The world is your oyster, but where's the pearl? Getting the most out of global education

THE REALITIESAND PERCEPTION OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS on a global scale are becoming increasingly evident owing to enhanced technology and the escalating scale of human impact on the rest of humanity and on the environment. This paper reports on a project which investigated the effectiveness of a suite of professional development sessions, of from one to two hours' duration, offered to primary and secondary teachers in Victoria, Australia, aimed at improving classroom practice in global education. The professional development was provided by a professional teachers' association, in an effort to increase the knowledge and skills of teachers with regard to global education, and to assist their students in doing the same. The study employed a combination of questionnaires, completed by participants at the conclusion of each session (n = 1326), telephone interviews with a random sample of participants in = 40) chosen from among those who had indicated a willingness to be so interviewed, and four case studies. The study found that while participants were forthright and generous in their praise of the professional development courses in their post-session questionnaire responses, very few of them translated this into their classroom teaching in ways which could be identified. This paper aims to highlight some of the excellent classroom work which derived in part or whole from the professional development sessions, and, using some of the literature on educational change, workplace learning and transference of learning, to investigate reasons why more teachers may not have taken this up. The paper also proposes a model designed to 'value-add' to the training work which was undertaken by providers of the professional development. Many of these findings may be transferable to other inservice providers.