Having international students in your classes provides educators with amazing opportunities to engage and explore so many diverse ideas and approaches. However, most would agree that it can be challenging to effectively engage students from diverse backgrounds, with sometimes very different educational experiences and expectations in Australian classrooms. For this blog I would like to share a vignette that used as part of an earlier research looking at engaging students from Asian backgrounds. I have changed some aspects of the vignette to make it more appropriate for this public blog, but the full paper is available at https://eprints.qut.edu.au/128326/
I have been teaching information technology related subjects for a very long time. Most of my classes consist of domestic and international students…in almost all semesters I have noticed similar problems where most of the international students do not engage actively in class discussions…. I have noticed, almost in every session, that the international students generally are not as forthcoming with discussion questions and answers as the domestic students. This is particularly the case when there are domestic students in the same class as well as the international students. In one occasion, I had divided the class into small groups of three students each made up of randomly selected students, where two groups had one domestic student each and three groups had all international students, that is, there were no domestic students in these three groups. I gave different questions to each of the groups and they were required to discuss the questions amongst their group and give a briefing to the rest of the class. I would visit each group for about two or three minutes each, just to ensure that they were on the correct track and to solve any confusions that they might have. While doing this I will also identify the group dynamics like anyone who may be dominating the discussions, how the members are participating in the discussions, and how disagreements are resolved. The groups that did not have any domestic students in them generally seemed a little slower at organizing themselves, but the group dynamics was great. All the members were suggesting ideas and a great deal of healthy discussion would follow. Most of the time, no one would become too dominant and all the members seemed comfortable to take part in the discussion. In the groups where there was one domestic student each, the international students, apart from very few exceptions, were rather hesitant to talk and suggest ideas and issues. They were generally in agreement with the ideas of these domestic students. The domestic students almost always would end up becoming dominant in the discussions and they would be the ones to volunteer most of the ideas and would also lead the discussion their own way. The international students in these groups had to be asked questions directly, and only after a lot of probing will they provide answers and contribute towards the discussions, and even then would look towards the domestic students for support. In one other occasion, a tutorial session was organized around a general classroom discussion. I would pose questions to the class and ask students to answer them. This would then lead us towards a discussion. Using a number of questions and different tutorials, I noticed that if the first student that answered a question was a domestic student, the international students would not want to or were not too willing to participate in discussions. But if the first student to answer was an international student, the other international students were more comfortable to put forward ideas. Once again a number of direct probing questions had to be used to illicit responses from the international students. I have also come to identify that some international students, although may have excellent and innovative ideas, will not suggest and pursue it, and some would even adopt an ‘inferior’ solution if it is suggested by a domestic student. I have explored some of these ideas in some detail in the full paper, but would be happy to hear your thoughts.
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So what do we mean by internationalising the learning experience?
In a number of previous blogs I have been talking about internationalisation, and also some ideas for embedding international perspectives into the curriculum. Let’s have a look at some of the more curriculum related ideas that can be used to embed internationalisations while designing the learning activities and curriculum. Internationalisation of the learning experiences can take many variations, and most likely implemented gradually as the facilitators become more receptive to the ideas and concepts. At a basic level, it requires students to gain at least some exposure to international ideas, concepts and ways of doing things. These can be through: 1. incorporating ideas, via videos, websites etc. during the delivery of lectures and tutorials so that students are given an opportunity to at least see different perspectives. So when you are looking for examples to demonstrate a concept, aim to identify and use at least one example from a different country. 2. use of international examples in classes. This allows students to experience, albeit at a very basic level, different perspectives from around the world. Students should be required to interrogate these perspectives using their own value positions, and provide balanced justifications for any decisions they may be required to make. These may or may not utilise videos etc. 3. Curriculum should be designed in a way to enable a strength based diversity of ideas and positions. If you are lucky enough to have international students in your classes, engaging them in meaningful ways to provide different ideas and positions. What do I mean by strengths based? All students, international or not, have something unique and significant to offer. If you design your learning activities so that all students get to express their views, not always overtly, then you are creating a more inclusive class. Many international students, due to their cultural backgrounds and experience with different education environments may not willingly offer their own opinions, but appropriately designed learning activities can address this effectively. For example in one of the classes that ‘yours truly’ did a while ago where I had students working in small groups, many students from Confucian heritage backgrounds were willing to accept a domestic students idea over their own, even if in some cases they believed that those ideas were actually inferior to theirs. 4. Offer students the opportunity to work with students physically located in a different country. You might to be surprised to know that academics in other countries are just as interested in developing international perspectives as you are. It would require a bit of work on your part, but seek out potential institutions with similar courses and just contact them. In my case I was able to develop relationships with three different overseas institutions that led to interesting and rewarding activities involving our students. The opportunity to work with group members located overseas creates amazing challenges and learning opportunities for the students. 5. get your students to work on real-life problems that are located in a different country. Seek out significant problems faced by organisations and/or communities around the globe, but focus on a particular country. Get your students to research, identify and develop solutions for these problems. It is also possible to get the students to contact these organisations directly and discuss problems and solutions with them. 6. get the students to work in groups located in a different country, while solving problems located in a third country. So the combination of 4 and 5 above. In one of the previous blogs, I mentioned the relevance of internationalisation the learning experience for our students. The main idea behind internationalisation is that students develop more relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes to operate in a world that is becoming more and more ‘borderless’. Learning activities that enable students to engage with ideas, challenges and solutions from different parts of the world, and experience processes from different parts of the world will allow students to diversify their thinking and approaches to problems.
