Project activities

International Teacher Education Working Group

Hände

The Working Group on International Teacher Education has been established to serve as an informal advising body for the ELsA project team. The working group brings together lecturers, students and International Office staff with a common interest to shape the internationalization of the teacher training programmes at the University of Erfurt. The working group meets on a regular basis to exchange information about planned and ongoing international activities, which are compiled in a Moodle project space. By engaging multipliers in the faculties and departments that train teacher training students, we aim to institutionalise the internationalization of the teacher training programme beyond the project period.

Are you interested to learn more about the working group, or would you like to collaborate with Erfurt School of Education on an international teaching and learning project? Please feel free to contact us: susanne.nickel@uni-erfurt.de

Online Course Intercultural Competence

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Online Course Intercultural Competence

This semester-long course addresses all members of the University of Erfurt who are associated with the teacher training programmes. The aim of the course is for the participants to acquire the theoretical foundations of intercultural competence and to increase their ability to act and to achieve dialogue in intercultural school settings. By employing models of intercultural interaction research and case studies, among other things, the course enables participants to better deal with complexity in uncertain situations and stimulates processes of self-reflection. Participants practice how to develop recommendations for action based on their own (or suggested) practical examples.

All course activity is conducted online. Using an extensive collection of literature and materials on the Moodle learning platform, participants study key topics of intercultural competence independently, which are then discussed by all participants in a moderated forum. Additionally, virtual live sessions are used to present and discuss participants’ own case studies.

Learning objectives

  • Know methods and concepts of culture, intercultural competence and communication
  • Know methods and models for reflecting on intercultural learning processes and apply them to everyday school life
  • Provide support for and stimulate the reflection of (individual) intercultural situations
  • Develop action strategies in the intercultural teaching-learning setting and improve one’s ability to deal with uncertainty
  • (Further) develop reflexivity and perspective-taking for dealing with different groups of people at school

Lecturers

Dr. Maja Störmer & Judith Huber, M.A. (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Department of Intercultural Business Communication)

Social Studies and Science Education: An International Comparison

Participating partner university: Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo", Italy 

Contact:

This project seminar introduces students from the elementary teacher training programme to social studies and science education in different national school systems. As part of the seminar, students from the University of Erfurt collaborate with lecturers and students from the University of Urbino, Italy, for a joint teaching programme. At the end of the seminar, they will spend a short-term stay at the partner university in Italy where each student is assigned to a local student mentor and will sit in on regular seminars and lectures to experience the Italian teacher training programme. Together, students from Erfurt and Urbino will create teaching and learning materials focussing on cultural differences between Germany and Italy, and they will co-teach classes in local schools in Italy.

To prepare for their stay in Italy, students take an intensive 2-semester Italian language course at the University of Erfurt. In addition to basic language skills for everyday communication, the course teaches subject-specific educational vocabulary, equipping students with the necessary skills to follow the Italian lectures in the local language.

Plans exist that teacher training students from Urbino will make a return visit to the University of Erfurt in the summer semester of 2022 and sit in on selected courses in the Erfurt teacher training program.

The Complex School Internship Abroad: Bilingual Information Brochure

As part of the DAAD-funded project "ELsA - Erfurt Teacher Training Students Abroad", new information materials are being produced to provide comprehensive support to students interested in doing a teaching internship abroad. The German-English fact sheet The Complex School Internship Abroad provides an easily accessible overview of the Erfurt internship concept, which students can use when making initial contact with potential internship schools worldwide.

The Complex School Internship is a practical training module in the Master of Education degree programmes for primary and secondary school teachers. It is designed as a mobility window so students can gain practical experience at schools abroad for the duration of an entire semester and receive full and automatic recognition of credits. While doing an internship abroad, student teachers take part in a digital mentoring and supervision programme run by Erfurt School of Education.