School of Education faculty, staff contribute to new book on UW–Madison’s global impact

By Laurel White

“The book, “Wisconsin in the World: Internationalization at the University of Wisconsin–Madison,” was published this summer. With contributions from dozens of faculty and staff across the university, along with colleagues from other institutions, the book explores how UW–Madison has a strong history of engaging and partnering with people, places, and ideas across the globe.

Nordmeyer and Bettney Heidt co-authored a chapter outlining the impact of the WIDA International School Consortium, a global network of over 500 K-12 schools in over 100 countries, which operated from 2013 to 2023. The co-authors say the chapter explores how the consortium helped educators shift from a deficit-based to an asset-based view of multilingual learners, as well as the organization’s shift from a university-based dissemination network to a reciprocal global learning network.

“While the WIDA consortium ended earlier this year, it laid the groundwork for the Multilingual Learning Research Center School Network, a global research-practice partnership focused on advancing educational outcomes for multilingual learners,” Bettney Heidt says.

Nordmeyer and Bettney Heidt both work at the Multilingual Learning Research Center — Nordmeyer as co-director and Bettney Heidt as a school network researcher.

Nordmeyer says the global dialogue that grew around the WIDA standards and assessments helped broaden the impact of UW–Madison by identifying problems of practice in teaching multilingual learners.

“Building on this foundation has allowed us to reimagine how we support international educators in the new Multilingual Learning Research Center,” he says.

Bettney Heidt earned her doctorate from the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She says working on the project helped her foster a sense of connection across campus with colleagues focused on internationalization.

“During my PhD, I often struggled to find my place at UW–Madison, as a Canadian international student who had moved to Wisconsin after 10 years working at a school in Honduras,” she says. “Throughout the project, I had the opportunity to connect in different ways with other chapter authors, which opened my eyes to projects and people all over campus focused outside the US context.”

More information about Nordmeyer and Bettney Heidt’s chapter is available here.

Bettney Heidt also partnered with a former faculty member in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Gail Prasad, on a chapter that outlines development of a research-practice partnership between a local school and the Office of Global and Multilingual Education of the Madison Metropolitan School District.”

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