Impact

Faculty toolkit to promote international teaching available April 14

University Park, Pa. -- Recently at Penn State, there has been extraordinary growth in short-term, embedded education abroad programs. These generally include faculty-led international excursions as part of otherwise residential courses.

For the past year, Duarte B. Morais, Christine Buzinde, and Anthony Ogden have been investigating how embedding international travel into residentially-taught courses can influence students' academic development and global citizenship. Morais is an associate professor of recreation in park and tourism management at Penn State's University Park campus; Buzinde is an assistant professor in the same department, and Anthony Ogden is a doctoral student in educational theory and policy. This work is supported by the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and the University Office of Global Programs, as part of their "Teaching for Global Citizenship" initiative, an effort to help faculty incorporate global learning into the curriculum.

Central to this work has been the development of a toolkit for short-term, faculty-led international programming. The toolkit is the first of its kind and aims to provide a much needed resource for faculty who are planning embedded education abroad programs. The toolkit complements university administrative and logistical services by offering a portfolio of tested and applicable instructional strategies that leverage the international travel component of courses to optimize academic learning and the development of global citizenship.

"We are excited to be a supporter of this project," said Angela Linse, executive director and associate dean of the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence. "The investigators have identified competencies of global citizenship, no small achievement in itself. To date, they have developed over twenty tools and assignments that are being tested and revised by faculty taking students abroad this semester and over the summer. The template includes student learning objectives, content threads, recommended time of use (pre-departure, overseas, or post-return), a full description, and instructor guidelines for using the tool and evaluating student performance. We expect this toolkit to expand and become an internationally recognized resource for faculty members taking students on course-related trips to other countries."

The toolkit will be updated and expanded by a multi-campus network of faculty teaching courses with international excursions in collaboration with the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and the University Office of Global Programs. The toolkit and related materials will first be disseminated to the Penn State community on Tuesday, April 14 at the lecture, "Teaching Abroad Just Got a Whole Lot Easier: A Faculty Toolkit to Promote International Teaching Excellence," from 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. in 508 Rider Building, University Park. Video conference locations are DuBois, Fayette, Hazleton, Mont Alto and New Kensington. To register to attend next Tuesday's program, go to http://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/Register/.

 

Last Updated September 9, 2015

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