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STUDENT TEACHERS AS ONLINE TUTORS PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS IN TEACHER EDUCATION VIA SAFE

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM MYSCHOOLSNETWORK

Ron Barendsen, Işıl Günseli Kaçar, Alex Riemersma, Roelien Wierda

SUMMARY In this case study we will describe how collaboration between two teacher training departments, one in Leeuwarden (the Netherlands) (NHL University of Applied Sciences) and the other in Ankara (Turkey) (METU Department of Modern Languages) has led to a pilot program during the Fall of 2015 and the Spring of 2016 to meet the demand for authentic intercultural learning experiences for undergraduate student teachers. In this pilot program, a little over 100 Ankara student teachers and 20 Dutch student teachers have acted as online tutors to young learners – mainly in Turkey and the Netherlands - between the age of 8-14 via a safe international online social media platform www.myschoolsnetwork.com.

Keywords: teacher education, 21st century skills, e-pedagogy, global citizenship, e-mentoring, Design Thinking, Learning Outcomes

INTRODUCTION It is well acknowledged that 21st century teachers need to be equipped with a variety of skills and competencies that are quite different from those that were defined as established norms previously to educate diverse student populations with a variety of ethnic and educational backgrounds.

As John Chambers, CEO of Cisco systems puts it:

“Globalization and new patterns of working and living are increasing the demand for specialist skills and knowledge. But to be “knowledgeable” will no longer be good enough: a new set of 21st century skills, confidently credentialed, will also be essential to flourish. Many more people than ever before need to have advanced capabilities for critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving. At the same time, the social, economic, and environmental challenges of the 21st century demand citizens with a global perspective and the capacity and passion to engage with the world’s problems both at home and abroad”. (The Learning Society, 2010)

However, incorporating 21st century skills with an emphasis on intercultural competence is hard to attain in teacher education. Teacher education departments do not find sufficient opportunities to raise the students’ awareness towards global issues and to be involved in diverse international

learning communities. Also, the current novice teacher education programs fail to provide opportunities for the teacher candidates to develop their critical thinking, problem solving skills, their critical reflection abilities, problem posing, analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and evaluation skills. In the light of this lack of opportunities provided in the current novice teacher education programs for 21st century teacher candidates, the current international collaboration between two universities, METU and the NHL University of Applied Sciences, aims to contribute to the pedagogical and digital competencies of Turkish and Dutch novice teachers and help them enhance their online community engagement via their involvement in an educational enterprise called MySchoolsNetwork.

We hypothesize that it is desirable to involve student teachers in an online international social media platform to enable them to develop pedagogical, intercultural and digital competencies, which are considered essential to ensure their smooth transition into their future teacher roles.

In 21st century teacher education, the aim is also to raise ‘multiliterate learners’ who serve as participants in and contributors to the knowledge-based and global society to achieve social transformation, which is based on a socio-cognitive approach, viewing learning from an interactive perspective (Barrot, 2015, p.114). Both at METU’s Foreign Language Department and at the NHL Foreign Language Department these 21st century skills are not an integral part of the curriculum.

Let us first explore what the term “Intercultural Competence” means; According to Huber et al., intercultural competence is a combination of attitudes, knowledge, understanding and skills to

• understand and respect people who are perceived to have different cultural affiliations from oneself

• respond appropriately, effectively and respectfully when interacting and communicating with such people

• establish positive and constructive relationships with such people. (Huber et al, 2014).

In addition, the importance of language is stressed “because it is the most important (although not the only) symbolic system which enables group members to share their cultural perspectives, beliefs and values” (Huber et al 2014: 23).

Intercultural competence is most effectively developed in an authentic and therefore international context so that learners may experience, analyze, compare and reflect based on real encounters. Frolich and Vega (2005, p. 169-170) have observed in a comparative study on internationalization in Higher Education in Europe:

“the internationalization of higher education is a complex, multidimensional and often fragmented process. The factors that foster or impede internationalization activities developed at an institutional level cannot be viewed only in the national and international context. There are influences deeply rooted in the normative and cultural insights, such as history and culture; academic disciplines and subjects; the higher education institution’s profiles and individual initiatives; national policies; regulatory frameworks; finance; European challenges and opportunities; and globalization.”

