MAKE Tech Pedagogy

Learning from teaching

In the following section, I describe what our group has done for our teaching session and what I have learned from preparation and implementation processes.

Topic
What are the main features of the internationalisation strategies and practices in vocational education and vocational higher education and how would you take them into account in planning and implementing your teaching?

Our topic was quite concrete so it was easy to develop teaching contents and materials. As we did not need to spend much time on defining the topic and researching information, we had time to design the teaching differently.

Internationalisation strategies and practices in vocational education

The strategy for European cooperation in education and training, spanning until 2020, has four priorities: 1) lifelong learning and mobility, 2) quality and efficiency, 3) equality, social cohesion and active citizenship, and 4) creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. There are potential issues and different mindsets regarding internationalisation in vocational education. It is important to manage, coordinate and implement internationalisation strategically in vocational education.

Key areas that are essential for a successful implementation of an internationalisation strategy (Erasmus+, 2017, p.32):
1) Strategy process (see following section),
2) Cooperation with the world of work: it is important to be aware of internationalisation in the real work places in own vocational field,
3) Qualifications, curricula and pedagogics, 
4) Role of management: management of the institution must be involved in internationalisation, and
5) Practical implementation.

Processes for building internationalisation strategies in a vocational education institution (Erasmus+, 2017, pp.12-20, p.33):
1) Map existing internationalisation activities in the institution.
2) Analyse the operational environment.
3) Understand the core skills/ features in the institution.
4) Examine the mission and values in the institution from the viewpoint of internationalisation in the world of work.
5) Formulate the vision for the internationalisation strategy with all actors and stakeholders (e.g., management, staff, teachers, students), considering the existing activities, the operational environment, the mission and values, and the core skills.
6) Set the strategic goals in support of the vision for the international activities in such a way that students, staff and the working environment can relate to them.
7) Decide on an action plan for practical implementation, including deciding on roles, dividing tasks, budgeting and setting indicators for the key strategic goals.
8) Communicate both the strategy process and the strategic decisions to all actors and stakeholders throughout the process for maximum commitment.

Practices, such as, recognition and compatibility of qualifications through the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), the credit transfer system ECVET and the exchange programs (e.g., Erasmus) have enhanced to build a solid foundation for internationalisation in vocational education.

Applying internationalisation strategies in planning and implementing teaching

I summarise our findings regarding internationalisation strategies in the phases of constructive alignment (see my blog post of Planning).

Desired learning outcomes
In vocational education, teacher should plan teaching based on national qualifications (see blog post of Assessment and Feedback). When vocational education is internationalised, mobility of students and staff (teachers) across the countries is enhanced. When there will be Internationals students in the classroom, although teacher should build curriculum based on national qualifications, she should be aware that the qualifications may differ in foreign countries.
When a teacher visits abroad and give teaching in vocational education institutions, she should be familiarise herself in the country in order to plan teaching.
Learning environments/ activities
In addition to teaching skills in their own field, different abilities are required for teachers in internationalised vocational education. For instance:
Language skill (e.g., English) to deliver the learning contents and facilitate learning for international students.
Skills to critically observe students’ interest, cultural background, skills and abilities through their subject areas and to a large spectrum of their learning domains.
Taking advantage of the cultural knowledge and language skills of students from different cultural backgrounds.
The ability to create an environment void of bullying and racial imbalance. Students should be allowed to express their views irrespective of your background.
The ability to employ multicultural approach in the classroom. Select students with different cultural backgrounds for group activities.
Assessment tasks
When it comes to assessment, teachers should consider to use different assessment tools to be able to equally assess all students with different background. Some students want to demonstrate the achievement of the vocational skills through demonstration, while other students want to demonstrate through reflective blogs. Considering differences of students’ background and preference, teacher should be flexible about assessment tasks.
Grading
When there are exchange students in the class, teacher may remind the differences of national qualifications as well as grading system among countries. Also teacher may mention to system for recognition of the vocational qualifications across the countries.

