Improve critical thinking and global engagement
HAN-Pabo considers it as its mission to educate globally engaged teachers who are equipped to prepare children for the demands of the 21st century. Also, these teachers should be able to critically reflect upon teaching models and teaching practices in order to adapt their teaching practice to a constantly changing society. These international experiences during education are supposed to open one’s mind and stimulate critical thinking.
However, it turns out that the majority of students (around 65%) lacks an international professional experience during their teacher training program. Despite the fact that the teacher training program offers a wide variety of possibilities for international student mobility. Not all students seem to have the opportunity or the motivation to go abroad.
Therefore, the main goals of this project were to improve critical thinking and to strengthen global engagement in all students at HAN-Pabo. This was done by including ‘internationalization at home’ (I@H) activities in the curriculum. The project team aimed to develop a module about critical thinking in a global perspective.
Develop and implement a common reference framework
Together with partner institutions in the United States, China and Chile, the project team developed a ‘common reference framework’. This framework consists of organizing online meetings in which students work on a variety of educational topics. The framework can be seen as a core module and each country has embedded this core module in a local module.
Besides the reference framework, the project team developed lesson plans, revised evaluation criteria and a research plan. The lesson plans were meant for three preparatory classes focusing on critical thinking. The revised evaluation criteria were developed for the entire HAN module. The research plan was set up to monitor student interactions.
During the project there were a number of factors that hampered the progress. For example, dealing with cultural differences during development turned out to be challenging. As a consequence, the development of the common reference framework took more time than expected. Also, student protests in Chile and then the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the project. Due to COVID, universities were closed down and the program had to be adapted accordingly: fewer meetings with less students and not with all three partners.
A more critical and explorational attitude
The project team collected and analyzed data and the results of the final assessment of the experimental group were compared to the final assessments of students that followed the regular program. The assumption was that having dialogues on educational topics with peers in different countries would stimulate that students explore topics from different perspectives. In turn, this exploration of different perspectives would support critical reflection. The international experiences did deepen the dialogues on education and the teachers observed a more critical attitude. However, these results were not reflected in the final assessment of the module.
In addition, research was carried out on negative and positive factors influencing discussion and communication during the international exchange sessions. Those results showed that the negative factors students and teachers experienced mainly had to do with practical and technical issues. Factors experienced as positive were coaching by teachers, open mindedness of the participants, relevance of the content and cooperation with international students.
In sum, the added value of the international exchange was that students explored topics from different perspectives and that they learned how to keep asking. Students learned to not be satisfied with the first answer. This result was acknowledged by the teachers who experienced a more explorational attitude. A next step is to improve the program based on all of these results.
Continuation of module and consortium
Within HAN Pabo, the first step of embedding the module into the curriculum was to offer it as an optional alternative in the academic year 2021-2022. The final goal is to offer the newly developed international module as mandatory for all second year students.
Whether the project team will be able to realize this mandatory module depends on the number of international partners that can be found. The initial group of four partners already succeeded in finding another two. The process of finding new partners and building a sustainable cooperation will probably take a few years.
The project team will continue to participate in the international consortium. They will also continue working on improving the organization of student meetings and the common reference framework. The preparatory sessions concerning critical thinking skills that were developed for the international version of the module are implemented in the regular program. As a result, all students and not only the ones that participate in the international module, are benefitting from this.
Five most relevant research publications
- Abrami, P. C., Bernard, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Surkes, M. A., Tamim, R., & Zhang, D. (2008). Instructional interventions affecting critical thinking skills and dispositions: A stage 1 meta-analysis. Review of educational research, 78(4), 1102-1134.
- Facione, P. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (The Delphi Report).
- Trilling, B., Fadel, C., & Bialik, M. (2015). Four-dimensional education: The competencies learners need to succeed. Center for Curriculum Redesign.
- ICOMS, internationale competenties. Geraadpleegd op 17 september 2018, van http://www.internationalecompetenties.be/nl/icoms/
- UNESCO (2014). Global Citizenship Education, Preparing learners for challenges of the 21st century. Parijs. Geraadpleegd op 15 september 2018, van http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002277/227729E.pdf
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