In other words, the implementation of intercultural competences in education encounters many obstacles, not only of a pedagogical but also - if not especially - of an organizational and cultural nature. And then there is the students’ lack of interest in and enthusiasm for engagement in intercultural activities, as observed by Volet & Ang (1998). However, in this time-frame more than ever it is the role and duty of Institutes of Higher Education to create learning experience and environments that foster intercultural awareness (Coelen & Geitz, 2016).

Because of their place-and-time independence, online social networks – unless carefully moderated - may play a role in the development of intercultural competence, especially when they are centred around topics, issues or themes which are directly relevant to intercultural competence and global citizenship (Barrett et al. 2011:.46).

Traditionally, internationalization in higher education has been described and understood as international studies such as area studies, political science and cultural anthropology (Hamrick, 1999). Besides, in the larger share of European Higher Education internationalization consists of part of the student population participating in Erasmus exchange programs to study abroad at a foreign University. The focus in these exchange programs typically are on the subjects taken and ECTS earned at the university abroad – in other words on the formal aspects of learning – while the informal and non-formal part is more implicit and often taken for granted. The underlying assumption is that exchange students will automatically become proficient in the foreign language through immersion in that language and will learn about the culture of the country visited. Our observation and experience with our own and visiting Erasmus students is that visiting Erasmus students are often grouped together so that there is little contact with the regular and resident students. Thus, neither the students nor the teacher training programs reach the objectives of internationalization to its full potential i.e. collaborative learning in an international setting. In our pilot study, we will demonstrate how we have aimed at moving away from a set of activities to and integral concept of meaningful and important international education. (van Benthem et al., 2014)

Before we embark on the discussion of the case study at hand we will first introduce the two partner Institutions involved in this pilot. We will also introduce the safe online platform MySchoolsNetwork that was used to implement the international online mentoring program discussed in this chapter.

TEACHER EDUCATION AT MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (METU) The Department of Foreign Language Education at METU offers BA, MA. and Ph.D. programs in English Language Teaching and MA and Ph.D. programs in English Literature. The mission of the program is to raise fully qualified teachers of English who are equipped with the theoretical as well as the pedagogical knowledge in various educational institutions ranging from primary to tertiary levels, considering the state-of-the-art developments in the English Language Teaching. About the novice teacher education program at the undergraduate level, the teacher candidates are required to take courses related to English literature, linguistics and English language teaching methodology and practicum throughout their university education. With respect to the English language teaching methodology courses, the preservice teachers are required to take 5 ELT methodology course (Approaches, Methods and Techniques in ELT, Teaching Young Learners, ELT Methodology I, ELT Methodology II) and two practicum courses (School Experience and Practice Teaching) before graduation, in addition to the language, linguistics and English literature courses. In the methodology courses, preservice teachers perform microteachings related to the teaching of language skills (i.e.,

reading, writing, listening and speaking, vocabulary and grammar). These microteachings prepare preservice teachers to be equipped with the pedagogical content knowledge necessary to serve effectively in the internship period. During this period, the preservice teachers go to primary, secondary or high schools to teach students in the real classrooms for a period of 80 hours (10 weeks and 40 hours one semester) and operationalize their teaching skills that they have developed earlier in the program, under the supervision of the school-based mentors and university-based initial teacher educators. The program aims to develop certain pedagogical competencies in teacher candidates such as digital competency, and pedagogical competencies. However, as the practicum period is delayed until the final year of the undergraduate program, the development of the pedagogical competencies is not achieved fully. Likewise, as only one compulsory course is offered to teacher trainees to develop their digital literacy skills (and this course is a generic course geared to develop their digital literacy in a general sense), the digital competency level has so far been relatively low. Besides, in the program the technology integration into the methodology or the practicum courses is not a mainstream issue. Most of the methodology courses at the department tend to be conducted in a face-to-face fashion, with minimal technology integration. The preservice teachers are involved in microteaching activities in methodology courses, which promote the pedagogical competencies of preservice teachers only to a limited extent.

TEACHER EDUCATION AT NHL UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES IN LEEUWARDEN The NHL University of Applied Sciences, located in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, is a medium sized multi-sectoral University of Applied Sciences with approximately 13.000 students and approximately 1100 staff members. The University consists of 4 Schools:

• Technology • Economics and Business • Health medicine and Life sciences • Education

The School of Education offers BA and MA teacher training programs for Primary School, as well as for 15 different secondary school subjects - organized in 9 departments of which the English department is one - offering education to a total of 1650 Bachelor students and 200 Master students.

