Dr. Paul Beedle
Manager, Professional Development Certification
University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE)

Paul Beedle has a Ph D in Social Anthropology from University of Cambridge. His dissertation, ‘Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town’ was based on fieldwork in The Gambia, West Africa.

After gaining his Ph D, he held a Research Fellowship in Social Policy and Administration at the University of Kent at Canterbury, investigating Public Opinion about the Welfare State.

Paul has dedicated most of his career to research and development in the field of Educational Assessment, in which he holds a Master of Education degree from the University of Bristol. He was a Senior Research Officer at the City and Guilds of London Institute, responsible for research into policy and practice in the field of vocational qualifications. He joined Cambridge Assessment in 1987, and Cambridge International Examinations in 1998, where he has been responsible for the development of a wide range of international qualifications for general and vocational education, with a particular interest in skills assessment. Working with experts such as Bob Burkill, he has created and manages the Cambridge International Certificate and Diploma for Teachers and Trainers, and other international qualifications for educators around the world.

He has presented papers at International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA), European Council for International Schools (ECIS), and numerous other international conferences, and has a number of publications, including A Case Study of the Development on an International Curriculum in the SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education.

With Dean Roberts and the examiner team, he has designed and manages the portfolio arrangements and external examining for the ITC. Paul works closely with Mary Langford at ECIS to ensure the quality, effectiveness and success of the ITC as a whole.

Mary E. Langford
Deputy Executive Director and Instructor for the ITC
European Council of International Schools

Mary Langford has worked almost every facet of school life: administration and personnel, admissions, alumni, public relations, marketing and communications, teaching (ESL and Spanish), and as head of school in both the European-based schools offering a combination of US, UK and IB curricula. She has also been a consultant advising expatriate families seeking school placements in the UK and abroad, and in her early years worked in diplomatic and political positions in Washington, DC. A textbook ‘global nomad’ herself, Mary attended eight schools in three languages before completing her secondary education. She attended The College of William and Mary in Virginia, George Mason University, and University of Texas where she completed her BA with a double major in Modern Languages/Latin American Humanities; and she earned her MA in International Education from the University of Bath. Funded in part by an ECIS Fellowship and working under the supervision of Prof. Jeff Thompson and Mary Hayden, her graduate research published in 1997 focused on global nomads and international schools. To her delight, many of the conclusions and recommendations resulting from her quantitative research and published in her dissertation are now incorporated into the ITC syllabus.

Mary’s articles have been published in Britain, Europe, the Far East, and in the USA; she was a contributing author in International Education: Principles and Practice and the Essential Guide for International School Teachers. She is also a consulting editor for The Good Schools Guide International. Mary has spoken at wide range of seminars, conferences and workshops (including ECIS, The Association of International Schools in India, European Association of Relocation Agents, Chartered Institute of Linguists, US State Department, University of Bath, Independent Schools Council (UK), and numerous PTAs and international women’s clubs), and she has been interviewed for newspapers, radio and television on the subject of international education and the effects of mobility on children and families. She has visited nearly 70 international schools worldwide, and has served on accrediting teams with CIS, ECIS, NEASC and MSA in schools in Denmark, Belgium, Hungary, the US, Vietnam, Switzerland, Chile, Spain and Panama. In 2007, Mary joined ECIS as the Deputy Executive Director. Amongst her many responsibilities at ECIS is oversight of ECIS certificate programs including the ITC, ILMP (with Fieldwork Education and the National Association of Head Teachers) and the SISG (Sustainable International Schools Governance Program) which she created with Adele Hodgson. She manages the ITC in collaboration with Paul Beedle of University of Cambridge International Exams, she participated in the publication of the revised syllabus, and she also serves as an instructor at the ITC Institutes addressing the areas of language issues, mobility and transition.

Dean Roberts
Chief Examiner and Instructor for the ITC
University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE)

Dean Roberts, who is British, has been involved in the teaching profession since 1990. His first teaching post was at an overseas American school in northern Thailand. He found this to be a very positive and fulfilling experience, and his four years at the school provided the initial motivation for him to further his development as a teacher. On returning to England in 1995, Dean took up a post at a large secondary school – a very different educational context and one in which he gained valuable experience of the relatively new English National Curriculum. It was during this period that he first became involved in teaching adults, as a part-time trainer of computer-based office skills. He also began a Masters Degree in Education, focusing on further, adult and higher education.

