Ruta Zabityte Andreassen
As a university lecturer and the head of teaching practice for elementary and lower-secondary teacher students ( stages 1-7 and 5-10) at the Faculty of Education and Arts, I am working within the field of professional development of future teachers. My academic background is in language teaching (English and Norwegian) from Vilnius Pedagogical University, Lithuania (now part of Vytautas Magnus University), and the University of Leeds, UK, where I earned my MEd within the field of refugee education and leadership. I have 26 years of experience from a secondary school in Norway as a language teacher, a refugee educator and a school leader in charge of bilingual education for newly arrived students. My fields of interests are teacher professional development, language teaching, reception of newly arrived students in schools, intercultural competence within the professional communities and parents- school collaboration, among several others.
My teaching activities consist of supporting and mentoring teacher students during their teaching practice and supporting teachers in their role as teacher educators in schools. In addition, I am involved in learning partnerships with Dekom-nettworks within professional development and support for schoolteachers.
I am also offering occasional lectures for both pre-service teachers and in-service teachers on the topics such as intercultural competence within professional communities; culturally and linguistically responsive classroom leadership; reception of the newly arrived migrant students and bilingual education in elementary and secondary schools, among others.
The fields of research are family-professional collaboration in multilingual and multicultural educational contexts.