posted December 17, 2008
GATE Fellows’ Statewide Colloquium on Internationalizing Teacher Education a Great Success
On November 19, 2008, the College of Education’s first cohort of GATE Fellows hosted an inaugural statewide invitational colloquium focused on the internationalization of teacher education. The GATE Fellows program – Global Awareness in Teacher Education – and the colloquium were made possible by a grant from the Longview Foundation, a national foundation committed to the internationalization of education. This culminating event, a capstone for the first year of the GATE Fellows program, was both a forum for the presentation of the GATE Fellows’ individual projects and an opportunity to engage in a variety of interactive discussions on what others were doing around the State to act on internationalization goals, as well as generate ideas for new initiatives and potential collaborations which might be launched to help realize those goals.	GATE Fellows project director Jim Greenberg moderated the event and disucssion
Participants in the colloquium included deans and directors of teacher education from a large percentage of the state’s colleges and universities, officials from the Maryland State Department of Education, representatives from school systems and teachers from our Professional Development Schools, several faculty and graduate students from the College of Education, and representatives from other international program initiatives both on campus and in nearby Washington, DC. Over 70 delegates participated, and the Jimenez room in the Stamp Student Union was filled to capacity. Click here for a PDF list of participants	Representatives from across the state of Maryland were invited to the inagural Internationalizing Teacher Education Colloquium

Maryland State Senator Jim Rosapepe gave the keynote address

Dean Donna Wiseman spoke of the College of Education’s commitment to internationalization and introduced our keynote speaker, Maryland State Senator Jim Rosapepe. Senator Rosapepe, who previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Romania,  recounted his own history of encounters with transnational identity and intercultural communication. He spoke of championing the cause of world languages in the schools and his own efforts in this regard in the Maryland legislature.

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Betsy Devlin-Foltz, Executive Director of the Longview Foundation, shared an overview of national developments and model programs that reflect both the need for enhancing international dimensions of education and how some notable institutions are going about doing that.  She distributed the new report of the Longview Foundation, “Teacher Preparation for the Global Age,” and emphasized some of the most important findings from that report.  Extensive small group discussions followed Betsy’s presentation and many great points were raised  -- both about existing efforts in Maryland as well as suggestions for initiatives that would help advance the goals which the colloquium sought to address.

A central feature of the colloquium was the presentation of the individual projects that each of the GATE Fellows completed during their year of involvement in this new venture. The overall goal, internationalization of the curriculum and teacher education overall, will surely be enhanced by these projects. These diverse projects represent a significant enhancement to the teacher education programs at the University of Maryland, College Park. For that reason, the Longview Foundation has selected the GATE Fellows' projects to be featured on the Spotlight section of their website in 2009. Click here to read about the GATE Fellows' project goals

GATE Fellows presented their projects and led break out sessions

Small groups reacedt to GATE Fellows and shared their strategies for internationalizing teacher education

Following the presentations, a variety of small group discussions involved all the participants in consideration of the specific ideas introduced by the speakers as well as many additional ideas contributed by the colloquium delegates. These discussions generated an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm and a large number of proposals for potential collaborations and new initiatives. The colloquium concluded with a final reflection by Linda Valli, Interim Chair of Curriculum and Instruction, and with a general consensus that this day will bea launch for further statewideattention to the goal of internationalization of teacher education and of school curriculum.         Linda Valli shared her reflectionson the day's events.

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