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Globally Responsive Education and Teaching (GREAT) Program Newsletter
January, 2021

 
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Author of The January Newsletter


                                                               
Peng Zhang
Founding Chair
Globally Responsive Education and Teaching (GREAT) Program
Missouri State University

PhD Candidate
International Education and Education Leadership
George Mason University

Rethinking International Higher Education During the Pandemic: An Indispensable Element, Rather Than an Add-on Service in Higher Education

Unprecedented has been a frequently used word to describe the year 2020. The global pandemic has posed numerous “unprecedented” challenges for international education, which was also attributed to international geopolitical tension and uncertainty. Meanwhile, the pandemic catalyzed innovative ideas and changes in international higher education. More importantly, these challenges allowed educators to rethink why international higher education is critical. This “why question” is fundamental for our daily work and future changes and innovative programs as university faculty, staff, and administrators. In this month’s newsletter, I would like to share my thoughts on why international higher education is still critical, the new trends and forms in international higher education and how the GREAT program plans to support our faculty and staff to pursue these new trends and opportunities.

Why is International Higher Education a Critical Element in Higher Education?

The Essence of International Higher Education - People to People Relationships and Collaborations
The ability to collaborate has been the major force to advance human history and development. In the pre-agricultural revolution era, collaborations in hunting tasks elevated human beings from the middle of the food chain to the top in the natural world. In the agricultural revolution era, collaborations in domesticizing animals and planting crops advanced humans from a hunting-gathering lifestyle to settling in villages and forming cities. The collaborations in inventing machines and working in factories significantly improved human productivity and advanced society to the industrial era. Quality of life and society efficiency were dramatically transformed and improved. The invention of the internet and widely shared information in today’s world leads to more active and closer connections between people beyond borders, which inevitably makes cross-cultural collaborations a critical skill for us to survive, thrive and succeed in our today’s society. International higher education, derived from the mission of promoting intercultural understanding, collaboration, and world peace, helps universities to “integrate international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the purpose, functions, or delivery of post-secondary education” (Knight, 2003, p.2). This mission of international higher education reminds us that the essence of internationalization is about people to people relationship and connections. This people-to-people connection is a critical element in healing society and the world from the pandemic and the tensive and divided global geopolitical environment with intercultural understanding, empathy, a global sense of responsibility, and a spirit of collaboration.

However, this cultural purpose of international higher education has been overlooked in the past decades as many universities in the U.S. has focused on the educational and financial purpose of internationalization (Arabkheradman et al., 2015), which relies on student and faculty mobility in attracting international students to study on the U.S. campuses and exporting knowledge to developing countries. The consequence of overlooking the cultural purpose of international education is that the intercultural component is not intentionally embedded in the curriculum, nor does intercultural interaction be intentionally fostered in class. We often assume that having international students in the class will naturally and automatically create an intercultural learning environment. However, the selective exposure theory illustrates that people tend to select the aspects of information that they are exposed to based on their own perspectives, assumptions, beliefs, and culture, selecting their favorable information and ignoring the unfavorable information and encounters (Sullivan, 2009). Fostering meaningful intercultural interaction and learning is an intentional process. With the significant impact of the pandemic on student and faculty mobility, the intentional internationalization process in our curriculum and classes seems to be more important than ever. This intentional internationalization process could help expand the access to intercultural and global learning for all and further strengthen domestic students and faculty's interest to study and teach abroad, which only accounts for about 10% of current students in the U.S.  

Knowledge Diplomacy
Built on the cultural purpose of international higher education as discussed in the preceding section, the term – knowledge diplomacy emerged in today’s knowledge and information era to frame the importance of intercultural learning in the concrete meaning in practice. The concept of knowledge diplomacy stresses the role of international higher education, global research and innovation in strengthening the relations and collaborations between and among countries, and further advancing our society's development (Knight, 2018). Unlike the term – soft power based on the competition mindset, knowledge diplomacy is a two-way process by focusing on how people to people relationship can be enhanced through international collaborations in higher education. Knowledge diplomacy recognizes that within the global network, many domestic issues are global issues and many global challenges are local challenges, requiring our students and faculty to obtain an understanding of these issues and the ability to tackle them in both the global and local contexts. This reflective, critical, and transformative nature of international higher education frames the comprehensive international higher education into three pillars: global knowledge, global skills, and global citizenship.

