ABSTRACT
Globalization is paving the way to create new geography education projections around the world. Consequently, communities of practice among international higher education institutions take new initiatives for international collaboration within the concept of global universities. This chapter analyzes the experience of graduate students in the School of Geographical Sciences at East China Normal University in Shanghai who developed a community of practice in geography education guided by the Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education at Texas State University. The Chinese community of practice, identified as the Shanghai Model, created an international collaborative community in geography education between China and the United States. The international experience started in 2014 with a face-to-face environment at the School of Geography in Shanghai that was completed in 2015 with online operations between East China Normal University and Texas State University. This model for global geography education developed a learning strategy based on an initial guidance for spatial thinking and inquiry, and subsequent informal learning procedures for problem solving. Within the informal setting, participants were exposed to two modes of operations. Teamwork was performed to facilitate interaction and cooperation. Individual work helped to overcome typical barriers such as language barriers and online operations.
