COST program engages students in teaching experiences abroad

The Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching (COST) program enables teacher preparation students to immerse themselves into both the culture and classrooms of another country in the final weeks of their teacher preparation program.

Teacher preparation students spend the first eight weeks of their final semester—the student teaching or clinical practice semester—student teaching at a school in Georgia, and the following seven weeks student teaching at a school in one of 16 COST partner countries.

As an independent study program, students participating in COST stay with host families in their assigned country and teach at either a public or international school. Along with refining their teaching skills, the COST program aims to provide a culturally immersive experience to students as they live and work in a different culture.

“At least 50%, if not more, of the COST experience is really a rich intercultural experience where students are going to learn a lot about themselves as Americans, but they’re also going to learn how to live and teach and be in the world in a different way,” said Anna Hiers, lead clinical placement and COST coordinator in the Mary Frances Early College of Education’s Office of Clinical Practice.

The College became a member of COST in 1974, and the program is open to undergraduate or graduate students in a teacher preparation program, including those in the College or in partner schools on campus with teacher preparation programs.

Participants in the COST program teach in the same grade band both in Georgia and abroad, but the content they teach depends on their program. Depending on their placement, the program may also provide students with experience teaching English as a second language in addition to their content area.

“For example, if you’re a social studies education major and you’re placed in the Netherlands, you would likely be teaching civics as opposed to history,” Hiers said.

Though students sometimes gain experience teaching English as a second language, in some instances, the opposite takes place.

“A main difference was that they do learn Irish in their schools, so I wasn’t able to teach that, and so it was a lot of just observing and listening and learning in that way,” said Sage Holland (B.S.Ed. ’24, M.Ed. ’25), a fall 2024 COST program participant.

Holland, a graduate of the elementary education program, spent the first half of her clinical placement semester student teaching at an elementary school in Barrow County before traveling to her COST placement in Tralee, Ireland.

Other than the language class, Holland said most of the curriculum and content overlapped between her school in Ireland and her school in Georgia, but that a few elements differed between the countries, such as teachers’ planning periods. While planning periods in Georgia schools take place while students are eating lunch, Holland said that teachers in Ireland used the period as a break where they congregated and did not talk about work.

“I think that really fostered a sense of community because community was so prominent there. I’ve definitely experienced a good sense of community in Georgia, and I think there are so many good schools where their teachers have such a sense of closeness, but in Ireland, it was just so evident that they really valued partnership and group work, especially among the teachers, which is really nice,” Holland said.

Students interested in participating in the COST program should note that applications start one year out from their student teaching semester, and they must meet with Hiers before applying. Walk-in hours are Wednesdays from 1-4 p.m. during the fall and spring semesters.

“Students who go abroad and student teach through COST can’t take all of their teacher preparation from Georgia and go to Germany or Ghana or Ireland and unpack that bag of teacher preparation and say, ‘okay, this is all going to work here,’ because it doesn’t,” Hiers said. “So, the hallmark of a COST student is somebody who can be flexible and adaptable.”