This article discusses some characteristics of the educational framework of the programme and tries to compare the results of the programme as reported by graduates with the 'professional competencies for Sustainable Development’, as formulated by DHO (the organisation for Sustainable Higher Education in the Netherlands). Because of the strong international character of the programme (students from more than 50 different countries in all continents of the world graduated since 1996), a specific issue of concern is the applicability of the Dutch Sustainable Competences in an international setting, and the implications for the teaching and learning approach. The experiental learning theory and the learning styles as defined by Kolb (1984) and the cultural dimensions as described by Hofstede (2009) are used to check this. Results from short online interviews with graduates all over the world illustrate the results of this comparison.
MULTIFILE
International education is a relatively new field and until recently, there was no formal education to prepare practitioners. This means that people working in international education are a colourful and diverse group, coming from a wide range of disciplines, which definitely adds to the attraction of the field. I call international education a field rather than a discipline since it is composed of a variety of established disciplines, such as languages, educational sciences, psychology, business, anthropology, history and even, in my case, classical archaeology. For this lecture, I have chosen to return to my original discipline and discuss global learning as the stages of an archaeological excavation. Cutting though the subsequent layers represents a history of international education but also my own professional history. By digging deeper down, layer after layer, I hope to uncover the essence of global learning in order to make its benefits available for all our students. This lecture consists of four sections. In the first section, I want to go back to the time when archaeology was a new discipline and see what we can learn from the research conducted at that time. In the second section I will reveal the layers of internationalisation and global learning until we come to the layer that we are currently exploring. In the third section, I will look at some of the factors and trends that will have an impact on global learning in the years to come. This shows that circumstances are quite different from when the excavation started and that global education is therefore dynamic. Finally, I will discuss what research the Research Group Global Learning will conduct, how and with whom, in the coming years.
This chapter explores international partnerships as an enabler for internationalisation of home curricula, what these partnerships would look like and what the role of academics and other stakeholders would be. Student activities within an internationalised curriculum at home, such as online international collaboration, fall outside the scope of this chapter. Instead, the chapter focuses on the role of academics in building partnerships that support curriculum development through the internationalisation of learning outcomes. The chapter begins with a discussion of the state of flux that resulted from the shift towards internationalisation at home. While many universities have embraced this concept,implementation is not without challenges. Two of the main obstacles are discussed, these being the imperfect conceptualisation of internationalisation at home and the lack of skills of academic staff. A symptom of the former is confusion over terminology. A discussion on terminology has no place in this chapter but a reference is made to recent literature that discusses terminology and definitions. The latter obstacle, the lack of skills of academics,is discussed extensively, particularly with regard to the internationalising of learning outcomes. This will reveal that current professional development does not seem effective in addressing the lack of skills of academics. While academics continue their struggle with the conceptualisation of internationalising learning outcomes, the question is raised as to whether international partnerships could contribute to internationalisation of the home curriculum and if so, how. In order to find an answer, the literature on partnerships is looked at in order to understand to what extent literature is explicit about partnerships that are conducive to internationalisation at home and about the role, character, benefits and requirements of such partnerships.On the basis of the conclusion that literature is implicit on this topic, the chapter builds an argument for using international partnerships as a tool for collaboration on the internationalisation of home curricula. The characteristics of such partnerships for the future then follows. These are partnerships at programme level with academics as key actors focused on benchmarking the internationalisation of learning outcomes, combining mobility with professional development and linked to quality assurance. The benefits of such partnerships, their organisation and the role of stakeholders are subsequently discussed. Finally, the chapter argues that, without a structured approach to learning outcomes, collaboration will not be effective and international partnerships will not reach their full educational potential. Partnerships for the future, by making internationalisation of curricula a cross-border collaboration, can help to achieve the ‘internationalisation’ of internationalisation at home.
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