Tearing Down the Walls: Creating Global Classrooms Through Online Teacher Preparation Programs

Flexibility, accessibility, and enhanced instructor/student communication are commonly cited as the primary benefits of distance learning (Choy, McNickle, & Clayton, 2003); however, a new benefit is quickly taking center stage. The proliferation of cultural and global awareness is an advantage to online learning that cannot be overlooked. Even the nation’s leadership has taken notice. President Barack Obama has included the preparation of students to compete in a global economy as a prime tenet in both his Race to the Top educational stimulus act (U.S Department of Education, 2009) as well as his proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2010), further strengthening long-held beliefs that global awareness is one of the hallmarks of modern educational thought and reform (Postman, 1995). This recent revelation is not just idealistic. Evidence exists that America’s classrooms are slowly becoming less culturally insular and more reflective of student interests and ideals. Preservice teacher education delivered online better positions classroom instructors to prepare our nation’s digital youth for the emerging global community as compared to traditional brick and mortar teacher education programs.

Compelling statistical trends support the need for improved global education in America’s schools. In 2006, native non-Hispanic Whites were the minority among students enrolled in kindergarten through the 12th grade in Western states. Furthermore, in 2007, immigrants accounted for one in eight U.S. residents, with 10.3 million having arrived since 2000 (Camarota, 2007). Changing domestic demographics combined with the proliferation of the digital age has increased the interaction between people of different cultures to a degree never imagined. The commercial sector has taken notice as well. In Ohio, business and industry leaders have partnered with the State Board of Education in calling for increased curricular emphasis on critical thinking skills, language acquisition, world geography, and politics. Their goal is simple: to place the state in a strategic position to be globally competitive (Howe, 2008).

Unfortunately, the current report card on global education in American schools is poor. In 1994, the National Council for Social Studies established a broad set of standards related to global interdependence, but their incredible forethought failed to take hold. Only a few states and school districts initially established graduation requirements related to global education. The National Center for Education Statistics showed that only seven states required either world history or world geography for graduation in 2002. Today, only a slight majority of states require world history for graduation (Rabb, 2009), with national assessment standards not on the assessment radar until 2018. Foreign language studies are also bleak. Only 16 states require a foreign language for graduation or have a plan for its future implementation (National Center of State Supervisors of Languages, 2008). Complex cultural curriculum is lagging as well. According to the College Board (2007), student scores on Advanced Placement exams that assess global issues are marginal at best. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, the mean grade on the European history exam is 2.82, while the mean score on the human geography exam is 2.95.

Despite our historical failure to teach a global curriculum in America’s schools, our students are becoming cultural consumers right under our noses. Today’s modern student is firmly entrenched in twenty-first century social technology tools. Students are collaborating on cell phones, personal digital assistants and, much to the tech coordinators’ bane, in school’s computer labs. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are some of the social tech tools that increasingly fill our youth’s busy schedules. Other tools are created daily, with even more cutting-edge technologies on the horizon. The time has certainly arrived for us to harness our youth’s digital energies and make social networking a safe, fulfilling, and viable part of our educational fabric. Educators need to learn alongside their students, rather than continue to ban, block, and ignore innovative technologies that are available to anyone with a high speed Internet connection.

Fortunately, Web 2.0 technologies are beginning to take hold in some American classrooms with innovative and risk-taking teachers opening their classroom doors and their student’s minds to an extremely dynamic new world. These students are able to take a cyber leap beyond traditional textbooks and teacher lectures, “virtually escaping” their traditional safe havens to make informed opinions and, quite possibly, create new ideals. In the past, a fortunate few participated in global field trips and cultural exchanges. Now, all students are able to develop global and cultural awareness without leaving their desktops. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009) has identified a global framework that can help ensure success for today’s students. This framework includes academic content focus on critical thinking and problem solving, communication, creativity and innovation, collaboration, information and media literacy, and contextual learning. Here are just a few examples that embrace the partnership’s vision of what a modern classroom can look like.

• A second-grade classroom teacher in Wichita opts to hold an online Vyew web-meeting with a zoologist at the Serengeti National Park. Through this verbal and visual exchange, students are

• able to quiz the researcher on lion migration movements, view the specifics of a wildebeest feeding program, and learn about human/animal interactions in this unique corner of the world.

• Eighth-grade students from the New Orleans 9th Ward create a collaborative slideshow on the levee structure with students in the Netherlands via Google Docs. Using built-in instant messaging technology, the American students learn first-hand how advances in technology can assist communities hoping to rebuild vanishing coastlines. At the conclusion of the exercise, both groups create a shared picture book using the CAST UDL Book Builder.

• A high school film studies student in California and a high school senior in Iraq create a collaborative video with JayCut on postwar rebuilding efforts.