Since 1999 Dean has been a consultant for University of Cambridge International Exams (CIE), as well as a Principal Examiner and Principal Moderator of IGCSE English. He continues to develop support materials for teachers of IGCSE ESL and he has conducted many face-to-face training workshops outside the UK during the past 9 years. Dean has also inspected schools for CIE and in addition to his work for CIE, he is a Coursework Moderator for AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) in England (for GCSE English) and he works as a Team Leader of the A2 Orals for the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

Dean has also been involved with CIE's Diploma for Teachers and Trainers from the outset and has helped with its development over the past few years. He works as a Diploma Examiner - and has done so for 5 years. It was his position and experience with CIE’s professional development department which led to his involvement with ECIS and the ITC.. With Paul Beedle, Dean was responsible for designing the structure and content of the ITC syllabus and its supporting documents. Together, they hope that they have put in place a program of professional development for internationally-minded teachers which has rigorous and reliable assessment at its core. Dean is the Chief Examiner of the ITC, leading the team of Assistant Examiners who assess the portfolios of all ITC student teachers
As part of his ongoing commitment and involvement with the ITC, Dean works as the lead presenters at ITC Institutes (having taught in Institutes in Nice, Brussels, Madrid, Havana and Rio de Janeiro) where he focuses on helping new ITC course participants develop their electronic portfolios. He also conducts the Online Induction course for new ITC course participants, and mid-way through each program, oversees the ‘Ask the CIE Examiner’ session.

Mary Margaret was born in the U.S. but grew up as a Third Culture Kid, living in Venezuela, Portugal, France, Libya, and England. She returned to the U.S. for her university and postgraduate studies, earning a BA and then a PhD in English at the University of Texas in Austin. In her doctoral dissertation, she wrote about 19th century British women’s autobiography. Mary Margaret started her career in the late 1980s as a teacher in China at the Dalian University of Technology teaching British and American literature to Chinese English teachers. Returning to the US, she then held posts as an English teacher and later as a high school principal at two American independent schools.

In 2003, Mary Margaret and her family moved to London where she took up the position of high school principal at The American School in London, the school she had attended as a high school student herself. The opportunity to resume international life and to afford her children the chance to live abroad was irresistible! Throughout her years as a teacher and senior school leader, the theme of global citizenship has persisted in her thinking about what schools should do. This led, in 2007, to further formal study when Mary Margaret enrolled in an MSc program in development and globalization at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. She wanted to immerse herself in the study of the third world—the global south—as a way of deepening her understanding of international-mindedness. Her MSc dissertation was about girls’ education in the Middle East and focused on the conundrum at the heart of development efforts and education: what is the relationship between giving girls access to education and the potential for education to challenge conservative stereotypes about gender roles? Mary Margaret is now permanently based in London.

In addition to her work with the ITC, Mary Margaret is a mentor in the International Leadership and Management Program run by Fieldwork Education in association with ECIS and the National Association of Head Teachers. In that program, she mentors senior school leaders in international schools in an online course designed to build their leadership capacity and to improve their schools. Mary Margaret is interested in how schools promote global citizenship and the habits of mind that equip young people to be empathetic, peace-making and curious life-long learners. Complementing her professional work is voluntary work Mary Margaret does with the Red Cross and its refugee services.

As ITC Course Tutor, Mary Margaret is responsible for the academic oversight of the ITC Discussion Forum and Manager of the ECIS ITC Moodle website. She is there to assist and support participants with questions about the course content and to lead on-line discussion in areas of interest to the ITC.

Douglas W. Ota
Consultant, Psychologist, Mediator, and Instructor for the ITC

Doug Ota’s career can best be summarized by the word ‘place’.  Growing up in California, ‘place’ for him has progressively shifted east.  He moved east to earn a degree in Philosophy of Religion from Princeton University in New Jersey, and then followed his Dutch wife further east to settle in the Netherlands.  He graduated cum laude with a Master’s in Clinical Child Psychology at the University of Leiden, where his doctorandus dissertation investigated the importance of coherent place attachments for the globally mobile.  He has done further professional development through Dutch and US organisations (including Harvard Medical School Department of Continuing Education and the Project Zero Consortium for International Schools), has earned advanced certifications as an NIP Child Psychologist and an NMI Mediator, and continues to work towards his doctorate at the University of Bath and his registration as a psychotherapist.

Doug began his career at the American School of the Hague (ASH), teaching everything from writing to computers to photography and moving into counselling.   After serving as the High School Counselor at ASH for over a decade, Doug has now become a private practitioner, mediator, and international consultant specializing in addressing the challenges of moving across cultures.  His expertise in mobility grew from his work at ASH, where he was one of the founders of the school’s transitions programme.  With initial funding in 1998 from Royal Dutch Shell, ASH’s ‘Transitions Program Team’ quickly evolved into a highly effective programme for addressing mobility’s challenges and under Doug’s leadership ASH’s Transitions Program Team has become an international leader in the field.  Recently re-branded ‘A Safe Harbour’, it is considered an exemplar program amongst international schools for addressing mobility across all three populations (students, parents, and staff), throughout all phases of the mobility cycle (pre-arrival through post departure).

Doug has done numerous international presentations and workshops on Safe Harbour and mobility across cultures around the world at the Families in Global Transition Conference, Counselor Training Center, ECIS (where he has served as Chairman of the Cross Culture Committee) and at several international schools, and has served as a consultant for major organizations such as Shell.  Together with Third Culture Kid co-author Ruth van Reken and others, Doug has been developing a book on addressing mobility in international schools, and hopes to see that in publication sometime in the coming years.  Doug is looking forward to making a contribution to the participants at the ITC and their respective schools!

