Nowadays, classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse due to demographic changes and worldwide policy initiatives toward a more inclusive educational system. With these increasingly diversifying student populations contrasting with teaching professionals whose demographics haven’t changed as rapidly, coupled with “superficial and partial” attempts at integrating intercultural perspectives in teacher education programs; today’s teachers are inadequately prepared to teach these diverse populations. As such, teacher education is challenged to equip future teachers with global perspectives preparing them to teach in today’s globally interdependent world. To put it differently, teacher education institutions are struggling to realize an international dimension in their curricula (Brown, 2015) and to educate future teachers with intercultural competencies. As such, teacher education is being challenged to increase internationalization and “begin preparing future teachers for the globally interdependent world in which they will work and their students will live, by opening the world to students through international experience and integrating a global perspective throughout the curriculum” (Kissock & Richardson, 2010, p. 89). Realizing internationalization is even more challenging for teacher education institutions (Kissock & Richardson, 2010) because of national educational legislation and local internship regulations. 

In this paper, we present a concrete initiative to realize such an international dimension in teacher education aimed at empowering student teachers for tomorrow; by integrating international experiences and global perspectives throughout the curriculum and to “make room for real collaboration to occur” (DelliCarpini, 2009). This concrete initiative is a 3 ECTS-course developed by the European University Network ENLIGHT. ENLIGHT is a European University alliance of ten comprehensive research-intensive universities from 10 European countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland). All ENLIGHT teacher education institutions collaborate in the Teacher Education Network (TEN). This network has developed an international collaborative Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) to promote internationalisation in teacher education and to foster student teachers’ global citizenship competencies. BIPs are new Erasmus + formats for short-term mobility. 

The BIP developed by the the ENLIGHT Teacher Education Network is structured around the principles of challenge-based education (CBE). CBE is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology and resources they use in their daily lives to solve real-world challenges (Gallagher & Savage, 2023; Nichols & Cator, 2008). Based on this approach, the ENLIGHT TEN BIP was called “Teaching for Global Citizenship in European Classrooms: a challenge-based approach”. A total of 45 student teachers and 11 PhD coaches from the ENLIGHT partner universities participated in the first edition of the BIP (2023). Students from these different institutions worked together in an online and physical component via innovative ways of teaching and learning, following the different phases of the CBE approach. 

The BIP consisted of an online pre-programme in which students are introduced to the concept of global citizenship. Subsequently, students went through an online learning path. Moreover, students from the same university engaged in online group discussions and prepared a presentation of their local educational system and the challenges it faces. In a second phase, the participating student teachers and PhD coaches physically met at Ghent University and followed a 5-day on-campus programme with both a social and an academic focus. During this week, students gained insight into the concept of global citizenship through the method of CBE. Concretely, students participated in mixed group assignments, group presentations and workshops, attended guest lectures, and went to visit local schools that are currently facing issues of global citizenship. In a third and final phase, students reflected on their BIP-experience in both an online meeting and a report. 

The BIP’s development was explored using a mixed-method research design, targeting two primary research objectives: understanding student teachers’ perspective on the challenge-based approach of the program and examining their experience with the international collaboration aspect to enhance intercultural competencies. By focussing on these research goals, we aimed to gain insight into the student perspective and identify opportunities for improvement. Data collection included pre-test and post-test phases during the 2022/2023 academic year. Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire (32 participants), assessing demographic variables, course evaluation (Gonzalez, Montenegro & Lopez, 2012), student engagement (Reeve, 2012), and Intercultural Communication Competence (Arasaratnam, 2009). Analysis was done through SPSS. This was complemented by qualitative data from focus group interviews (35 participants), discussing the added value of CBE, lessons learned, and potential improvements to the Blended Intensive Programme. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the focus group data, utilizing NVivo software to facilitate this process

Both quantitative and qualitative research indicated that the participating student teachers had a very positive experience and found the challenge-based BIP to be a highly empowering and innovative pedagogical practice. The results also showed that the social and international aspects of the BIP were deemed crucial by participants. The opportunity for student teachers to interact and familiarize themselves with each other, as well as with the diverse educational systems represented, not only fostered a sense of community among them but also led to more effective and cohesive collaboration. Overall, the development of the BIP and the associated research shows the potential to finally realize an international dimension in teacher education curricula in general, and the development of student teachers’ intercultural competencies in particular. In our presentation, we will elaborate on the development of our Blended Intensive Programme, the research conducted, and the associated results. We will present our findings in terms of student empowerment, focusing on three key participant groups: student teachers, PhD coaches, and teacher education institutions. Through this, we aim to initiate a debate on concrete actions that can be taken by all stakeholders in teacher education to further internationalization efforts. Our paper presentation will thus (1) detail our efforts in designing a Blended Intensive Programme within the European University alliance ENLIGHT, (2) present our mixed-method research on the BIP’s development and the competence development of student teachers, and (3) facilitate a discussion with the audience on future initiatives to realise an international dimension in teacher education.

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