Some forward-thinking educators have seen the value of digital global education and are bringing these experiences out of their classrooms and creating districtwide global experiences. Brought forth out of a desire to properly educate and support a growing local immigrant population or through grass-roots efforts by local citizens, diverse districts such as Fairfax County, Virginia, and Jefferson Parish Schools in Louisiana are embracing global curricula through formal processes such as the International Baccalaureate program. Currently 1,037 American schools take part in one of three International Baccalaureate programs (2009), but at a staggering annual cost of between 25 and 50 thousand dollars per year.

With formalized global education programs fiscally out of reach and classroom programs operating on a murky fringe, the key to global education boomerangs back to the source, teacher education programs. Clearly, colleges of education not only need to change what they teach (global education, foreign language integration, integrated studies) but how they teach. As illustrated, K-12 classrooms are increasingly becoming either a dynamic microcosm of their communities, or are becoming globally focused through digital connections. In contrast, consider the typical university-based teacher education program. These programs are predominantly comprised of either middle class females of Euro-American descent (Zumwalt & Craig, 2005) or, in the case of historically Black colleges and universities, of middle class females of African American descent. Both populations are limited in cross-cultural experiences, are predominantly monolingual, and are culturally encapsulated from each other’s experiences as well as the realities of the modern-day classroom. Traditional methods courses that teach technology out of context are the rule, rather than the exception.

Clearly, online teacher education programs have features that strongly position them for preparing teachers for global education. Primarily, online teacher education programs are a natural vehicle for illustrating authentic uses of instructional technology, with their preservice teachers becoming experienced in the technologies found in today’s classrooms. Many online classrooms incorporate Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, webinars and other collaborative technologies through an online learning management system. Participants can become proficient in the advanced features of word processing, presentation, and citation software. They learn to troubleshoot technology and build a catalog of technology best practices to be used in their own classrooms. Online participants have opportunities to find value in collaborative technology, experiencing firsthand this effective, interesting, and enjoyable approach to education.

Online programs serve and support marginalized populations: those who work full time, those who work evenings, those who live great distances from population centers, those with young children, and those who are citizens of or expatriates in foreign countries. All would be either unable to attend a face-to-face classroom or placed at a severe disadvantage if required to do so. Unlike the flagship and regional universities that typically educate 18- to 22-year-old undergraduate students fresh out of high school, these online pre-service teachers are able to come to their digital classroom with a resume. Some are working professionals who are positioned to bring their unique experiences to their peers and their students. Others are current and former members of military service with vast global backgrounds who are setting their sights on a civilian career. Most would agree that having students learn modern world history from a retired Marine officer with 15 years of service in 13 countries could lead to a more vibrant, global classroom than one taught by a twenty-some-thing armed with a degree and a methods course.

Online programs expose preservice teachers to unique learning experiences not typically found in face-to-face classrooms. Online discussions allow for students of all races and creeds to weigh in on controversial topics they may otherwise choose to avoid in a traditional setting. For example, in my online classroom management course, a teacher’s aid in suburban Atlanta learned to create a culturally competent classroom for her struggling Filipino students through advice provided by her Hawaii-based classmate. Rather than learning this in isolation, the two teacher practitioners were able to engage in online discussions that helped the Atlanta teacher understand the unique family dynamics found with immigrants from the Philippines. In another course, a group of veteran teachers participating in a synchronous chat activity were able to advise an Illinois-based preservice teacher who was struggling with racial imbalance in her child’s individualized educational plan meeting. The group was able to freely discuss the matter, provide insight to the individualized educational plan process and help the individual form an action plan for dealing with the problem.

I also find that the nature of the online learning experience inspires some of my students to forego traditional classroom positions and opt for careers as online teachers. In many cases, online instruction is a field generally learned on the job or through one or more courses offered by the provider. Rice and Dawley (2009) found that 62% of online instructors had little or no experience in online pedagogy. Participants in an online preservice program not only learn standard classroom-based pedagogical practice, but also immerse themselves in the essential competencies for teaching and learning online, including communication skills, time management, and knowledge of the course delivery platform (Watson, 2007). Aren’t these some of the skills we try to instill in our nation’s youth?

Clearly, the world is on a dynamic digital path that educators are failing to embrace. Our curriculum and classrooms reflect a nineteenth century insular mindset that has failed to promote social, global learning. The school of today is a school without walls, boundaries, or set curriculum. The students of today are digital students. They are educated online, with or without a teacher’s guidance. They are innovative, and our teachers need to adapt. The key to adaptation is becoming like them. Modern teacher education programs must embrace twenty-first century learning. They must draw teacher candidates worldwide and educate them in an innovative, participant driven environment. They must be online.