University teachers have developed their own ways of coping with or even enjoying the challenges that come with teaching ever more diverse student groups. This is often done by a sort of DIY approach, checking what works and dealing with issues as they arise. This one day event brought together Scottish teachers to hear about how others are managing issues of common concern to teachers of international students.
The event also introduced the 'Teaching International Students/TIS' project resource bank, designed to showcase effective teaching practices. The TIS project aims to raise awareness of how students learning experiences are key to their overall experience of UK study.
A range of academics, educational developers and university administrators attended the event, representing over 13 Scottish HEIs. This page contains the programme for the day with links to the presentations that were given, as well as some useful links and resources.
Click here for a summary of the day by Andy Gibbs, Edinburgh Napier University, Bologna Expert, working with the Academy.
(Please follow this link for more information about Teaching International Students and this is the archived event page on the main Academy site)
Contents of this page:
1. Programme (including links to presentations)
2. Notes from the sessions
a) Postgraduate teaching - Karen Smith
b) Assessment and Feedback - Jude Carroll (am and pm sessions)
c) Effective Intercultural Group Work - Catherine Montgomery
d) Induction and transition - Monika Foster
3. Resources
9.30 Registration; tea and coffee available.
10:00 Welcome and introductions - Andy Gibbs, Edinburgh Napier University, Bologna Expert
10:10 Introducing the 'Teaching International Students' project: a way of improving learning for all - Jude Carroll, TIS Project Director
Why it was setup, what the evidence is for issues, how the TIS project will operate, what is in it for
Scottish tertiary teachers and general teaching and learning issues.
11:00 Parallel sessions
- Karen Smith, Glasgow Caledonian University
- Jude Carroll, Oxford Brookes University
- Catherine Montgomery, Northumbria University
-Monika Foster, Edinburgh Napier University
12:30 Lunch
13:15 Parallel sessions
- Jude Carroll, Oxford Brookes University
-Catherine Montgomery, Northumbria University
- Monika Foster, Edinburgh Napier University
14:45 Coffee/tea break – networking and opportunity to see outcomes from other sessions
15:15 Student mobility and borderless education project
- Catherine Thwaites, NUS Scotland
16:00 Close
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Notes from the sessions
Comments on student quotes:
- Presentations are a valuable part of PG training. Some fears amongst PG students around presenting.
- Plagiarism – students need to be more aware of the reasons behind the regulations if we want them to engage. Need to tackle different cultural mindsets. Balance needed between content and process in course curriculum. More information needed by international students.
- Even the weather can have an adverse effect on an international student’s studies. They may feel the need to return home in extreme examples. This is turn can create extra expense and stress.
- Home students are more able to quickly learn the rules of the ‘academic game’.
- There is a danger in seeing all international students as a homogenous group. Many of them excel on their courses.
Themes identified and challenges presented by them:
- Fitting in – problems with mixing and with fitting in to the discipline itself. Arriving late due to Visa issues.
- Transition to M-level – managing workload and lack of contact time with lecturers.
- Study Skills – plagiarism, different skill sets, managing deadlines, IT skills.
- English language – understanding regional accents, academic writing
- Other – family commitments, pressures from home
Some initial suggested solutions:
- Have mentors who have already experienced the course and passed.
- Lecturer to organise any groups – don’t allow them to self-organise.
- Change these groups regularly if possible.
- Use examples from cultures present within the classroom.
- Allow students to run their assignments through turnitin prior to submission.
- Opportunities to see past papers and mock exams.
Solutions arising from group work/discussion:
Study Skills –
- Introduce formative assessment opportunities (extra, ungraded work)
- Recognise that plagiarism is not intentional and explain to students the reasons for the regulations
- Share examples of good and bad student work
- Quoting extensively in written academic work should be discouraged
Transition to M-Level –
- Pre-arrival is not always feasible – pilot project at the University of Stirling
- Acknowledge that a transition period is inevitable
- Adjust assessment procedure accordingly – don’t block a student’s progression with over-punitive assessment in the transition period – allow a lead-in period.
- Set office hours for lecturer contact
- Make students aware of other support available
- Role of admin staff in the university’s PG office – Admin staff at the University of Glasgow have acted as mentors to PG students.
English Language –
- Open University booklet available for students to self-diagnose own level of proficiency
- Offer support before and during the semester
- Early feedback – formative
- Self feedback – turnitin
- Make material available in other formats such as pod casts, etc.
- Use of friends, family or web services to proof read written work prior to submission. Some discussion over HEIs’ policies around the use of professional proof-reading services. Perhaps more tolerance is required in regard to grammatical anomalies and more concentration on the academic concepts being discussed. Integrate this into how work is assessed.
- Dyslexia – it is difficult to initially pick out international students suffering from dyslexia.
Other –
- Students who arrive late due to visa problems need time to catch up. Engage early with these students.
