
V Liceum Ogólnoksztalcace im. Adama Asnyka w Szczecinie, Poland
Escola Secundária de Paredes, Portugal
Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament d’Educació, Serveis Territorials a Tarragona, Spain