Trends of Internationalization of Higher Education
When 2020 became the year of great acceleration in change, it significantly transformed how we live, shop, work, and study. When everything becomes virtual, it helps to democratize creativity as well as diversify the collaboration cultures and expand the collaboration scope. Therefore, global knowledge, global skills, and global citizenship become critical for our future workforce. For example, more and more online tools and platforms, such as Zoom and Teams, virtually and more easily connect people worldwide, making intercultural interactions a necessary experience in our lives.  The new job platforms, such as Upwork, form a world marketplace directly connecting business with individual talents beyond borders and time zones. This makes the work environment significantly more dynamic as people work on projects with various teams around the world. Media platforms such as youtube enable people to create their own content and share their ideas and creativity with the world just by several clicks. Therefore, the great acceleration in virtual technology democratizes people’s creativity and globalizes individual’s connectivity. This means our students are given more opportunities to use their talent to collaborate with the world; meanwhile, the competition in the workforce is becoming more diverse and global. This trend makes international higher education one of the core elements of the higher education curriculum instead of being viewed as an add-on education. Therefore, global learning for all through the internationalization of the curriculum or internationalization at “home” becomes one of the international higher education trends.

A widely accepted definition of internationalization of the curriculum (IoC) is referred to as “the incorporation of an international and intercultural dimension into the content of the curriculum as well as the teaching and learning arrangements and support services of a program of study” (Leask, 2009, p.209). The IoC is not only about having an internationally-focused curriculum, but also about having the curriculum and content help students develop the consciousness and attitude to collaborate in intercultural and international groups (Helms, 2020). “IoC is much more than what people learn; it requires consideration of how people learn and the attitudes they bring to learning” (Breit et al., 2013, p.2). There are several approaches identified by Leask (2001): Structural options and pathways for course design; developing international perspectives in students; and teaching and learning strategies for internationalization (p. 102). In the following section, I will explain each approach from a practice perspective with some successful examples. I hope these ideas can spark more creativity to further engage in internationalization at “home” in your own ways.

Structural Options and Pathways for Course Design
This approach is a more institutional and systematic way to embed international and intercultural dimensions in the curriculum structure and requirements. Some practices in this approach include: integrate intercultural and international elements in the general education courses; open international sections under certain subjects or courses; add study abroad or learn a second language to the graduation requirements, etc.

One successful example is the Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, which was a campus internationalization award-winning college. Agnes Scott College systematically weaves their global learning into their curriculum. They intentionally and progressively provide various levels of global learning experiences.  In the first year, students are offered Global Journeys, which strategically groups internationally-focused courses and sections. Students can further their global learning experiences by earning a global learning specialization, which requires students to take a second language course, participate in study-abroad, conduct global research, etc. In addition, the global co-curricular opportunities, centered on global citizenship, are offered to students to participate in global engagement.

Developing International Perspective in Students
This requires an intentional process through teaching and learning by utilizing international resources on campus. Study abroad has been a popular approach adopted by many universities in the U.S. Meanwhile, with the continuously growing number of international faculty and students on campus, who can naturally bring their international and intercultural elements into teaching and learning,  they can be an instrumentally valuable group to enrich students’ intercultural learning experiences and further students’ global learning via people to people interaction and discussion. Again, the effectiveness of this approach requires an intentional process to develop this connectedness for international faculty and students to campus and curriculum.

