Signature Pedagogies in Global Competence Education: Understanding Quality Teaching Practice

Abstract

How might we support young people to understand who they are in an interconnected world, prepare them to consider multiple perspectives as they collaborate with others across cultures and languages to improve conditions, and provide opportunities for them to participate positively in civic life, school, and work? Preparing students for today’s world requires not only that we think about what matters most for students to learn, but also what kind of teaching and learning will prove most effective. Building on Lee Shulman’s idea of signature pedagogies, we propose a pedagogical approach uniquely tailored to nurturing deep, relevant, and compelling global learning and a concomitant framework for developing teacher expertise. We define signature pedagogies in global education as a pervasive set of teaching practices that nurture students’ capacity and disposition to understand and act on matters of global significance. Signature pedagogies organize learners’ experience to inculcate in them hallmark global competence habits of mind: investigating the world, taking perspective, communicating across difference, and taking action. They offer students ample opportunities to engage in “junior versions” of authentic practices in relevant fields, and represent instructional tropes, paths, or motifs. Using illustrative cases at the elementary school level, we describe two types of signature pedagogies in global education: research expedition and purposeful comparisons. Research expedition pedagogy focuses on learner’s understanding and experience of a distant place – geo-physical and environmental qualities, built and natural landscapes, people and social organizations, as well as manifestations of culture in the form of taste, values, practice, relationships and beliefs – and helps them develop a sense of personal connection to it. Purposeful comparisons pedagogy builds on the premise that an individual can understand the world by examining a single phenomenon across multiple locations through the lens of a question that makes cross-case analysis necessary. It often involves creating a model or a frame that helps us distil relevant aspects of each case, identifying similarities and differences to inform our understanding. When such signature pedagogies are designed to be a regular part of the learning experience, they nurture understanding of the world and key global dispositions in learners.