Best Practices in Internationalizing the Curriculum for Study Abroad

1. Best Practices in Internationalizing the Curriculum for Study Abroad 10/7/11 Lee McCain & Lana Powell Florida Consortium for International Education

2. What We’ll Discuss: • Internationalizing the Business Curriculum: Lana Powell • Denmark Study Abroad 2011: Lee McCain

3. Interesting Statistics* • 8% of the world speaks English • 1% of the world has a college education • 1% of the world owns a computer • 17% of the world has no clean, safe drinking water • Do our students know this? * http://www.100people.org_100stats.php?section=statistics

4. Choosing Courses that will benefit the most from Internationalizing the Curriculum • Why Business Courses? • Global Economy • Multinational Companies • Global Trade • What are some statistics for business*? • 13 % of US firms export • 2% of US firms import • 97% of US exporting and importing is done by Small or Medium sized businesses *US Census Bureau April 2011

5. Some Aspects of Globalization • Economic Systems • Capitalism • Socialism • Communism • Business Practices vary around the world • Politics • Culture • Values • Beliefs • Rules • Customs

6. Personal Experiences (Lana) in Study Abroad with students • Import /Export/ Portugal • Service Learning/Dominican Republic • Event Management/Denmark • American Culture /The Netherlands

7. Import/Export Business • Home School: KW1C,The Netherlands • Annual Trip for third year students in the International Business Program • Purpose: Determine opportunities in Portugal for an export product from The Netherlands. • Process: Research product at home and do more onsite research for presentation to the Chamber of Commerce in Lisbon, Portugal • The Chamber and their business professors graded their presentations and projects

8. American Culture/The Netherlands • Most European Countries are eager for their students to learn about the American Culture • EU countries are so small compared to the U.S., they want to know about U.S. business, our economy, politics • Their countries often mandate study abroad for their students

9. What I have learned so far: • Students often do not know what is going on in the rest of the world and they are eager to know • Students are usually happier with a rigorous program • Smaller countries are especially interested in Internationalizing their curriculum • Internationalizing the curriculum enhances the whole college experience

10. Event Management/ Denmark • Pre Planning and First Group of Students- Lana • Second Group of Students- Lee

11. Denmark Program Scope • 2011 Global Perspectives in Event Management (Denmark) • CCID • Colleges involved: School of Business & Services ITE College Central (Singapore); Roane St. CC (TN); Roskilde Business College (DK Host); Sinclair CC (OH) & Valencia College (FL) • Over 30 total students participated • Duration of travel- two weeks in mid-May

12. Course Preparation • How to take an American course curriculum and internationalize it- weave the academic learning outcomes with the cross cultural learning outcomes. Objective: Prepare the students to live, work & conduct themselves in a global community. Helps increase the students’ listening and problem solving skills.

13. Course Preparation • Internationalizing Event Planning by infusing the host country’s unique business issue (i.e. Green Copenhagen) into the course curriculum. • Compare/contrast different cultures’ planning, organizing, leading & controlling approaches to subject. • Acknowledge cultural similarities and differences with respect for these differences. • Study unique host country events and why they were successful.

14. Course Preparation • Designing the learning experience- Students study Denmark economy & government (& politics); culture & society; transportation, climate; prices; how Danes live, work and interact; language, etc.

15. Course Preparation • Recruiting students (setting the rigorous expectations & selecting the best and most reliable).

16. Course Preparation • Split the course into an online (at home) component with the in-class component in the host country taught by host country & visiting countries’ faculty. (In our case, it brought three different cultural dimensions to the subject matter!)

17. Conducting the Course • Online component five weeks prior to departure- Studentskeep a personal reflections journal; • Learn event management from studying The Experience Economy (by Pine & Gilmore) academic book.

18. Conducting the course • In-class component (in Denmark): Students learn how to plan/implement their own event through learning The Experience Economy ; • Teaming all three cultures (USA, Singapore & Denmark students) in each team with common theme but each team develops individual team event. • Let students struggle culturally, creatively and in execution/logistics (makes learning more internalized).

19. Conducting the course • Takes advantage of cultural learning experiences that only native students can help bring to the learning experience.

20. Post course • Students take individual ‘course reflection’ oral test conducted by Denmark professor via Skype (Students develop PowerPoint presentation reflecting three areas of this experience that interested or influenced the student more than they expected). This test helps cement the course learning outcomes.

21. Conclusion 1 The “International curriculum helps students change their perceptions & attitude toward global relationships; … (builds) significant growth in interpersonal skills, academic performance, language, cultural proficiency; greater self-confidence; and reduc(es) cultural stereotypes”. (Raby and Sawadogo, 2005).

22. Conclusion 2 Under promising & over deliveringcourse, travel, duration, and physical & academic rigor helped breed a memorably positive and special student learning experience!

23. Conclusion 3 Students can study the subject, but nothing says learning better than actually being there & doing it!

24. Questions?