The teacher training department has an active regional network of approximately 40 secondary and 60 primary schools which offer internship opportunities to student teachers during all four years of their studies. In addition, a number of these partner schools function as professional development schools, which means that they are actively involved in training students to become competent secondary school teachers. Students studying to become an English teacher in lower secondary education typically take a 240 EC program of which 60 ECT are devoted to professional training and workplace based learning. The other 150 EC go to the study of English proficiency, culture, literature and linguistics. Another 30 EC go to a Minor of the student’s own choosing. In year three, students must pass the official CPE (Cambridge Proficiency English) test. With respect to digital pedagogy and e-literacy: all Bachelor of Education students must pass the e-pedagogy assessment before they enter their final teaching practice in year four. The international dimension has been given shape in modules about English and American culture and a compulsory stay of a minimum of 4 weeks in an English-speaking country in the third year of the BA program. As of 2017 the foreign stay is no longer compulsory and students can take an optional 30 ECT Minor in an English-speaking country.

MYSCHOOLSNETWORK In 2008, the safe online platform MySchoolsNetwork was launched as part of the World Bank funded PROFED project (Professionally oriented Higher Education, 2004-2009) in Vietnam. The NHL teacher training departments were involved in this project to supply expertise with respect to teacher training, e-pedagogy and workplace-based learning. To provide Vietnamese student teachers with a platform to practice their intercultural, language and feedback skills MySchoolsNetwork was founded. In the first year two Vietnamese and two Dutch schools took part. A signature feature of the platform was that Dutch and Vietnamese student teachers acted as online moderators and mentors. Over the years the platform has expanded and now (November 2016) has 11158 registered users (of which 948 are teachers and 2973 are student teachers) in 159 schools in 27 different countries. Currently the platform has a lively community of Frisian primary and secondary schools and schools in such diverse places as Ecuador, Mexico, Belarus, Spain, and Denmark. The participating schools and pupils work on monthly events; these are creative and writing competitions that can be included in the regular curriculum of the participating schools. The events usually have a combined linguistic, creative and intercultural focus, thus tapping into the need to include learning opportunities focusing on 21st century skills into the curricula of the participating schools (figure 1).

FIGURE 1 WEBSITE OF MYSCHOOLSNETWORK

The platform has been designed in such a way that both (student) teachers and peers can provide feedback to the pupils’ contributions. Besides, the platform has clearly defined roles, giving student teachers a red pillbox hat icon and expert teachers a black hat icon. It is also possible for pupils to create group contributions to facilitate co-creative learning. Pupils have the possibility to edit their contributions for the duration of the event, thus learning to “prototype” their products based on feedback before finalizing it.

In 2011 The platform earned the European Language Label - awarded by the European Platform - for being the most innovative online language project of that year in the Netherlands. The platform has been the vehicle for a number of successful national and international projects such as the Krachtig Meesterschap Project (2011-2013) focusing on Internationalization through ICT, the LLL project UDLNet (2013-2016) and the current Trilingual Primary Education project, funded by the Province of Friesland In these projects student teachers play a key role as content developers and online mentors and moderators.

Given the fact that hundreds of pupils in different age groups from all over the world post their contributions in English on MySchoolsNetwork on a weekly basis there is always authentic material for student teachers to practice their feedback skills. Thus, student teachers in the United States, Vietnam, The Netherlands and Turkey have been active as online mentors between 2009 and 2016. For these students an online course (figure 2) has been designed in which Learning Outcomes and ways to engage and reach the relevant Learning Outcomes are described. The Learning Outcomes are based on the internationally recognized set of 21st century skills and the teacher competences of the participating teacher training departments, and are further specified in an online rubric.

FIGURE 2

CONCLUSION The implementation of intercultural competence and 21st century skills in teacher education is vital to raise a generation of educators that can – through their teaching and coaching – contribute to a world in which people can communicate and interact with others “who are perceived to have different cultural affiliations from oneself” (Huber, 2014) Practicing the intercultural competence and 21st century skills in an authentic setting and through encounters with real people in other cultures and parts of the world is a highly effective way to achieve this (Barrett et al, p 16). However, economic, logistic and cultural issues often make direct encounters between students in different cultures difficult if not impossible. Therefore, to overcome those barriers, the use of a safe social media

platform – moderated 24/7 by teachers and student teachers – may make an important contribution in that it can facilitate online encounters between students and pupils that would otherwise never be able to “meet”.