Eileen Penman
ITC Course Administrator

Eileen is the ITC Course Administrator (or ‘Mother Hen’). In recent years, Eileen Penman has been working as an Educational Consultant in the UK, and with ECIS on the International Teacher Certificate program and other areas. Eileen has a BA in English from San Diego State University and an MA in counseling from University of San Diego. She is also a TOEFL Board Member and was the first high school representative on the TOEFL Board, serving from 2001-2005 and has been a professional member of Advanced Placement Advisory Committee 2004-2006 and SAT Supervisors' Advisory Group 2001-2006.

Previously, Eileen was a teacher of high school English and history in California, Nairobi International School and London (as a Fulbright exchange teacher). She was also Counseling department chair at Valhalla High School, El Cajon California 1984-90 and Counselor and senior class dean at The American School in London 1990-2006.

Whilst at The American School in London Eileen served on the ECIS Guidance and Counseling Committee for 7 years, 4 of which she was Chair of the committee. She leads 8 ECIS counselor tours of UK universities, and in 2006 was honoured by ECIS with the Award for the Promotion of International Education.

She deals with the recruitment and admission (along with Sabina Mazurek) of new teachers into the ITC programme, and as the original ITC ‘mother hen’ is available to any ITC participants who feel they need some guidance of a personal or pastoral nature during the ITC year.

Corinne Rosenberg
Intercultural Trainer and Instructor for the ITC

Corinne Rosenberg began her career as an EAL teacher and counsellor, and is now an intercultural and global diversity training consultant. Her BA is in American Studies and her MSc is in Strategic Training and Development. She was trained as a counsellor, and has a diploma in EAL. She is a member of CIPD, IFAL and SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural training, Education and Research. She grew up in the UK, has lived in Israel and the US, and currently resides London but maintains a transatlantic life.

Corinne has twenty years’ experience in the design, development and delivery of training workshops and seminars for educational institutions, major corporations, and non-profit agencies in the United States, Britain and across Europe. She has coached hundreds of expatriate families on managing effective overseas assignments, intercultural interactions and managing intercultural teams. Having a strong interest in creating long-term systemic change management, Corinne ran a longitudinal study over six months which demonstrated behavioural change through action learning in a team representing Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She has published on this topic and is looking to replicate these results with action learning or small group coaching in international schools. She works on informal intercultural interactions between stakeholders, not just as challenges but also as opportunities for learning about tacit cultural assumptions and expectations. Her approach uses ongoing reflective practice to unleash the intercultural skills that international schools can develop to maximise intercultural learning and responsiveness

While working in the US for twelve years, Corinne developed and instituted a diversity training programme for twenty-eight offices across the United States for the Anti-Defamation League as part of the nationally acclaimed World of Difference Institute. She facilitated workshops and trained teachers across the US, as this project was focused on both students and parents in schools.

Corinne has presented many sessions at ECIS annual November conferences. She runs PD workshops for international schools on developing intercultural skills through action learning and reflective practice. She also facilitates seminars with senior managers on intercultural leadership and has presented on this topic to school principals and senior managers at the International Leadership and Management Program. Corinne has worked with ECIS and University of Cambridge International Examinations on the International Teacher Certificate since its inception, and participated in the publication of the revised syllabus. She is a regular presenter at the ITC Institutes and stays in touch through the ITC Discussion Forum.

Satu Kreula
Intercultural Trainer and Instructor for the ITC

Satu is originally from Finland, but she grew up in Brazil and the US, and she currently resides in Brighton, on the south coast of England. Satu is an executive coach and facilitator working primarily with individuals and teams in improving their ability to manage difference, increasing their intercultural sensitivity and enhancing cross-cultural communication to ensure overall effectiveness and increased productivity. Her professional background is in leadership development and cross-cultural communication. She has worked in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Employers and clients have included: Nokia, Shell, EBRD, Laban University, Nordic Chambers of Commerce (London), Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), Raleigh International, and Focus Expatriate Services. She is an associate at itim, Exetor and ASK Europe.

Satu has vast international experience. She’s lived and worked in six countries on three continents. In addition, her work has taken her to over 35 countries on six continents (she’s visited 67 in total). Satu is multilingual: she speaks English, Finnish, fluent Spanish, good French and Swedish, and basic Portuguese. She has a Masters degree in Organisational Behaviour and Intercultural Communication from the Helsinki School of Economics. She is a graduate of CoachU and a licensed Firework Career Coach, and she has been awarded the designation of Associate Certified Coach (ACC) by the ICF (International Coach Federation). She is also a certified MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) (C) administrator. In addition, Satu is a member of SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research) and holds the certification to conduct and assess the Intercultural Development Inventory ©.

Sabina Mazurek
Administrative Assistant
European Council of International Schools

Sabina Mazurek is Polish and has been living and working in Petersfield for two years. She has also lived in the USA. Sabina earned a Master’s Degree in Occupational Psychology from the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. She joined ECIS at the end of 2008. Sabina works closely alongside Mary Langford and Eileen Penman with behind-the scenes arrangements for the ITC, as well as the ILMP and SISG. Sabina is enthusiastic, occasionally visits the ITC Discussion Forum, and is always happy to help our ITC participants in any way she can.