- Effectively update induction materials available
- Provision of online e-mentoring
- International students may worry about being singled out
- Be aware of possible pressures from home and the problems with provision of medical care
- Consider the institution’s extension policies should students need to take time off to travel home
- Need to be sensitive and transparent over the extension policies in place
- Accept arrivals up to two weeks late but make this clear to international students
- Recognise that Visa issues can be very problematic
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- Grading systems (link feedback to criteria)
- Writing from sources – how to do it, what needs referencing and why
- Writing in exams and how to do it fast enough (Or consider different types of exam: Vivas, open book, mind map, diagram, etc)
- Designing a task for learning the skills that is also discipline specific
- Formative assessment (useful to have low risk assessments for practice and to diagnose problems) – and how to persuade students to take part if they think it doesn’t count (build into assessment that does count, make submitting a draft compulsory, explain value)
- Guidelines/templates for students and several good and bad examples.
- Importance of programme level action, not just your module.
- Is IELTS score high enough in the institution?
- Teacher time (Consider group feedback or writing feedback on predictable issues beforehand and just stapling a copy on)
- Understanding key words “discuss” or “critically analyse” might not translate as you expect
- Timing of assessments
- Different assessments for different purposes
- Ask students about their previous experiences of assessment and go beyond the obvious
- You don’t need to copy edit, but you do need to find a way to show mistakes, particularly is language is important
Assessment and Feedback – Jude Caroll (am)
This session linked well to the morning session with many points resonating for both
Evaluation, discussion and feedback are important to highlight areas for improvement – the process is as important as the task. In gathering this, the responsibility for what works is shared by all group members including the teacher. Each group has new players and a new game, what has worked before may not necessarily work again, or in the same way.
Some suggested actions are:-
Look to the evidence base about what helps students adjust. These may need to be addressed at programme rather than module or sessional level. Factors include; teaching relevant skills, providing practice and more practice with diagnostic feedback built in within low risk activities, explicit discussion of differences, probe for meanings rather than assuming or taking face value, provide examples of good practice, offer criteria for success.
Some issues need to be addressed at institutional level and these include; admissions, resources, the informal curriculum, advice and guidance, capacity for programme level planning, agreements on standards.
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This session highlighted, through interactive group work and discussion, the complexities of intercultural group work. It offered an opportunity to reflect on practice, share some common concerns, review the literature and flag up some potential solutions.
Group work can be a transformative process but it is at times troublesome.
Understanding group work is complex and there is a need to move away from binary understandings (e.g. East v West).
Student life is about transition and group work can help or hinder this process.
Teachers sometimes initiate group work as an easy or convenient option without thinking about the effects and impact of group work.
Teachers may wish to ask themselves -
- What leads to good intercultural learning?
- Consider what produces positive interaction – talk with students about this
- Think about how groups are selected – are they teacher led or student led?
- Some issues to consider are, expectations, language, past experience and future goals. How can group work move individuals from one stage to the next?
Some of the issues arising in setting up intercultural group work are:-
- The environment
- Low stakes (groups need to practice in a low stakes task before moving to assessment tasks where the stakes are higher)
- Open ended less specific tasks
- Take account of prior experiences
- Be authentic and challenging
- Ensure relevance
- Check out universal values – your beliefs may not be held by others.
- Examine, with group members, what are the barriers to change – they may be political, intercultural, interpersonal.
- How can cliques and same culture groups be tackled?
Intercultural Group Work – Catherine Montgomery (pm)
- Anecdotal evidence is too often relied upon. Approaches should be based upon research evidence.
- Problems of UK student mobility now improving but only because European universities are beginning to offer courses taught in English.
- Differences between national cultures are not comparable to regional differences within the UK.
- Recognition that group work can be challenging.
- Students from other cultures may not have extensive experience of group work.
Suggestions arising from group discussion:
- Create team charters – groups sign up to a set of values that they have established themselves.
- Design tasks so that they cannot be fully completed without input from other cultures.
- Ensure low-risk in early exposure to group work, building up to higher stakes later in the course when students are assessed.
- Have lecturers organise the groups rather than leaving it to the students.
- Allow for an open-ended outcome? Some disagreement over this.
- Prior experience is essential for students when it comes to group work that is to be assessed.
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- View induction as a process
- Induction can be short and postgraduate students often arrive late
- UHIMI lecturer in design used Photovoice to explore how students were managing the transition into university – the UK students took pictures of people, the international students took pictures of facilities and the accompanying work showed there were inclusion issues which the lecturer then sought to address.
- SPICE is about developing skills and awareness, not giving information.
- Some similar issues in Chinese institutions.
- Students can expect the tutor to be the source of all information/support and find support service confusing and posters advertising services impersonal.
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A grouping collection of topics relevant to HE teaching , organised around a student's 'journey' through HE study
Written by staff and students, these stories give a fuller picture of experiences and approaches that have been taken.
EvidenceNet is the Academy's service to promote and support the use of evidence in higher education, and is the parent site for this Wiki. It contains a variety of material relevant to international students and topics relating to internationalisation, including research papers, case studies, events and networks (for instance, the resources linked from this page are housed on EvidenceNet). If you require resources beyond those that are linked on this page, please visit EvidenceNet for further exploration of internationalisation.
EvidenceNet is also a place to submit material of your own. We hope that as you undertake enhancement work, you consider writing a short case study using the case study submission form
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