Disciplinary perspectives on internationalising the curriculum

2021

The next 25 years will present interesting challenges for those who seek to fully internationalise the higher education curriculum. Developments such as MOOCs could open up the sector to a much more diverse, global range of students, but the lack of campus interaction could impede the kind of multicultural learning that goes on when students from different cultures and countries mix. Much has been written about the purpose of internationalisation and what it means for universities, for students and for staff. My standpoint is that if internationalisation aims to enhance institutional and academic quality, the ultimate beneficiaries will be students and they should be at the heart of our efforts. We can do this, in part, through internationalising the curriculum.

Innovations in Internationalisation at Home, 2021

2016

Chapter 7: The use of IoC theories within a public health programme and the creation of a transtheoretical approach to sustain curriculum development Gann et al. (Chapter 5) explore how best to achieve staff buy-in to IoC through the provision of supportive checklist tools. Integrated into routine course development and review processes, such tools can be used to prompt integration of international learning activities into the curriculum, while reducing additional pressures on staff time. It is clear that such tools, if used in a collaborative discursive environment, can effect meaningful change in staff engagement but need to be used at a sufficiently early stage in course design. In Chapter 6, Simmons highlights the necessity of investing in staff and presents evidence from Coventry University's project to introduce Online International Learning projects (OIL). The Chapter details the institutional support provided to staff to enable them to develop new ideas and delivery models, which includes provision of new teaching and learning technologies, finding and sustaining the partnerships required, cascading evidence of good practice from early adopters, and recognising effort and engagement through staff appraisals processes. A series of case studies provide illustration of the opportunities available through OIL projects in a variety of disciplines including, performance, creative writing, physiotherapy and computing. In Chapter 7, Markwell examines the process of developing an internationalised curriculum in Public Health at Oxford Brookes University. Employing multiple models of reflective practice, the Chapter shows that while change is possible, effective IoC, of the sort that can engender deep and meaning shifts in intercultural confidence, requires thoughtful consideration, listening and reflecting. It is of particular importance for staff to listen to and be aware of their own biases. The chapter demonstrates just how complex and comprehensive effective IoC can be. Through the process of reflection, however, Markwell is able to offer a model of change management, which itself draws inspiration from models of intercultural communication, whereby resistances and denials are identified, examined and worked through. The chapters in this section highlight how challenging effective IoC initiatives can be for academic staff, particularly when change involves a radical reorganisation of the structure and duration of the academic year. Establishing offices to support transition and providing dedicated educational developers, as also described by Simmons, can help substantially. While there remain certain challenges, all of the authors that address staff engagement, highlight how, with proper investment and support, significant transformations can be achieved that not only support IaH at home activities and the employability of students, but also improve recruitment and enhance the skills and competencies of staff members involved. Collectively, the articles and case studies collected here, illustrate a number of common themes and concerns. They all call for more nuance in how we approach IoC, being mindful of different disciplinary contexts and cultures. They favour a move away from sweeping agendas towards focus on the specificities of practice for different constituencies, which includes understanding how individuals-staff and students-begin their engagement with IoC from very different starting points. This requires institutional investment of time and resources but also a continued reflection and evaluation of practice.

Green, W. & Whitsed, C. (Eds). Critical perspectives on internationalizing the curriculum in disciplines: Reflective narrative accounts from business, education and health. Sense Publishers: Dordrecht, Netherlands.

Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal, 2019

Faculty and student mobility are one component of internationalization, but one that often receives most of the attention, while only reaching a small percentage of students and staff. Universities around the world have embarked on individual journeys in internationalizing the curriculum (IoC) and Internationalization at Home (IaH). With the support of technology, international and intercultural learning is possible for all students. Online projects create opportunities for innovative ways to foster intercultural competence, interdisciplinary and transformative learning, without the constrictions of space or time. At the culmination of the German Rector's Conference in Germany, the University of Goettingen received funding to initiate its first pilot projects of IoC through digitally supported teaching and learning projects. This paper describes a qualitative case study conducted in the fourth year of the pilot projects. It will examine the perceived value that IoC has added in regard to the unique program of study, the curriculum, and individual learning for faculty and students. For the purpose of this research, individual interviews with faculty and students were transcribed and analyzed using a phenomenographic approach. The results of the case study could be significant for reforming institutional teaching and learning policies, sustainability proposals, and as a beacon for other institutions.