CURRENT PRACTICE The pilot study described in this paper is an attempt “to move from what to why, from a set of activities to a concept of meaningful and important international education” (Benthem et al, 2014). In the fall of 2015 initial contacts were established between the teacher training departments of NHL University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden and Middle East Technical University in Ankara. A shared interest in and passion for the creation of meaningful and motivating learning environments with a focus on Design Thinking, Global Citizenship and 21st century skills has led to the development and implementation of several collaborative online pilots. In this case study, we are concentrating on the aforementioned Online Mentoring Module which was first developed in 2011, and which has been successfully completed by many Dutch, American and Vietnamese students ever since. Over the past few years the online module has been fine-tuned with respect to the formulation of Learning Outcomes (based on A Tuning Guide to Formulating Degree Program Profiles, 2010). Besides, various forms of blended coaching are offered to student teachers wishing to participate in this optional course

In this pilot, more than 150 METU student teachers and a smaller group of NHL student teachers were active on MySchoolsNetwork as online mentors to children in countries such as Friesland, Turkey, Mexico and Ecuador. Clearly formulated Learning Outcomes are essential components underpinning this international collaborative initiative. The required Learning Outcomes for the Teacher Students are formulated as follows:

“You demonstrate a practical understanding of the workings and effectiveness of Corrective Feedback to young learners in an international online platform by giving regular online feedback to L2 learners over a period of at least 6 weeks. In the process, you demonstrate a level of Intercultural competence appropriate to your international target group.”

The evaluation criteria are made more explicit via an online rubric. The responsible lecturers in the participating countries and departments are responsible for the assessment of their own students, but all are based on the same Learning Outcomes and same rubric. Underpinning the Learning Outcomes are the Teacher Competences as applied in the different participating countries - which have a lot in common but are by no means similar - and the internationally recognized 21st century skills and the European key competences – notably competences 2 (Communication in Foreign Languages) and 6 (Intercultural Competence).

After the students had participated in the online mentoring module they were asked to complete an online questionnaire on the basis of which points for improvement have been formulated.

PROCEDURE AND INSTRUMENTS

For two batches of METU students and a smaller group of NHL student teachers MySchoolsNetwork accounts were created by NHL Innovation Lab staff members. The existing online module “International e-mentoring for student teachers” was shared with the responsible lecturers at METU and in the Netherlands and updated and clarified. The Turkish and Dutch students received instructions from their respective instructors and worked towards reaching the required learning outcomes. By April 2016 over 150 METU students had given regular online feedback to young learners for a period of 6 weeks. A delegation of Dutch lecturers travelled to Ankara to present the students with a MySchoolsNetwork e-mentoring certificate.

Subsequently an online questionnaire was collaboratively designed by Dutch and Turkish faculty and was submitted to the Turkish and Dutch student teachers in the early summer of 2016. As to the composition of the participants in the study, the overwhelming majority of the participants in the study (94.6 %)were from Middle East Technical University while the minority of them (4.7%) were from NHL University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden and from Stenden University (0,7%). Almost all participants (99.3 %) were studying at the language department.

For the purpose of this chapter we will concentrate on the following questions [reflecting key competence 6]:

1. How do student teachers perceive the importance of Global Citizenship and International awareness in teacher education?

2. How do student teachers perceive the usefulness of a safe online platform to work on their intercultural competence?

3. How do students assess the required Learning Outcomes in the online course “E-tutoring for student teachers”?

4. What recommendations do student teachers propose to improve the online platform and course to reach the required learning outcomes?

RESULTS The participants in the questionnaire (n=150) overwhelmingly considered global citizenship and international awareness essential competences for teacher candidates (88.7%).

81.9% of the respondents concurred that they gained new insights into various life skills and the educational system of different countries thanks to their engagement in the online module on MySchoolsNetwork. On the other hand, a minority indicated their doubts about the benefits in this respect.

In relation to the role of MySchoolsNetwork for the enhancement of the participants’ language skills, the prospective teachers (80.6%) accorded with the idea that Myschoolsnetwork served as a proper environment to procure language practice opportunities whereas a minority (12.8%) were not sure about the favourable impact of the online module on their language skill development of the prospective teachers and a minority (6.7%) who were not aligned with the potential benefit of the module for the language practice purposes. In the same vein, participants (93.9%) confirmed that Myschoolsnetwork is an appropriate medium for the student teachers to practice their feedback skills. In addition to the above-mentioned benefits of the Myschoolsnetwork project for the prospective teachers, the participants (91.9%) also pointed out that the project involvement helped them to be more familiar with diverse learner profiles. In fact, through their involvement in the project, they

gained insights into how to cater for the needs of the learners from a variety of countries with different proficiency profiles and age levels.

