Chapter 30: Shifting Perspectives and Pedagogies: The Impact of Student Teaching Abroad

This study examines the ways that an international student teaching exchange program impacted perspectives, pedagogies, and practices of preservice teachers. Subjects were 11 preservice teachers who experienced teaching in Denmark, Switzerland or Singapore. Through thematic network analysis of interviews conducted upon their return and again upon completion of their U.S. student teaching, researchers identified a number of themes that emerged indicating important ways these candidates made sense of the new cultural schooling experiences and then integrated and incorporated their new or modified values, beliefs, and teaching practices upon returning to U.S. classrooms. The results of the present study have important implications for the preparation of teachers to meet twenty-first century demands of global competencies and culturally responsive pedagogy for both teachers as well as students.