Monitoring the process of curricular development in the perspective of intercultural education in universities
During the month of May 2019, in the frame of the project “Promoting and developing intercultural education for pre-service teacher training”, supported by the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation in Switzerland and implemented by EC PRO DIDACTICA, the monitoring visits have been carried out in each institution involved: Moldova State University, Comrat State University and State University “Alecu Russo” from Bălţi.
The agenda for the project team included debates on draft curriculum developed by the project beneficiaries to synchronize initiatives to update the university pedagogical offer, but also to clarify the questions raised in the working process of the curriculum development.
In this respect, we find valued justification of intercultural competence in the legislative, theoretical and practical plan, so that the students to obtain a better pedagogical qualification in this chapter. Professors, the course authors – argue the need for this perspective in curriculum documents, starting from the multiethnic specificity of local and academic communities, from stereotypes and prejudices rooted in the traditional mind, continuing with many cases of ignorant or intolerant manifestation toward the particular values of the other and finalizing with the specific diversity contexts that students will face in their future didactic career.
We appreciate the innovative teaching approach of the curriculum sections, which is different: monodisciplinary, modular or infusional, with emphasis on recent changes in the modernized curriculum (2018 edition) for general education. It insists on the use of the interactive teaching-learning-evaluation methodology, the digital didactic means, as well as the non-traditional forms of formal and non-formal education for the gradual and the contextualized development of intercultural competence of students, future teachers.
The profile of the competent university teacher from the intercultural perspective, the pedagogy of diversity, the learning friendly environment and intercultural communication, the intercultural management of the classroom, the inclusive school culture – are just a few highly topical themes and useful in the new curricula approaches.
In conclusion, we emphasize that the over 20 teachers, trained in the project, have become a resource-person in the field of intercultural education, which, we hope to become visible and have an impact on the academic environment by improving / updating their own professional performance in the classroom and at internships with students, but also to contribute to building a democratic organizational culture, based on participatory management, with a sustainable impact on the continuous reform of higher education.
Viorica GORAȘ-POSTICĂ, expert