As regards the clarity of the evaluation criteria and the learning outcomes for the e-tutoring module for the prospective teachers the majority of the teacher candidates (83.2%) confirmed the clarity of the assessment criteria and the learning outcomes of the module. However, there is still a minority (14.1%) who were not clear in this respect.

With a view to an overall evaluation of the project, the participants thought very highly of the project in general. In fact, the majority of the participants gave 7 or higher as an overall rating of the project

In the open feedback section at the end of the questionnaire many students commented on aspects of internationalization. Some examples of the feedback given by the student candidates:

• I learned about the differences of students all around the world • Being able to give feedbacks to the children from different cultures • It provides more insight into life and education outside my own country • I had the chance to interact with international students • I have learnt how to make dialogues with the students from different backgrounds and level of

English language • Getting familiar with international students. Furthermore, I had a chance to see the mistakes

that are commonly occur in all over the world while learning English • I think this project gave me a chance to practice my skills on giving feedback. This is one of my

first feedback experiences, so it helped me to learn about how to give feedback for different students who have different backgrounds and personalities. I think this was one of the first steps that I took in this area

• constructive criticising, being able to assess different levels of proficiencies, getting encountered with different cultural contexts, etc.

• It provides great opportunity for students to practice their language skills and have global citizenship and international awareness

In interviews with participating Dutch and Turkish primary and secondary schools’ teachers indicated that the response of the pupils receiving feedback varied. Many pupils were pleased that their writing and creative contributions were seen and appreciated by University students from far-away countries, others indicated that some pupils were slightly overwhelmed by the many reactions they received from various student teachers.

DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS In this article, we have presented a project that can be considered a “good practice” of international education aiming at the European key competences and 21st century skills. We have also described how both METU University, Stenden and NHL teacher training departments feel that providing stimulating learning experiences for their students with a focus on global citizenship and 21st century skills is of the utmost importance. The pilot described above and the questionnaire results show beyond a doubt that candidate teachers see the importance of 21st century skills in their curricula,

notably e-pedagogical and intercultural competences. The online platform MySchoolsNetwork is generally seen as an excellent vehicle to facilitate this kind of learning. The experiences of the participating primary and secondary schools fall outside the scope of this article but during interviews Dutch and Turkish pupils have indicated that they were delighted at getting feedback from student teachers from abroad. Although 83% of the respondents indicated that they thought the rubric was clear enough, we aim at 100% student satisfaction by calibrating the rubric and supplying the students with examples.

Participating staff members highlight the virtues of international collaboration in terms of exchanging views and methodologies and merging pedagogical expertise in diverse educational environments, generating diverse instructional opportunities that would otherwise not be available to both student teachers and pupils in the participating countries.

A group of developers are currently working on the next version of MySchoolsNetwork (MySchoolsNetwork 3.0) which will include open badges, more focus on STEM education and a Design Thinking Approach. In this way, the platform will be able to make a modest contribution to creating a bridge between cultures and to closing the gap between formal, informal and non-formal learning.

One of the major challenges in this project is creating a balance between pupil output and student feedback. To fulfil the criteria of the rubric, the students in some cases bombarded the pupils with feedback. This was unpleasant both for the pupils and for the students giving feedback, since they were giving feedback to pupils that had already received feedback from other students. The main challenge remains the positioning of 21st century skills – in an authentic context – in the curriculum; The minute things are getting complicated from an organizational point of view, schools and institutions tend to withdraw into their old, safe habits. Yet, we do see a gradual development away from the reductionist, stick-to-the-book kind of methodologies applied in both primary, secondary and higher education.

The results of the questionnaire, the enthusiasm of staff members involved in this pilot and the growing number of – especially primary – schools engaging in activities on MySchoolsNetwork, e-Twinning and other international educational platforms make us hopeful for the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. Işıl Günseli Kaçar, Dep. of Foreign Language Education – METU

Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Bölümü – ODTÜ

Ron Barendsen, M.Ed., Senior lecturer, Coordinator at InnovationLab, NHL University of Applied Sciences

Dr. Alex Riemersma, Professor of Frisian and Multilingualism in Education at Stenden & NHL Universities of Applied Sciences

Drs. Roelien Wierda, Senior lecturer, Coordinator at InnovationLab, NHL University of Applied Sciences

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