Transnational Experiences for Preservice Teachers: Exploring Boundary-Crossing Learning Potentials

We describe a collaborative transnational teacher education program involving German and U.S. teacher educators and preservice teachers. Drawing on participants’ written reflections, individual debriefing meetings, and a cross-cultural project, we examine preservice teachers’ personal practical theories (PPTs) and explore how they engaged in dialogic learning through boundary-crossing experiences. The findings reveal participants’ PPTs prior to the transnational experience and illustrate how they affirmed, negotiated, and expanded their understandings of teaching and learning through the learning mechanisms of identification, coordination, and reflection. Implications for teacher educators seeking to cultivate dialogic learning opportunities through transnational teacher education are discussed.