Transcript The Higher Education Academy

A new initiative:
‘Teaching International Students’
Dr Fiona Hyland
ESCalate,
Subject Centre for Education
QUILT Conference
University of Cardiff
8 February 2010
A presentation in 2 parts:
Listening: The ‘Changing World’ project & IaH
Acting: A new national initiative –
Teaching International Students
A Changing World: the internationalisation
experiences of staff and students (home and
international) in UK Higher Education
Fiona Hyland, Sheila Trahar,
Julie Anderson & Alison Dickens
http://escalate.ac.uk/5248
Aims
To explore the perspectives of students and staff on:
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what the terms 'internationalisation' etc, mean to them,
the extent of internationalisation within their institution,
the effects on teaching and learning,
their challenges & successes.
Methods
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15 Focus groups in February to May 2008
5 locations with participants from across UK
A range of disciplines e.g. Business, Engineering,
Education, Sociology, Arts, English, Mathematics
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Separate groups of international & home students
Topic guide
Key Challenges as perceived by staff & students in the study
HEI Strategy &
Staff Buy-in
Entry Requirements
for Students
Student Interaction
Internationalisation
Teaching &
Learning Issues
Curriculum
HEI strategy & staff buy-in
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“internationalisation means recruitment; it means
reaching out and pulling students in". Staff
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“probably in a lot of cases the people who decide
how many students (as many as possible) are not the
people who then have to deal with them... So I think
the problem is basically that the system has become
too financially driven without, you know, care for the
quality” Staff
Entry requirements
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Concerns about how English language tests (IELTS,
TOEFL) are used, what scores are required
“one person I lived with actually … it’s a sad story,
because she was doing a music course, and she
actually had to quit her course because she couldn’t
cope. I was like ‘Well why did the University let her
in?’ – I, kind of, got a bit angry… they really shouldn’t
have let in if her English was so bad that she couldn’t
cope with the course.” (Home Student)
The Curriculum
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For the international marketplace
Embedding internationalisation vs tagging on extra
modules / case studies
Different disciplines, different approaches
Accreditation restrictions
Graduate attributes
Teaching & Learning
“Yeah, when I came to the lecture room it seems like
white people sit at the back, white people, and then in
the middle some like me, yellow coloured people, and
then at the front, black people. And when they divide
groups, just like Malaysia students will go with Malaysia
students. Muslim students would like to go with Muslim
students. White people will get white people together..
people are still sitting (like this) for a whole year”
International Student
Teaching & Learning
• Staff suggestions: what worked for them
• Group work was seen as challenging, but
effective when encouraged
Student Interactions
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Cultural cliques
Language
HEI and degree
course barriers
Cultural differences
in socialising
Student:
I guess we didn’t mention it (alcohol),
because it’s so obvious, it’s just there.
Student
… my interpretation of the word sociable is:
helpful, supportive, friendly, maybe patient,
things like that. It turned out to be different
here.
Moderator
what is it here, your perception?
Student
As experienced in my hallway, it means being
able to drink more than 10 pints of beer an
hour. If you can do that, you’re very sociable.
Otherwise, you may be intermediate.
Internationalisation at Home
We don’t do it actually (make the effort to get to know
international students). I mean that’s the problem. It’s
also our responsibility to find out and we don’t actually
do it, we find so many excuses, like ‘I have to do this,
and this, and this’. (Home Student)
Generally, this is a positive report:
internationalisation enriches lives
So no matter how much I might have tried it’s only by having
students from Ghana, from Nigeria, from Taiwan and from India
who when they talk about (their contexts) you can begin to
understand the parallels and the contrasts and comparisons and it
brings a dynamic to the learning that is so real, so alive, so
energised, that no textbook, no amount of me preparing to
remember to say ‘oh and in Singapore it might be different, oh and
in Canada they do this'. There’s no way that I could have created
that. That is a very dynamic and creative element of the learning for
students and for me. (Staff)
Conclusions
HEI Strategy &
Staff Buy-in
Entry Requirements
for Students
Student Interaction
Internationalisation
Teaching &
Learning Issues
Curriculum
IaH through the Curriculum
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Internationalising the lecturer?
