A changing world : the internationalisation experiences of staff and students, home and international, in UK higher education

This is a selection of internationalisation resources produced by ESCalate to support the project A Changing World: the internationalisation experiences of staff and students (home and international) in UK Higher Education. Fifteen focus groups were run with staff and with students, both home and international, to listen to their views on what internationalisation meant to them, how it had influenced teaching and learning, and what challenges and successes they had experienced. Participants came from a range of disciplines and from across the UK. Staff in particular showed great awareness of the issues surrounding internationalisation with an appreciation of some of the complexities. Topics raised by participants included recruitment strategies, entry requirements for non-native speakers, PMI, fees, the British degree, higher education institutions (HEIs) competition for students in the global marketplace, and internationalising the curriculum. Staff and students described various techniques and strategies for creating inclusive learning environments. Many said how students and staff from across the world had enriched their lives, both personally and professionally. Staff discussed the difficulties of meeting the needs of culturally diverse groups, and both students and staff talked about how far we still have to go in encouraging some students to break out of their familiar cultural groups to socialise cross-culturally. Home students were the hardest group to recruit for this project. Given that they have so much to gain from learning in a culturally diverse environment it is suggested that more work needs to be done in the research area of Internationalisation at Home (Teekens, 2006, Joris, van den Berg & van Ryssen, 2003), and within institutions, to engage not only staff but also home students so that all students and staff can gain maximum benefit from the changing higher education landscape. A Changing World: the internationalisation experiences of staff and students (home and international) in UK Higher Education is a report produced by ESCalate and LLAS, that is made available as a PDF file of some 40 page

Enhancing postgraduate supervision through a process of conversational inquiry

This paper outlines and begins to evaluate a process to build a critical and reflective community of postgraduate supervisors who can develop their supervision practice through reflective conversations, with the sharing of best practice and reference to research-based evidence. In 2009, the initiative of the Postgraduate Supervisors’ Conversations was set up through the collaboration of the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Postgraduate) and the Teaching Development Unit at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. We designed this initiative to complement the compulsory workshops for postgraduate supervisors that are intended to provide foundation skills. We aimed to create a professional development opportunity that could enhance supervisors’ capacity to manage the ongoing interpersonal and academic complexity of the supervision process as well as its dynamic character. This paper outlines the rationale for the Postgraduate Supervisors’ Conversations, describes its implementation and discusses the implications of an initial evaluative focus group discussion with attendees

Self-directed disability support: building people’s capacity through peer support and action research

How are people with disability experiencing and managing the transition towards self directed support and preparing for the NDIS? In this project, small groups of people with disability around Australia met over 6 months to talk about their disability support. The peer support groups enabled action research about how they are deciding the practical details about support, such as how, when and by whom it is provided

Numeracy, literacy and ESOL: evaluation of entry and level 1 awards (National report from the Inspectorate 1998-99)

During the past 20 years a range of awards has been developed to meet the demand for external validation of students’ achievements. Since the introduction of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (the Act) there has been a particularly sharp increase in the use of external awards to accredit the achievements of students wanting to improve their literacy and numeracy, and those wishing to improve their spoken and written English. It is often mistakenly thought that external awards are necessary to meet the requirements of schedule 2 of the Act, to secure funding from the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC), and to meet the requirements of colleges’ own information systems. Most students now study for an award. This inspectorate national exercise was devised to evaluate those awards which are frequently used at entry level and level 1 in numeracy, literacy and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) and to judge the impact of these qualifications on the curriculum, teaching and learning, and on students’ achievements