Reported by Eunice Kua
At the Tuesday Dialogue on February 14, 2017, CIE heard from Dr Vaibhav Jadhav from Pune University, India, on the research he has been conducting during his time as a Visiting Scholar at CIE and the College of Education, UMass Amherst.
Dr Jadhav‘s focus is on Global Citizenship Education (GCED), particularly the curriculum and pedagogy of GCED both at the school level and at the teacher education level. Working with the Oxfam curriculum framework for global citizenship, Dr Jadhav is especially interested in the areas of globalization and interdependence, cooperation and conflict resolution, and commitment to participation and inclusion of others.
In a brief presentation, Dr Jadhav commented on various curriculum frameworks that he had been investigating, including using an integrated vs an isolated curriculum approach, and traditional vs technological practices for GCED.
During the discussion, CIE members reflected on the need for teachers to model the principles they teach and the difficulty of changing mind sets; the concept of “citiliage” (linking the city and the village) that was in the presentation; and the idea of having lab or demonstration schools linked to universities, where new educational ideas could be implemented.
Ideas raised included training teachers to help students figure out what it means to be a global citizen in their own context, whether in a village or a town, and creating a cohort or community of practice for teachers to share experiences and continue to develop new ways of thinking.
Dr Jadhav also elaborated on the challenges faced in teacher education in India, and the emphasis on quantitative research at the university level, which was quite different from the qualitative approaches he encountered here at UMass
He thanked CIE and Montague House and different faculty members who had supported him in the visit, and for the sponsorship of Sangeeta Kamat. At the end of the discussion, CIE faculty member Gretchen Rossman presented him with copies of her textbooks on qualitative research methods as a gift. Dr Jadhav will be returning to India to continue his research at his home institution later this month.