• Sanderson (2008)
• Teekens (2000)
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How ‘local’ is the content?
• CICIN, Oxford Brookes University
• Haigh (2009)
IaH and intercultural competencies
e.g. Stier (2003)
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Content – knowledge about other cultures
Intrapersonal
• Cognitive e.g self-reflection
• Emotional e.g. avoiding judgements
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Interpersonal
• Communication competence
IaH and student interaction
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Doesn’t just happen you need strategic interventions
(Leask, 2007)
Managed (long-term) group work
Mentoring/buddies
Using learning outcomes which value cross-cultural
learning
Global citizenship schemes
At the same time, in 2008/9, a national
initiative was being proposed …
Teaching International Students
• Run by the Higher Education Academy
• Funded through the Academy, UKCISA &
PMI2
• 2 year project
The Team
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Janette Ryan
Jude Carroll
And many
others across
UK
Teaching International Students - Aims
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Raise the profile of teaching and learning for international
students
Establish a repository of national and international
research
Identify and disseminate information and guidance
Provide guidance on staff development strategies
Establish a network of interested people
A one stop shop…
The International Student
'Lifecycle'
Pre-arrival
support
Induction
Teaching &
Learning in the
'classroom'
Life outside the
'classroom'
Employability &
next steps
Learning
Curriculum
Intercultural
Competencies
Transition
Teaching
Context
Teaching
Approaches
Extract from Internationalising
the Curriculum section
Strategies include:
• Considering with students how knowledge/content might
be alternatively constructed in different cultures.
• Ensuring that learning outcomes include values and skills
as well as knowledge.
• Discussing relevant ethical issues in international
contexts.
• Giving time in sessions to considering how professional
practices might differ across the world.
• Building-in experiential learning so that students can
experience and reflect on the intercultural aspects of their
learning alongside the core disciplinary learning.
Empathy Game – ‘Not knowing the rules’
Based on Leask, B. (2000). Teaching NESB and International Students of the University of South Australia,
Teaching Guide. Adelaide: University of Adelaide.
Also quoted in Carroll & Ryan (2005; p. 143)
Make a simple set of cards by cutting up paper and with different colour pens writing the numbers 1 - 10 on a
few of them (draw a line under 6s and 9s to show which way is 'up'). On the remaining cards draw a few
random marks such as black dots in some corners, green triangles at the base, perhaps a blue square in the
top left corner and so on.
Then divide participants into smaller groups of five or six people. Tell them to devise a simple card game
based on Top Trumps or Snap. The rules need to be easy to learn and they need to use the numbers and
markings on the card. The game needs to identify who is a winner and who is a loser in each round of play.
Groups are bullied NOT to devise too complex a game!
Allow groups to practise for three or four minutes until everyone is an expert.
Then ask one person from each group to leave the room.
Pass round the room a sheet of paper that specifies a change in the rules – for example, that all red
numbers are doubled for everyone who has stayed in the room but not for the returner (i.e. a 3 becomes a 6
etc). Or that anyone with a green triangle is automatically the winner – which applies to incomer plus the
remaining group. Or that black numbers don't count.
The groups now play the game with the additional rule, until it goes smoothly - maybe a minute or two.
Invite the people who had gone outside to return and re-join the game. The groups are instructed to be
friendly but not to explain what is different, just play. The groups are allowed to play for a maximum of five
minutes.
After this, ask groups to discuss how they felt about the outsider; and ask the outsider to express how they
felt. What was going on for the outsider? How much 'head space' was devoted to trying to understand the
new situation?
Ask groups to consider how they could have helped the outsider?
Provisional dates for collaborative Subject
Centre events
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5 March BMAF in Leicester
11 May ESCalate in Bristol
30 April Economics Network, LSE London
May: Psychology
June: Engineering
June: Languages, Linguistics & Area Studies
Strategies for supervision & assessment
● A TIS / ESCalate event
● Tues 11th May 2010
● University of Bristol
● Facilitators:
Jude Carroll
Sheila Trahar
● http://escalate.ac.uk/6560
Further details from:
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/home
Activity
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Tell your neighbour about two cultural groups to
which you think you belong.
What are some of the characteristics of these
groupings which you would need to bear in mind
when communicating with people from other groups?