Preparation for the lesson

Argumentation as teaching method

We wanted to deliver the lesson differently. One of my best learning experience in the university is argumentation. When I participated in argumentation on the topic of “collaborative learning is better than individual learning”, I developed understanding towards both advantage and disadvantage of collaborative learning. We decided to try argumentation in the virtual setting.
By forcing students to see an issue from a certain direction, students expand understanding towards the issue beyond their original thoughts. In addition, by asking the students to provide counter arguments on the opponents’ statements, the students are able to see the issue critically from multiple perspectives. Argumentation is beneficial to understand the meaning of setting internationalisation strategies in vocational education, because it provides opportunity to understand potential and complex issues regarding internationalisation. In addition argumentation requires active participation of students, increases interactivity and results in engaging students in the lesson which are important aspects in effective learning, especially in virtual settings (see my bog post of Implementation 1).
We studied what is the meaning of argumentation and how a teacher should facilitate.

Debate with argumentation
In a debate, two opposing groups or individuals are chosen, who then present their own views on the chosen theme and give counter-arguments to the opposing views. The students practice presenting justifications and arguments for their own opinions and evaluating other people’s opinions. 
The goal is not to beat the opponent, but to further one’s own understanding.
A chairperson is chosen for the debate, who ensures that everyone has a chance to talk. The chairperson will also control that the arguments do not last too long. The chairperson lets the opposing teams give their arguments in turns. If the debate does not progress, the chairperson may also give the audience a chance to present a stimulating argument to further the debate. If it succeeds, the debate will force the participants to analyse their opinions.
Strengths and challenges
This method develops the argumentation skills of the students and supports the development of critical thinking. It also forces the students to justify their views. Hearing various perspectives and opinions may broaden and deepen the students’ understanding of the themes of the debate.
One of the challenges of a debate is that the real goals of the method may be forgotten. The purpose of the debate is to deepen the students’ understanding of the debated topics, not the debate in itself. The teacher should also instruct the students to only use fair arguments during the debate.
(Hyppönen & Linden, 2009)

Flow of preparation and tool

We divided tasks among group members: 1) preparing pre-task, 2) developing teaching contents, 3) researching pedagogical meaning and facilitation of argumentation and 4) searching for good tools to visualise arguments. We did not have enough time to conduct many meetings, so we worked effectively on divided tasks individually and gathered the information on Friday. We were able to integrate our individual tasks and finalised the materials on the weekend.
We decided to use Flinga to visualise students arguments. It helps the students to explain their own arguments as well as opponents to provide counter arguments.

Implementation of the lesson

Navigate to Flinga was smooth as the students are familiar with the tool. Using Flinga to visualise arguments was successful. By visualising, the points of arguments were clear which led to efficient discussion.

Reflection of my teaching

My concern of the argumentation activity was time limitation. As this is student-entered approach, it is important that students have enough time to develop good arguments as well as critical counter arguments on the topic. We gave them a pre-task and set 5-10 minutes for preparing counter arguments in the middle of the 30 minutes argumentation activity during the teaching session. The students in our room managed to provide arguments and counter arguments smoothly. However, we still ran out of time and were not able to provide enough feedback and summary in the end of the argumentation activity.
Lecture after the activity was also hectic. As we did not have time, I was rushing explaining the contents by just reading the notes. I tried to connect the contents with some of the arguments the students provided, but I could not explain well enough.
In addition, as it was the first time for me to conduct teaching with other group member, we sometime had problems for smooth transition. We roughly decided which part each of us should take, but it may be better to divide first half and later half. So that we don’t need to change the role of speaker many times and the students may not be distracted by bumpy transitions.

Learning from other groups

Design and deliver an interactive learning situation where you demonstrate your understanding of the most important multicultural competences.

Important notes from the lecture

Interactivity is important especially multicultural environments because 1) it enhances developing understanding towards different culture and 2) without active participation of students, it may be hard for a teacher to tell or presume the conditions (e.g., understanding, motivation and emotion) of students especially with different cultural background.
The group remarked that using stories and cases from different culture may hep teacher to conduct interactive learning situation in multicultural environments. Teacher may take advantage of cultural differences and ask the students to provide examples from their own culture. It would enhance participation, keep the students engaged and develop understanding among different culture.

Good practices

There were many occasions for discussion. It is good to keep students engaged.

What are some of the theories covering the areas multicultural communication, learning and interaction? What are their pros and cons in view of applying them to teaching?

