Global competency for teacher educators: exploring the needs of teacher education faculty in a professional development project

Global competencies are one of the most important skills of the twenty-first century. All teachers have the responsibility to prepare their students for this global world. However, research on teachers and global competencies reveals that teachers finish their degrees with a lack of global competencies. This research aims to explore the needs of teacher education faculty in incorporating global competencies into their curriculums by exploring the reasons for teacher education faculty to attend a year-long intensive professional development project to increase their knowledge in global competencies. Results have shown that the teacher education faculty knew the importance of global competencies but did not know how to incorporate them into their courses. In fact, several teacher education faculties had a deficit and incomplete understanding of the term global competencies. Some of the best practices for developing professional development projects for teacher education faculty to increase their global competencies are also provided.