Global Classrooms in Higher Education Hub

Community Expertise is the need to Understand

Are we really making the most of bringing together people of different international and cultural backgrounds within higher education? The creation of the Global Classrooms in Higher Education Hub responds to this question by sharing pedagogies, resources, ideas, and experiences as an inspiration for educators.

Global Classrooms in Higher Edication HubLink opens in a new window

How did this work?

To inspire new practice that brings out the value of the international and intercultural classroom, the hub focuses on five student-defined themes: adaptation for greater accessibility, decolonisation of the classroom, the use of global case studies, multicultural group work and flexible assessment, and further related resources are also available.

Focusing on campus internationalisation

The concept of a hub originated within Warwick’s WHIEA Internationalisation Learning Circle. The Circle was looking at how to provide a practical output, something that supported staff within international classrooms. They discussed student internationalisation mobility programmes, examples of virtual intercultural experiences, for example through the International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR) but believed the full value of the rich mix of international staff and students already on the campuses would be an exciting direction to explore. With this as the focus Caroline Gibson, Deputy-Director of IATL Warwick, contacted colleagues she had previously collaborated with at Monash and was connected with colleagues in the Intercultural Lab at Monash.

Applying to the MWA Education Fund

Together with Dr Nadine Normand-Marconnet of the Intercultural Lab and her colleagues at Monash, Caroline and colleagues within the Internationalisation Learning Circle applied to the Alliance Education Fund for joint funding for a project grounded in the learning experiences of both universities and based around interviews with staff and students. They started this project with students at its heart, sharing their experiences of the classroom. Through their Alliance networks of educators and students they gathered a wide range of insights into internationalisation in higher education, which included the perspectives of two different institutions.

Co-creation of the Hub

Caroline and Nadine co-created the project with staff and students of the Alliance and decided as a group how developing a resource might work best. It was decided to record video conversations with students and staff in order to understand what settings gave students confidence, enabling them to contribute and feel a part of that classroom. They also needed to identify what inhibited students and what factors prevented them from engaging.

" Definitely working with the students was brilliant. They were great and every time we spoke to them, it just brought a slightly different dimension. I loved the way they helped us put together the structure of the hub and how they thought it should work. And because the pandemic hit, there were times when we really thought we wouldn't be able to finish. We had six students working with us throughout the project and we had to get our heads together about how to do it from home. But because the pandemic extended the project, we actually ended up really bonding with our colleagues at Monash as we met all the way through the pandemic.” – Caroline Gibson

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