Conversations That Matter: Internationalisation@HKBU

By Tiffany Ko

Internationalisation of higher education is a process of transforming a university’s teaching and learning with greater global consciousness and intercultural awareness. Such transformation also has to be unique to the institution as well as the context in which it is situated. A series of recent events run by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) exemplifies how we embark on the journey to internationalisation of teaching and learning across faculties, institutions, and nations.

Internationalisation@HKBU
Following HKBU’s Institutional Strategic Plan for 2018-2028 to transform itself into “a leading liberal arts University in Asia for the world delivering academic excellence in a caring, creative, and global culture”, the Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning (CHTL) has organised a series of Teaching and Learning Experience Sharing (TALES) seminars to support teachers in leveraging the growing diversity in classroom. One salient seminar series, entitled “Internationalisation@HKBU” has been launched since fall 2017 to bring together teachers at home and abroad to engage in an on-going dialogue about internationalisation of teaching and learning. Topics of discussion included: HKBU’s strengths and limitations in support of students’ mobility, the mutual expectations between local and exchange students on one another, and strategies for integrating local and non-local students. The facilitators of the seminars broadly comprised teachers, education developers, and even alumni-turned staff members currently serving in HKBU and other local institutions.

Only Connect: Conversations Beyond Borders
As the momentum of Internationalisation@HKBU boiled, Dr. Nanda Dimitrov and Ms. Aisha Haque, two scholars visiting HKBU from the Western University of Canada, drummed up the conversation to the next level. They offered two open lectures and a two-phase interactive workshop on site to more than 130 educators working inside and outside HKBU from 4 to 6 December 2017.

In the inaugural lecture, the speakers went through the approaches to internationalisation in higher education along with an original intercultural teaching competence framework. This framework allowed instructors to identify areas for improvement and developed relevant strategies. In the second lecture, Dr. Dimitrov discussed how to assess student learning in diverse and interdisciplinary classroom. She drew teachers’ attention to the “Competences for Democratic Culture and Intercultural Dialogue” shortlisted by the Council of Europe as one of the useful tools to design assessments for students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Last but not least, the two-phase internal workshop on internationalising the curriculum has consolidated teachers’ lecture learning. Through a chain of brainstorming, individual consultation, and staff presentations, the workshop enabled HKBU colleagues to customise their intercultural and interdisciplinary courses that align with the new General Education curriculum and to build an essential network for course development in the future.