Prepared
as preliminary input for re-accreditation self-study for North
Central Association, which MSU has decided will focus on internationalization
issues
·
International research to improve education in the U.S. and other
countries Over
the next five years, we plan to pursue these efforts as follows: What are the barriers or disincentives to your internationalization efforts and how can we ameliorate them? The
following are significant barriers or disincentives to internationalization: Faculty: What are the college/unit expectations with respect to faculty doing research abroad or conducting research abroad or conducting research informed by international/global/comparative perspectives or as part of international collaborations? And, what do you do to facilitate or reward such research? The MSU College of Education is arguably the premier U.S. university for international research in education. See, for example, the on-line book exhibit on our website which includes 22 books of international research by college faculty members in the last ten years. It is unlikely that any other U.S. university can match this record, although to be absolutely sure we would have to systematically survey faculty publications in a few other institutions, such as Teachers College Columbia University and UCLA. Our international research capability rose to a new level this year when the college received a $5 million grant from the Sun Wah Foundation of Hong Kong to create under the direction of Professor Yong Zhao a U.S. China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. The college has had a strong track record for its research and collaboration in China for nearly 20 years, but this new center will greatly enhance our capability and visibility for comparative studies that will have an influence in the U.S., China and elsewhere. The college is also known throughout the world for its leadership in large-scale cross-national studies in education sponsored by the IEA consortium. These include the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in which the college played a major national and international role under the direction of Professor Bill Schmidt. Reporting on TIMSS and its implications for U.S. education brought MSU to the attention of key education decision-makers throughout the country, including the President, U.S. Secretary of Education, other high-level U.S. Department of Education officials and many governors and chief state school officers. More recently, the College has been selected by IEA to be one of two lead institutions for its first comprehensive cross-national research study of teacher preparation and induction in an estimated 20-30 countries. The exceptional productivity of this record is evidence of a supportive environment for international research. This was not always the case. Before the Office of International Studies in Education was established in 1984, the college was very active internationally but without a strong research base. Since 1984 priority has been given to building up this research capacity through faculty recruitment and taking advantage of external funding opportunities. Moreover this buildup was not limited to a small, separate comparative education program. Instead, the college adopted an infusion approach, making international research potentially relevant throughout the college. Much of this research has been truly comparative and multinational whereas comparative education in general has been much criticized for relying too much on single country studies which do not allow for an explicitly comparative dimension. One of the major functions of the Office of International Studies in Education is to continue to support faculty research through finding and tracking funding opportunities, helping to write proposals and prepare budgets, helping doctoral students find funding for international dissertations, and promoting our faculty on our website and at relevant venues throughout the world. This office also facilitates and supports professional relationships with institutions and researchers throughout the world, including but not limited to such important countries as Australia, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, India, Mexico, and Brazil. We were also able to become one of two universities admitted to the two consortia which are well placed for the funding of new USAID projects for the next few years. These consortia are known by the acronyms EQUIP1 and EQUIP2 which stands for Educational Quality Improvement Program. In Egypt, for example, our college has been selected within EQUIP2 as the manager of a large scale policy research and program development project for Faculties of Education Reform within Egyptian universities. In addition to institutional projects, the office also works to promote individual faculty members. For example, we recently nominated Reitu Mabokela to become the sixth MSU faculty member since 1990 elected to a three year term on the board of directors of the Comparative and International Education Society, the main professional association for persons doing international research in education. Curriculum and students: What are the articulated international/ global/ comparative student learning outcomes or competencies expected of students who graduate from your degree programs? In addressing this question, we have assessed the situation in each of the college's four departments as follows: TE Department. Because we agree with the widespread expectation that K-12 teachers have an important responsibility to help their students learn about the physical, social, economic, political and cultural world outside the United States, we start with the Department of Teacher Education and our five year initial teacher education program. This APP&R question is particularly timely in that the university as a whole, through the Teachers for a New Era project, has committed itself and is engaged in developing knowledge standards for this program. In the initial draft sections, there is already some reference to international knowledge that teachers should acquire and we are encouraging discussion of how to strengthen these references. The social studies section of the standards, which has yet to be circulated, will presumably be a source of much attention to the international content of what is taught in K-12 social studies. However, we do not think that social studies alone is enough to deal with this issue. Literature, language, art and music and even physical and biological sciences offer a host of opportunities for strengthening the international knowledge of K-12 teachers. In addition, important efforts to internationalize the teacher preparation program are already underway. Special attention is being given to TE 250, Human Diversity, Power, and Opportunity in Social Institutions, coordinated by Professor Chris Wheeler. TE 250 is an introductory course required of all students in the teacher preparation program and offered to students throughout the university as a service course. The course staff is working with several of MSU's area studies centers to prepare materials and case studies on themes related to the course, but with a focus on Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. This new content will be integrated with and serve to reinforce the course's efforts to deal with race, ethnicity, gender, disability, socio-economic class and their impact on education. This infusion of international content will be piloted in summer 2004 in one section. In addition during the summer