Students learn to teach overseas

The School of Education is now home to the Global Gateway for Teachers, a program that coordinates international student teacher placements.

The Global Gateway project is an extension of the Cultural Immersion Projects, a branch of the Foundation for International Education and an initiative the School of Education ventured into in 1972.

Since then, the program has sent more than 4,000 pre-service educators to gain professional experience in foreign countries, as well as on Indiana reservations and in urban schools.

“We have an amazing network in place,” Cultural Immersion Projects Director Laura Stachowski said in a press release. “Within each country I have at least one, and in many countries multiple, consultants who are our collaborators, the individuals ‘on the ground’ who secure school placements. I’ve met all but two or three of them face to face in these locations, and I also know most of the campus directors personally. So it’s a really wonderful network that we have, and that’s why it works well.”

When the program started, it placed students in six countries.

Now, the program is placing students in 17 countries, including recent placements in Ecuador, Japan, Norway and Italy.

The program isn’t just expanding the countries it reaches but also the schools it serves.

The Global Gateway for Teaching is currently serving 12 other universities across the country.

The largest being served are Penn State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Montana.

“We foster the relationship side of it, and we firmly believe that this is what makes our program so successful,” she said.

Conferences organized by the Cultural Immersion Projects also helped build relationships by bringing together all stakeholders to discuss overseas student teaching.

Stachowski said the Global Gateway of Teachers will continue that tradition.

“The world perspectives of future teachers continue to be broadened and their lives transformed through the efforts of the IU Cultural Immersion Projects and the Global Gateway for Teachers,” she said.

— Michelle Sokol