Many of us, realising the importance of internationalising, have embedded various aspects of internationalisation in our classrooms learning activities. Some of the ways in which we can embed internationalisation perspectives may include:
As outlined in previous blogs, higher education classrooms are becoming more and more diverse. Students from minority groups in the classrooms often face significant challenges, and unfortunately not obvious to most educators. International students, as minority groups in Australia and in the classrooms, face immerse challenges that is magnified by the lack of community and family support outside of the formal education system. Some of these challenges include:
In some classes you sometimes notice students sitting on their own, away from other students. Educators often point out that international students do not take part in classroom discussions and/or ask questions etc. Did you ever find yourself in a situation where you did not know anyone, or did not fully understand the discussions, etc. It’s an uncomfortable situation even for adults, but for teenagers it can be daunting. For example in one research that I did a while ago with a number of my Confucian heritage students in my class, I noticed that they were not offering too much to group work discussions, and particularly concerning for me was that these students were happy to adopt ideas and suggestions offered by domestic Australian students. I started to look more closely at this phenomenon, and identified that even when the ideas and/or suggestions that these international students held back were in fact, in most cases, more superior to what they ended up adopting only because it had been offered by a domestic student. There are a lot more nuanced explanations to this, which might be shared in future blogs. Learning environments that recognise these challenges, and how these manifests in classrooms, and then learning activities that are designed to engage all students are more likely to bring the best in all students. In the case of group work type activities, enable a greater diversity of ideas to be addresses and interrogated. So how can we engage all learners?
Just because we are creating an inclusive curriculum does not mean that we are moving away from the Australian teaching philosophy, quite the contrary….a affair go for all! There are an increasing number of students enrolling in higher education in Australia, in part due to the Australian government’s widening participation agenda, but also the realisation about the transformative impact of higher education (or education generally) on lives of individuals, communities and society as a whole.
Naturally as the number of students increases, so too does the diversity of the students. Diversity manifests in different ways:
Students bring these characteristics to class regardless whether they are domestic or international students. Good teaching practice should create learning environments that is inclusive for all students, regardless of where they are from. Addressing the diversity of learning needs is just good teaching practice…. There has been a lot of coverage in the media recently about how international students tend to take too much resources (time and effort) and at least in one particular piece that appeared in one print media recently, documents the account of one domestic student required to ‘help’ international students, in according to that writer in the form of peer-learning. Peer learning is a legitimate educational and learning approach that has been tried and tested for many years. Prominent researchers have documented and published the benefits of such an approach. However, it certainly is not a way to simply put groups of students together without any structured learning aims and activities. When peer learning is used without any thought it is unlikely to succeed regardless of the students’ backgrounds. One of the things that I have mentioned previously if the need to provide students opportunities to engage in a range of diverse learning experiences and ideas. Classrooms that are rich in diversity provides excellent opportunity for this. With the world of work and research becoming more and more globalised it then becomes even more important to allow students to engage in ideas that have a global impact, and what better way to do this than engaging with diverse ideas that so many of our international students bring with them. Not recognising this will be a lost opportunity. |
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December 2019
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Philippe Put