Important notes from the lecture

Multicultural education is education which emphasises multicultural values. It aims to understand diversity, to reduce prejudice and discrimination and to maintain social justice and equality. Multicultural communication is communication beyond different cultural boundaries.
Multicultural environments can bring both potential benefits and challenges in learning and teaching. For instance, because of the different perspectives or customs from different culture may be good opportunity to learn other culture and develop intercultural skills. On the other hand, these differences may cause issues especially collaborative situation, such as perceiving a matter (e.g., not showing up on time) differently. Teacher should be aware of the cultural differences and deal with the situation when the issues come up.

Good practices

As the terms in the fields are often used interchangeably, it was good that they defined the terms “multicultural education” and “multicultural communication” in the beginning of the lesson.
The group used visuals for the slides which help to keep engaged in the lesson (see my blog post of Implementation 1).
The group’s presentation was quite general. As the topic was abstract (multicultural communication etc.), and the task was heavy, providing examples while explaining may help to understand the contents.

Individual work

Write about your international/multicultural experiences to your blog.  What have you learned (educational impact & work related findings). Also consider what is “internationalism” and what is “multiculturalism”? How do they differ?

I studied in “international” master’s programme where 16 students from 12 countries gathered. However, I did not feel “internationalism” as much as “multiculturalism”. Only when we discussed, for example, national curriculum or education system, as well as conflicts between countries, international differences or similarities were emphasised. In contrast, I had many experiences of multiculturalism. We had a lot of collaborative learning situations. Sometimes, multiculturalism caused challenges, such as time management, ways to proceed the project or interpersonal relationship, but after all, it brought larger benefits for me. Multicultural collaboration experiences have develop my ability to deal with differences flexibly and to see myself objectively with out-of-box thinking. However, I also feel that it is more confirmable to be with people who have similarities. Those similarities may come from ethnicity or personality. I learned that many conflicts from multiculturalism come from difference of prioritisation, what a person think it is more important than other things. For instance, I consider that group work is more important than individual work or personal matters which I can handle whenever I have time. It is because I have responsible also for other’s work, thus I prioritise group work assignments over individual work or matters. However, a person may think that his/her individual work or personal matters are more important because workload of group work can be shared and he/she can take responsibility in later phases. When those conflicts happen, I try to find midpoint among the different people’s priorities. Flexibility and adjustment are very important skills in multicultural educational and work environments.

“The concept of multiculturalism is applied in ways similar to that of diversity. However, the emphasis in multiculturalism falls on the criteria of ethnicity and race, often to the exclusion of other dimensions of difference…. By contrast, internationalisation is typically understood to cover non domestic cultural issues such as global vision, cultural understanding, intercultural sensibility, and cultural change and adaptation.” (Smithee, 1991, p.1, p.8)
Multiculturalism can be described as the environments where differences based on ethnicity and race beyond the nationalities are intermingled. It often comes from customs that people are used to in their culture. For instance, punctuality: while some people may think showing up 10 minutes late is still fine, other people may think that they should come on time. On the other hand internationalism emphasises the boarder of nations. It is used, for example, in the contexts of institutions which nationality is highlighted, such as international corporation of governments or universities. Main difference is multiculturalism is not limited to nationalities, whereas internationalism is only applied across the boarder of nations.

References

Erasmus+ (2017). Go international A practical guide on strategic internationalisation of vocational education and training. Retrieved 14th of November 2019 from https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/sites/erasmusplus2/files/eac-a06-go-international_en.pdf
Hénard, F., Diamond, L., & Roseveare, D. (2012). Approaches to Internationalisation and Their Implications for Strategic Management and Institutional Practice. OECD. Retrieved 14th of November 2019 from http://www.oecd.org/education/imhe/approaches%20to%20internationalisation%20-%20final%20-%20web.pdf
Hyppönen, O. & Linden, S. (2009). Handbook for Teachers - Course Structures, Teaching Methods and Assessment. Publications of the Teaching and Learning Development Unit of the Helsinki University of Technology 5/2009.
Paronen, P. (2014). Evaluation and development tool for effective internationalisation of vocational education and training. Master thesis from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. Retrieved 14th of November 2019 from https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/81169/Paronen_Paula.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Smithee, M. (1991). Internationalism, Diversity, and Multiculturalism: Are They Compatible? NAFSA Newsletter, 42, 6, 1-10.
Thi Tran, L. M. (2013). Teaching International Students in Vocational Education: New Pedagogical Approaches. ACER Press.

(Last update: 21.11.2019)