months, seven instructors will engage in intensive readings and discussions of articles, novels and movies on these topics in order to include international experiences in their respective sections for the academic year 2004-2005. These materials and instructor experiences during this pilot phase will be posted on a web site so they are available to instructors from other universities. A conference is planned for 2005 for instructors from Michigan and neighboring states to examine the results of this pilot, to share lessons and to plan ways such content can be a part of similar courses in other college programs. Funding is provided under the U.S. Department of Education Title VI area studies programs at MSU. Students in the teacher preparation program are also encouraged to develop their international interests, knowledge and competencies through participation in Study Abroad. See response below to Study Abroad question for more detail on this. Courses which are primarily international in content are also offered at both master's and PhD levels in the Department of Teacher Education. These courses fulfill distribution requirements for these degrees. At the master's level, one course is TE 815, Comparative Analysis of Educational Practice, which focuses on recent classroom level research in other countries which have important implications for the practicing U.S. teachers who take this course. The course makes extensive use of the international research done by MSU College of Education faculty, and has featured such recent 2003 books as one dealing with international perspectives on school choice by David Plank and Gary Sykes and the other reporting on international case studies of teacher induction by Lynn Paine and colleagues. TE 816, Education in Transition, is also primarily international in content and recently has focused on the relationship between education and democracy as it evolves in countries around the world. This course is of particular value to teachers in Michigan who are required to teach about core democratic values. At the PhD level TE 923, Comparative Perspectives on Teaching, Curriculum, and Teacher Education is taught by Professor Lynn Paine. It is one of nine selective courses from which PhD students must choose three. The well known LATTICE project (which stands for Linking All Types of Teachers to International Cross-cultural Education) has for the last nine years offered professional development with international content to K-12 teachers in the Lansing area. It is an outreach partnership between Lansing area school districts and various units at MSU. It brings together about 25 MSU international students and 25 K-12 teachers once a month for intensive study and discussion of international and multicultural issues. A cumulative total of 450 individuals have now participated in LATTICE and 13 school districts have been involved. The project has received a number of awards and has been widely reported at professional meetings. EAD and CEPSE departments. In the Department of Educational Administration and the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education, the internationalization of student learning outcomes relies heavily on faculty members who have developed strong records of international scholarship. Seven of the 19 faculty members listed on our website as providing international leadership for the college come from these two departments. Fourteen of the 22 books of international research published by college faculty in the last ten years were written or edited by faculty members in these two departments. Ann Austin, Reitu Mabokela, and David Plank teach EAD courses with a particularly strong international dimension. For example, EAD 813 on education, development and social change is the university's most comprehensive course at the master's level on this vital topic. Teresa Tatto and Susan Peters also teach such courses for CEPSE. It should also be noted that international content has been integral to the canon of educational psychology for many years now. This is due to the profound influence of various international giants in the field, including for decades now Jean Piaget and subsequently the influential Russian psychologists Vygotsky and Luria, to mention only several of the most notable examples. The CEPSE department is also active in offering study abroad opportunities to internationalize student outcomes. See answer to study abroad questions below. KIN
department. The Kinesiology Department has less international
involvement than the other three departments, but nonetheless
has a significant stake in the internationalization of its programs.
Globalization is an important phenomenon in sport as in other
areas. The course KIN 445, Sociocultural Analysis of Physical
Activity has substantial international content. We also expect
Dan Gould, joining the faculty in August 2004, will bring an international
perspective on youth sports around the world. Study abroad: What specific actions have you taken or will you take in the coming year to improve both participation in study abroad and the quality and relevance of study abroad experiences, e.g., through advising, curricular integration, faculty participation or support, new programs for majors, programs for non-majors, other innovations, quality enhancement, college leadership? Our flagship study abroad program developed under the leadership of Anne Schneller over the past several years is the Preinternship Teaching Program. Initially offered in South Africa, it provides students between their fourth and fifth year of the MSU teacher preparation program program, after they have completed their bachelor's degree, an opportunity to gain experience teaching overseas in the regular schools of another country. At the request of the Office of Study Abroad, after the first two years of this program in fall 2003, our office conducted a self-study of the preinternship program's impact on interns and future teachers. Results indicated that participants in the South African preinternship program felt a great increase in confidence in their own classroom teaching when they returned to Michigan; an increase in understanding of multicultural issues in education; an increase in their teaching about South Africa and Africa in their Michigan classrooms; and an increase in their personal and professional growth as a result of this program To
offer increased opportunities for study abroad participation,
we have now developed a second site for this program in New South
Wales, Australia, building on the college's earlier relationships
in Australia and its successful undergraduate study abroad program
in that country. This site will be inaugurated in summer 2004.
In the future, we will alternate between South Africa and Australia
until such time as the demand for this program is large enough
to support annual programs at each site. Although the number of
countries where English is used as a language of instruction and
schools are open in the June-August period is limited, we are
even beginning to consider other sites, such as Malaysia. Finally, the college currently offers undergraduate courses in education for study abroad in Australia and the Netherlands and is planning other future offerings in Malaysia and China.
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Missions
and Goals: How has an international focus been incorporated
into the unit mission statement? And what are your unit goals
for the next five years in international research, programming,
curriculum, outreach and service?