International Journal of Development Research, 2019

The present text deals with the Internationalization of the Curriculum (IoC) as a practice of inclusion and its contribution to the formation of individuals qualified to act in an increasingly globalized world. It is essentially a bibliographical research that discusses the themes of inclusion, intercultural competences and internationalized curriculum in higher education. Copyright © 2019, Jocélia Martins Marcelino et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Journal of International Students

In recent years, there has been growing acknowledgement that our interconnected world requires graduates with international and intercultural perspectives, a global outlook, or to develop as global citizens. One result of this has been greater recognition of the importance of curriculum internationalization as a central focus in a comprehensive approach to internationalization. Betty Leask recognizes the importance of the intercultural in this endeavor, as well as the international, in arguing that: An internationalized curriculum will engage students with internationally informed research and cultural and linguistic diversity and purposefully develop their international and intercultural perspectives as global professionals and citizens. (Leask, 2015, p. 10) Earlier, Josef Mestenhauser, one of the great scholar-practitioners and pioneers in the field, described international education as multi-dimensional, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural (Mestenhauser, 1998), a view largely reinforced across the literature today. But this begs the question, what do we mean by 'culture,' and so what does it mean to talk of the intercultural when we refer to curriculum? Adrian Holliday (1999) argues that the default notion of culture is really a large culture paradigm, for example, relating to nationality or ethnicity. Perhaps we fall too easily into thinking of our students as coming from a certain country, religious or ethnic background, with the result that stereotyping, biases, and assumptions may follow (Jones, 2017).

This paper discusses ways in which student interaction and integration may be achieved through curriculum design. It approaches the challenge of localinternational student interaction by addressing the shortcomings of traditional curriculum development that may not take into consideration the diversity of the student cohort adequately. The paper highlights and integrates important considerations for internationalisation with various key issues in curriculum development, including; rationale and philosophy behind the subject; aims and objectives; assessment structure; balance between content and skills; industry relevance and workload management.

International Journal of Higher Education Management, 2020

leedsmet.ac.uk

This theme includes papers and articles which explore the meanings attributed to key phrases and attempt to define key concepts within the field of internationalisation as it relates specifically to learning, teaching and assessment practice and curriculum design and delivery in higher education. Many contributions provide concrete examples of activities to support multicultural learning and embed international dimensions in curricula.

De Wit, H. (Ed) (2013) An Introduction to Higher Education Internationalisation, 2013

There has been much debate recently about the nature and purpose of internationalisation along with the drivers for change. For some universities, success is viewed primarily in terms of institutional performance through global rankings, research collaboration, international partnerships and networks and statistics on international student/staff numbers and exchange programmes. For others, the focus is on student learning outcomes through internationalisation; how can international experiences, global perspectives on one’s discipline and cross-cultural capability benefit students in the long term through enhanced personal and employability skills? Such a driver needs more qualitative measures and, as such, may be more difficult or time-consuming to evidence. This paper will identify a range of student learning contexts in international education and will explore some of the research which evidences transformational development through internationalisation. It will be seen that this can arise through study abroad or exchange, work placements or international volunteering. The article will go on to list a number of personal and transferable skills shown in the literature to result from international experiences. It will argue that research is now needed on students who do not travel overseas as part of their programme but are studying domestically through an internationalised curriculum. In order to extend our understanding of the benefits and the means of delivering curriculum internationalisation at home, evidence is required of the achievement of internationalised student learning outcomes for all students, not only those who have studied, worked or volunteered overseas. Evidence of how students take forward these gains into the workplace will further support a student-led, values-based approach to internationalisation through curriculum development.

International Higher Education, 2015

Institutions of higher education, national governments and (inter)national organizations have become more proactive, comprehensive, diverse, and innovative in their approaches to internationalization. Critical reflection on their outcomes, and in particular their impact on student learning, has resulted in a search for approaches to internationalization that have deeper meaning and greater impact. However, it is only relatively recently that questions related to the relationship between the internationalization of higher education, the curriculum and the disciplines have been explored in depth. Some of these questions are discussed, such as the relationship between ‘at home’ and ‘abroad’, the role of mobility, the role of contexts and the definition of internationalization of the curriculum.