Annual Report 2000-2001,
International Studies in Education
College of Education, Michigan State University
During 2000-2001 the College of Education’s
international work and its implications for policy and practice
were widely featured in the media and other professional forums.
Education Week features Thailand
project and Shell Foundation funds similar project in Vietnam.
Education Week (“American Education’s newspaper
of record”) featured MSU’s Thailand Environmental
Education project in its September 5, 2001 issue. In reporting
on how school children and their teachers in Northern Thailand
are studying the causes of and possible solutions to local deforestation,
the article notes that “this undertaking is one of dozens
like it in northern Thailand that have been spawned by a decade-old
partnership between the Thai government and Michigan State University.
” Concurrently, with funding from the Shell Foundation,
the College has begun a new and similar environmental education
project in collaboration with Can Tho University in Vietnam, this
one on rice production issues. Chris Wheeler (TE)
is the leader of both projects with continuing contributions from
Jim Gallagher (TE), and Maureen McDonough
(FOR).
.
TIMSS as an impetus to education reform in the U.S. Throughout
the year, Bill Schmidt (CEPSE) brought the Third
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to life across
the country, giving 38 speeches in 12 states to audiences as diverse
as the State School Boards in Illinois and Idaho, the Ohio School
Boards Association, the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association,
the Miami-Dade Secondary Principals, the Council of Great City
Schools, and the City Club of Cleveland. Schmidt also worked closely
with Achieve, a nonprofit organization founded by governors and
business executives and currently co-chaired by Governor Engler.
It attempts to use international standards to improve learning
in U.S. schools. Within Michigan, the TIMSS group is deeply involved
in curriculum evaluation/revision in all seven school districts
of St. Clair Country.
International press conferences
and book award in civic education. Jack Schwille
(ISE), member of the international steering committee for the
IEA Second International Civic Education Study, spent the year
helping to prepare for two simultaneous press conferences in Berlin
and Washington to release results from a survey of what 90,000
students in 28 countries have learned about democracy, national
identity and social diversity. An earlier book on this study (Civic
Education Across Countries: Twenty-four National Case Studies
from the IEA Civic Education Project, edited by Torney-Purta,
Schwille, and Amadeo) was selected by Choice: Current Reviews
for Academic Libraries as an Outstanding Academic Title for the
Year 2000.
World Bank funded partnership between
MSU and Guinea Ministry of Education concludes first five-year
phase. The year 2001 marked the end of the initial 5-year
MSU contract for World Bank work in Guinea. The current program
provides organizational support and incentives for teams of teachers
to carry out their own professional development and school improvement
projects. From an idea first discussed between Guinean officials
and MSU representatives in 1993-94, the program has grown into
a nationwide effort with more than 85% of the primary school teachers
in the country involved in writing proposals. To date, more than
1200 teams have been funded. In addition, about 300 mid-level
ministry personnel have been prepared and assigned as facilitators
or evaluators to work with these teams. This action research program
has been singled out for presentation at a meeting of all African
ministers of education and their associated funding agencies in
Tanzania in October 2001. Jack Schwille (ISE))
and Martial Dembélé (TE Ph.D. 1995)
are the principal external consultants for this program.
Strengthening of study abroad offerings.
Under the leadership of Anne Schneller (ISE),
an array of new study abroad offerings is being developed. In
a new undergraduate program taught by Chris Wheeler
(TE) on how schools deal with student diversity in the Netherlands,
Belgium, and Germany, students produced high quality papers including
one on educational finance that Wheeler considers among the best
he has ever received from an undergraduate. Kazuko Thornton (TE) offered a new program for practicing educators in Japan;
her participants included a very strong contingent from Lakeshore
School District in suburban Detroit, including the superintendent,
other key administrators and teachers. Plans were firmed up for
other new offerings, including opportunities for new MSU graduates
to student teach in South African schools and earn master’s
degree credit before beginning their 5th year internship in Michigan
(now recruiting for 2002). Our current program operating since
the early 1990s has already provided less formal opportunities
for participating in South African school life, such as tutoring
in a special school for street children. Other new initiatives
under development are Language Education for Spanish Teachers
(in Ecuador, starting in 2002), Education and Society in China
(starting in 2003) and a Kinesiology exchange program in England.
Overseas Master’s degrees in three fields.
Under guidance of Susan Melnick, Sandy
Bryson, and Bob Martin, the Graduate
Studies in Education Overseas (GSEO) provided outreach courses
to approximately 300 international school educators. In 2000 -
2001, 56 courses were taught by 25 instructors in three summer
centers (France, Switzerland, and Thailand) and six other countries.
The Swiss center graduated its first MAs in educational technology
while the French center began a master’s in educational
administration.
LATTICE completes its sixth year.
The study group of MSU international students and Lansing area
K-12 educators, directed by Sally McClintock
(ISE), completed its sixth year of cross-cultural learning. The
project has also sponsored or facilitated numerous spinoffs, such
as the art exhibit of Zulu basketry in West Michigan and the increasingly
intensive collaboration between area schools and South African
schools.
Other major achievements.
The research of Lynn Paine (TE) and colleagues
will be the subject of a forthcoming book to be published by Kluwer
on case studies of teacher induction in five countries. Reitu
Mabokela (EAD) published the second of her two books
on South African higher education. David Plank (EAD)
worked with OECD on cross-national case studies of school choice.
Bill Schmidt (CEPSE) and Teresa Tatto
(TE) were the principal authors of a major new proposal, submitted
to NSF, for cross-national research on teacher learning and; development.
For More Information Contact:
Jack Schwille , Assistant Dean
Anne Schneller, Specialist
Marlene Green, Secretary
517 Erickson Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: 517-355-9627
Fax: 517- 353-6393 |