MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Student teaching opportunities overseas is in the spotlight for the April edition of “Out of the Blue,” the television magazine program of Middle Tennessee State University.

Tiffany Dellard, director of the Office of Educator Preparation in the College of Education, talks about teaching abroad opportunities through the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching with program host Andrew Oppmann, vice president of the Division of Marketing and Communications.

Prospective teachers must complete a residency requirement, where they go into schools and work as a teacher-in-training before graduation. With this program, they can do that training in one of 15 countries through a teach abroad experience.

Watch the segment below:

“It’s a great opportunity to get some additional teaching experience out in the world in another type of school system and really build their resume to come back to Tennessee,” Dellard said. “(They will) be able to talk with principals or other hiring districts about the great things that they’ve learned, and the unique things that they can bring to their students in the classroom based on what they’ve learned from great teachers in other countries.”

MTSU works with the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching, or COST, which is a collective of about 18 U.S.-based universities that’s been around for about three decades, of which MTSU is a founding member. Dellard helps interested students navigate the application process and, in coordination with COST, find a good overseas location for the classroom experience.

“There are receiving site coordinators for every location abroad, and they work with our students, once they’re connected, to set up housing, to make sure you have information about the school and the mentor teacher you’ll be placed with,” she said. Most of our students are housed with families, host families that are associated with the school that they’ll be teaching in, in some way.”

To learn more about the program, including available host countries, visit https://education.mtsu.edu/student-teach-abroad/.

“Out of the Blue” is available anytime on the university’s YouTube channel, the True Blue TV channel, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. It also airs on Murfreesboro cable Channel 9 daily at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; NewsChannel5+ at 6:30 p.m. Sundays; and streamed on the MTSU Jazz Network through WMOT.org at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday of each month; and on other cable outlets in Middle Tennessee, so check local listings. 

It is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Google Play and as individual interview segments on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/453hxg3. 

Watch previous episodes of “Out of the Blue” at https://mtsunews.com/out-of-the-blue.

— Jimmy Hart (Jimmy.Hart@mtsu.edu)