College education students share trade secrets with international schools

By KENDALL KING, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on December 15, 2021.

kking@medicinehatnews.com

Medicine Hat College education students virtually met and engaged with students from Fontys University of Applied Science in the Netherlands and Kristianstad University in Sweden, with the goal of forming international connections and exchanging information related to the field of education.

Education and kinesiology instructor at MHC, Jason McLester, facilitated and led the two-day session.

“I’ve had similar projects in the past (and) just found the interactions between our students and students from other countries really rich,” McLester told the News. “Not only could we gain the cultural piece and the language piece, but we were able to speak about the education systems … just to gain some perspective and insight into what’s happening in different parts of the world.

“There were some really neat aspects of the collaboration and one of them was getting to see their classrooms and, for them, getting to see our classrooms, then having conversations around that.”

Fourth-year education student Emma MacDemid says it was an eye-opening experience to share with educators from another country.

“Our first meeting with students from Sweden and the Netherlands we were able to talk about what it’s like to be a teacher in another country and the challenges they face in their day-to-day compared to the type of challenges we’re facing in our own classrooms and then we were able to ask them questions about what it was like to be a teacher there.

“Then the following day, the students answered those questions in a presentation. So it was a really personalized kind of experience because we were able to ask them questions about what we were interested in.”

MacDermid says she enjoyed the experience and it provided her a new perspective on teaching.

“I think it’s important to see what other teachers are doing around the world to keep our teaching fresh and exciting for our students here in Canada,” she said. “It was interesting to see that, even though there were various differences between a classroom in the Netherlands and Sweden and Canada, the heart of teaching is kind of the same.”

McLester hopes MHC’s involvement in the sessions will help students as they transition into Canada’s education sector.

“I’d like to think that we offer our students a really rich learning experience that they can take into their future classrooms, wherever they may be,” said McLester.

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