Internationalisation and experiential learning - natural allies?

Kicking off the 'International' space of the Commission, Professor Abigail Gregory sets out how experiential learning in international contexts is evolving and the questions it raises for the sector.

In UK Higher Education, much of the focus on internationalisation has been on recruitment, and income generation more generally, whether directly via inward student mobility or via trans-national education. This mainly reflects an increasingly challenging higher education funding model and has had the benefit of diversifying the student population. Alongside this, we have seen the development of outward student mobility with support through Erasmus, now replaced by Turing and reformulated for greater inclusivity. Outward mobility rates fell during COVID and are recovering but still only 26,410 students experienced a period of mobility as part of their degree in 2021-22 (29,415 instances of mobility) according to the UUKi. In that year the majority of instances were for study abroad (73%) followed by work abroad (22%) and volunteering (4.8%).

Internationalisation at home - an emerging trend?

A parallel strand, often referred to as internationalisation at home (IaH), has been spearheaded by some key authors (Betty Leask, Elspeth Jones, Anthony Manning), universities (Coventry and De Montfort) and sector bodies (UUKi notably)  but has remained a much less comprehensive and resourced activity. IaH is defined by Jones and Reiffernrath (2019)  as “...the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments”. 

Key dimensions of IaH include modern foreign language study (via specialist degree-level programmes or non-specialist study such as university-wide language programmes), internationally themed or focussed modules and, particularly post-COVID, Collaborative On-Line International Learning (COIL). 

IaH has recently come to the forefront of sector debate in the UK under the triple strategic imperatives of inclusion, sustainability and employability. An excellent example of this recent focus is the just published International Higher Education Commission (IHEC) report entitled “Is the UK developing global mindsets? The challenges and opportunities for Internationalisation at Home in driving global engagement”. For the IHEC, IaH supports staff and students in the process of developing intercultural awareness and global citizenship skills.

So where does experiential and skills-based learning fit in?

The key question we’re asking in this short reflective piece is whether the ability to develop a global mindset, deemed to be an important graduate attribute for its employability benefits, is being connected to frameworks of experiential and skills-based learning (ESBL), when the latter are typically embedded within the work and employment sphere in universities.  More generally, should experiential and skills-based learning figure more prominently in the other dimensions of student global engagement described above?

We know that a number of the principles and techniques of experiential and skills-based learning nowadays are normally applied to the work-based area of global internships. As a minimum, reflective journals or essays are often used to help concretise learning experiences and may connect to the student’s educational context.  Additional teachable moments as well as “interpersonal scaffolding” (see Peace’s nomenclature in “But what isn’t experiential learning?”) through feedback may be included via supervision, mentoring and group discussions. Some third-sector providers offer cultural mentors to support thinking about intercultural learning. 

While this embedding of ESBL seems to apply to the global work placement/internship, does this impact other potential dimensions of the internationalisation of the student experience further removed from work? Perhaps we are looking at a “sliding scale” (see David Winter’s terminology in “We are all educational dieticians”) of experiential and skills-based learning in the internationalisation space in Higher Education and, if so, is this sufficient?

To kick start the ‘International’ space for the commission, we propose some key questions:

1. COIL - can it be work- or skills-based and, if so, is it assessed or not, and how? Can this be the equivalent of real-world global team-based project work delivering a practically authentic experience? How much clarity is there in project design beyond academic learning?

2. Modern foreign language study - how does this intersect with ESBL: is this a purely language-driven skills-based exercise or is intercultural learning, often so important in the global workplace, assessed/supported too?

3. Outward mobility: student exchange - sometimes assessed through academic modules studied at a partner institution alone, what about non-assessed exchange? How is this scaffolded and supported for non-accredited years/semesters abroad? Is there an ESBL dimension currently unacknowledged such as working in a bar?

4. Outward mobility: internships, placements, volunteering - how are institutions and third-space providers addressing ESBL? What’s new in these spaces?

5. Learning from other countries: what is being done by other countries, in particular Australia and Canada which also have high proportions of international students and have shown leadership in work-integrated learning including relevant standards (e.g. The ACEN Framework in Australia) to support assurance of institution-wide quality in WIL). Are there models here which can be applied elsewhere in the international space?

These are intended to start a discussion, a call for evidence and set an agenda for what we should cover in the ‘International’ space.

Professor Abigail Gregory is the Director of Academic Strategy at Pagoda Projects. Contact Abigail if you would like to contribute to the International space.