Events
Join-the-Conversation
Leveraging Diversity in Classrooms – Opportunities and Challenges
Date: 23 April 2018 (Monday)
Time: 12:30pm – 2:00pm
Venue: Room 6558 (Lifts 27-28), Academic Building, HKUST
Speaker:
Dr. Roselyn Du (Associate Professor, Dept of Journalism, HKBU)
Dr Jess King (Lecturer, Dept of Earth Science, HKU)
Facilitator:
Dr. Beatrice Chu (Head, Professional Development Team, Center for Education Innovation, HKUST)
Dr. Lisa Law (Senior Teaching and Learning Officer, Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning, HKBU)
Organiser: Center for Education Innovation, HKUST
Co-organisers: Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, HKU & Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning, HKBU
Abstract
The accelerating rate of globalisation in higher education brings together learners and teachers from different institutes, creating a heterogeneous yet diverse environment. In preparing our students for global citizenship, it is important that we incorporate international and intercultural perspectives into both the curriculum and our classroom facilitation.
In this workshop, we shall be specifically focusing on the practical issues of facilitating students’ learning in the international classrooms. How to address the needs of students from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds? How to facilitate cross-cultural discussions and interactions? Is my teaching content easily grasped by international students?
The workshop will first begin with a presentation of the survey findings of the HKUST students’ perception of their intercultural issues and challenges, followed by a panel discussion consisting of three teachers from the three respective universities. They will be sharing their practices and experience in developing students’ cultural competency through internationalising the curriculum and skillful classroom facilitation.
Mark your calendar. For details and registration, please navigate to http://cei.ust.hk/event/join-conversation-leveraging-diversity-classrooms-opportunities-and-challenges.
Jointly organised by HKUST, HKU and HKBU, the second Join-the-Conversation event was held on 23 April 2018 with three speakers, three facilitators and about thirty participants across different institutions and beyond. Following the inaugural conversation in February that gave participants an overview of internationalisation-related practices, this time we focus on the practical issues of facilitating students’ learning and leveraging diversity in the international classroom.
Dr. Tracy Zou gave us an opening remark by introducing the background, aims, approaches and focal areas of the Community of Practice – Internationalisation of Teaching and Learning (CoP – ITL hereafter) Project. Dr. Beatrice Chu moved on to disseminate the survey findings of the Undergraduate Cultural Issues and Challenges at HKUST 2017, highlighting the need to enhance students’ learning experience in the international classroom. According to Dr. Chu, the learning of international students is affected when a class is not conducted in English, a common language of communication, when the content is too culturally specific, and when the discussion is dominated by an unfamiliar language, e.g. Cantonese.
This was followed by the sharing of Prof. May-yi Shaw’s experience in leveraging diversity in the classroom. There were three approaches mentioned. In terms of content, Prof. Shaw included interdisciplinary, intercultural and intergenerational learning materials drawn from both local and international contexts. In terms of learning, she asked students to work with people of different cultural backgrounds, gender, disciplines and year. Every class, students had to sit in groups with such a diverse combination. Students were required to reform groups every two lessons so that they were able to meet all others in the class. In terms of impact, Prof. Shaw has been dedicated to helping students build a connection between what they learnt and their real-life observations. To achieve this, students had to answer some self-reflection application questions that have personal relevance, and had to finish a group course-end project on a self-chosen topic.
Dr. Jess King explicated her strategy to leverage student diversity in her Common Core ocean science courses, also known as peer-supported experiential learning. She designed activities that enhanced students’ emotional engagement through the Black Box Experiment, beach cleaning and the Model UN Climate Summit. In these activities, students were given multiple opportunities to experiment freely and discover possible solutions without the fears for making mistakes. Besides, as students were from diverse disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, they could contribute their own professional and disciplinary knowledge to the learning processes, appreciate and understand each other’s perspectives. Dr. King also accentuated the importance to enabling students to develop ownership of the problem they need to tackle and make real-world impacts. Assigning students to launch a “no plastic” campaign on Facebook and placing students in the role of government consultant when addressing a world issue were cases in point.
Having substantial research and teaching experience worldwide, Dr. Roselyn Du shared with us how she facilitated international learning opportunities in her journalism courses at HKBU. Dr. Du consistently invited the students in her class to voice their opinions. While it might still be formidable to bridge the gap between local and international students, she encouraged students to form international study groups. With regard to content, she drew on local and international readings and case studies to develop students’ intercultural perspectives. Assessment items were then designed in line with the internationalised materials. Last but not least, Dr. Du invited her PhD students who had been to overseas exchange programmes to deliver guest lectures so that her students’ international horizons could be further broadened.
The Join-the-Conversation was ended with some fruitful discussion between the panel speakers, the floor and the facilitators. CoP – ITL also welcomed participants to join our next cross-institutional event at HKBU.