Teaching and Learning Strategies
Culturally responsive teaching has been a well-adopted pedagogy in the context of multicultural education. There are two fundamental premises for culturally responsive teaching, including faculty’s belief and awareness about ethical, racial, and cultural diversity, as well as contextualized teaching. This pedagogy would serve well the cultural purpose of international higher education. Moreover, the teaching and learning strategies should also emphasize international and intercultural collaborations to serve the knowledge diplomacy purpose. In order to embed both intercultural competence and collaboration in teaching and learning strategies, international virtual exchange as a teaching practice or strategy has started to emerge and be implemented by many universities in the world. International virtual exchange courses “involves the engagement of groups of learners in extended periods of online intercultural interaction and collaboration with partners from other cultural contexts or geographical locations as an integrated part of their educational programs and under the guidance of educators and/or expert facilitators” (O’Dowd, 2018, p.5). This approach has been highly promoted and endorsed by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) under the U.S. Department of State as well as the Stevens Initiative.

At Missouri State University, to encourage and support our faculty to utilize this international virtual exchange practice to help our students engage in intercultural collaborations and also to form a reflective understanding of the local community in the international context, the Office of International Programs provides a supporting grant for faculty to design and conduct international virtual exchange courses. The office of International Programs also facilitates the process of matching the partner courses via MSU’s international partner university network.

Closing
The unprecedented year 2020 will likely to be unforgettable because of the struggles and stress we encountered when trying to find our ground of life from pandemic uncertainties. It is also likely to be more meaningful for educators in higher education to rethink and reflect on the value and purpose of our work in international higher education. It becomes more evident than ever that international higher education is an indispensable element of higher education to promote people to people relationships via intercultural understanding and international collaborations, which became necessary skills in a more virtually connected world, rather than add-on services as before. Developing global citizens with the aspiration and ability to think globally and act locally is an exciting mission for us to carry on with more opportunities and creativity. Everyone has a role in this task. To me, a fundamental question is what our role and passion are as university educators for helping build an inclusive and peaceful community and the world with care and love?

References 
 

Arabkheradmand, A., Shabani, E., Zand-Moghadam, A., Bahrami, H., Derakhshesh, A., & Golkhandan, A. (2015). An introduction to the internationalization of higher education: Essential topics, Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Breit, R., Obijiofor, L., & Fitzgerald, R. (2013). Internationalization as de-westernization of the curriculum: The case of journalism at an Australian university. Journal of Studies in International Education, 17(2), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315312474897

Helms, R. M. (2020). Can internationalization survive coronavirus? You need to see my data. Higher Education Today. https://www.higheredtoday.org/2020/03/04/can-internationalization-survive-coronavirus-need-see-data/ 

Knight, J. (2003). Updated internationalization definition. International Higher
Education, 33, 2-3. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2003.33.7391

Knight, J. (2018). Knowledge diplomacy or knowledge divide. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20180214084632675

Leask, B. (2001). Bridging the gap: Internationalizing university curricula. Journal of Studies in International Education, 5(2), 100–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/102831530152002.

Leask, B. (2009). Using formal and informal curricula to improve interactions between home and international students. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13, 205-221. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315308329786.

O’Dowd, R. (2018). Telecollaboration to virtual exchange: State-of-the-art and the role of UNICollaboration in moving forward. Journal of virtual exchange, 1. 1-23. DOI:10.14705/rpnet.2018.jve.1.

Sullivan, L. (2009). The SAGE glossary of the social and behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
 

Calling for Articles for GREAT Newsletter

The GREAT Newsletter is published monthly with the aim to promote international teaching and learning, the internationalization of the curriculum, and global research collaborations. All the newsletters are contributed by Missouri State faculty, staff, and administrators to share their experiences and thoughts about international teaching and research. Now we are calling for the articles for Spring 2021. If you are interested in contributing to the GREAT Newsletter, please email your article to PengZhang@MissouriState.edu.

About GREAT Program

The Globally Responsive Education and Teaching (GREAT) program at Missouri State University promotes internalization of the curriculum, advocates intercultural classroom teaching and learning on campus, and facilitates global research collaborations by providing a platform for dialogues between MSU faculty and international scholars.


Website: https://international.missouristate.edu/great.aspx 

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