www.escalate.ac.uk

Improving Teaching and Learning for International Students: Strategies for

Supervision and Assessment

ESCalate & ‘Teaching International Students’ Collaboration

Fiona Hyland11th May 2010

University of Bristol

ESCalate – The Subject Centre for Education

• Bulletins and newsletters

• Funding

• External Examiner register

• Events

• Resources

http://escalate.ac.uk/5248

Key Challenges as perceived by staff & students in the study

Student Interaction

Teaching & Learning Issues

Curriculum

Entry Requirementsfor Students

HEI Strategy &Staff Buy-in

Internationalisation

What have you learnt about yourself?

• ‘That I know nothing.’ ‘What I know is… Anglo American content … in all my knowledge… The students I teach aren’t in that tradition, and they do teach me a lot, they do inspire me and I learn a lot from my students and I hopefully always will … but in order for a lecturer to go beyond that is asking a huge amount from a lecturer… if we had a paradigm of an international lecturer, what would they be? They’d be multilingual, they’d be well travelled, they’ll have lived abroad in a number of different countries and worked abroad … they would know the theory and content of a number of different parts of the world … and how many of us around the world fit into that category? – very few. So it’s a huge demand on the lecturer here.’ (Staff)

Teaching International Students

• Higher Education Academy in partnership with UKCISA

• Co-funded by Academy & PMI2• 2 year project

Why TIS?

• UK: 15% and rising

(22.9% increase 2010: UUK)

• 66% of full-time taught postgraduates;

50% of full-time research degree students

(43% of all research postgraduates)

Aims

• 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

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?

Future activities

• Further development of the website and resources (videos, podcasts)

• Future programme of events in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over next 16 months

• Invitations to influence policy eg QAA, PMI, British Council, ELT practitioners etc

• Possible international conference 2011

Getting involved

• Contact internationalisation@heacademy.ac.uk

• Via website: www.heacademy.ac.uk/internationalstudents

In Groups…

Tell each other: • who you are & why you came here,

• 1 story about teaching in an ‘international classroom’ around the theme of either:– Supervision or– Assessment

An example… ‘The problem with making assumptions’

• ‘In one unit on Qualitative Research Methodologies a couple of years ago, there were now two groups of students. I realised that there were more Chinese students than before and that all of the Chinese students in both groups were regularly sitting together. Previously there had been only a few Chinese students and, I must admit, I hadn’t really noticed where they had sat. The Chinese students and the other international students also seemed to have similar questions and problems and seemed disconnected from the local students. The local students seemed completely uninterested in mixing with the international students and tended to dominate the discussion in class, try as I might to get everyone to talk.

• Were (the international students) starting at a lower level and should I adjust my teaching?... I thought that the local students already had quite good skills.

• …to my surprise, the following week when they turned up for the new self-selected groups, both international and local students almost equally chose each group. ‘

Extract from: TIS Resource Bank, Intercultural Competencies, Mixing learning & working together, A teacher’s account…

Afternoon plenary

1. Question I want answered right now

2. Question I want TIS to make as a priority for the next year

3. Questions I need to take back to my own university about teaching international students