Internationalisation:What does it mean for the curriculum?

What does internationalisation mean for the individual teacher? What do we do to internationalise our course or unit? With the increasing presence in our classrooms of students from other countries, progress is being made to assist teachers to develop an awareness of diversity and inclusivity in teaching and learning. Internationalising the curriculum at the classroom level means taking this further. There is a need to consider the diversity of cultures and experiences that international students bring to the classroom and incorporate them into what we teach. There is a need to consider Australian students (indigenous and non-indigenous, first-generation and First Fleet) and what they bring to the classroom. We need to consider what globalisation, cultural diversity and internationalising the curriculum means for all students.

How do we take these diverse sets of cultures and experiences that are already a part of our classroom and make them a part of our learning objectives? Is it simply enough that international students are in our classes and that Australian students study abroad? Internationalising student learning by osmosis! What about tinkering with the content of our courses to reflect a more global perspective of our disciplines? Or does it mean a significant redesign of our units - the content, teaching strategies and resources - to make them inclusive and international?

Take for example student exchanges with overseas universities, a programme strategy already widely supported in Australian universities. In addition to the academic content learned, studying in another country may increase student’s awareness of different cultures, traditions, lifestyles, religions and languages and provides experiences that they might not have had at home. But what happens when these students return to our classroom? Do we use their experiences to enrich the classes we teach? Do we help them incorporate into their studies what they have learned and experienced overseas? Do we encourage the sharing of experiences with their fellow students? Do we help them to reflect on their experiences? As Dewey (1933) contends, for an experience to be educative, there must be reflective thinking about the experience. It is this critical reflection that leads to new understanding.

To realise the potential that an internationalised curriculum might offer, perhaps we could start with our own classroom and use the personal identities and experiences of all students to help each of them better understand the world in which we live and learn.

• Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Boston: Heath.