Dealing with overseas classrooms and a cauldron of cultures

“With a smorgasbord of cultures, the task of teaching a room of students from around the world requires extra steps”

Teaching the next generation can be a tricky proposition in any situation, no two students are exactly alike and techniques that work well in one classroom may fall flat in another.

For the most part, though, you know roughly what you’re trying to achieve and have designed a roadmap to reach the end. But what about truly diverse classrooms?  Travelling around the world as an international educator is immensely rewarding but also presents unique challenges, how exactly should you deal with a classroom in a different country containing a mix of students?

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Are we on course for a global homogenisation of higher education?

“Students have different educational outcomes in mind, depending on where they come from and study”

Student aspirations and course expectations are more internationally diverse than you might think.

In fact, the reasons students are in higher education and the employability skills they think they will need on leaving are wide-ranging – according to the results of our Student Voices survey we conducted in collaboration with research consultancy Shift Learning.

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How international educators can identify internal cyber threats

“Universities are commonly targeted as a rich source of valuable personal information including addresses and telephone numbers”

With reports of major data breaches appearing seemingly every week, cybercrime has been one of the major news stories of the last few years.

However, while the perception is often that perpetrators are shadowy expert hackers, most cybercriminals are, in fact, opportunists who target victims that will return the highest profits for the least effort and risk. Unfortunately for educational institutions, this means they are one of the preferred targets for attack.

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What Teachers Can Do About the Dangers of Social Media in Students’ Lives

“Teachers should encourage students to practice critical thinking… no matter how righteous it may seem”

Social media is all around us; meeting someone who doesn’t engage in any of the available platforms is rare. As social media has continued to develop and further integrate into society’s basic functions, there are dangers that teachers can help students better understand before it’s too late.

From hurting journalism to promoting outrage culture, social media should be treated with caution. Here’s what teachers can do to help.

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How to make the value of Guardianship more transparent to international parents

“The role of a good guardian is so much more than knowing the whereabouts of a child when the school is closed”

There is currently no legal requirement for an international pupil to have a formal guardian appointed whilst studying in the UK. The selected school is the Tier 4 Visa sponsor and is therefore ultimately legally responsible for the child’s wellbeing whilst he/she is in the UK.

However, no one really argues that Guardianship, when performed well, is of huge value to young international students. The challenge is what a guardianship service should include and at what cost to better ‘make the case’ for international parents to appoint a guardian.

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The Pros and Cons of International and Domestic Education

“Just like everything else in this world, international education comes with its downsides”

There are many differences between international and domestic learning, just some of which include the curriculums covered and the physical geography of students, teachers and institutions. But should international education be weighed above the more traditionally internal forms of education? Or are they just different, but viable, in their own right? 

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The Role of a PR practitioner in the field of Education

“We live in a ‘post-truth’ era where our school’s image can easily swan around myths that ought to be debunked”

Not too long ago, I was at an international educational conference presenting on successful PR strategies that could be implemented in an academic setting.  Before I dived into my five effective and promising strategies, I found myself at odds with the reaction of my attendees. I know I wasn’t saying anything out of the ordinary and surely my presentation was based on my PhD research in PR and the field of international education.  

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Studying in the UK as an LGBT student

“Common barriers, ranging from insulting comments to even physical attacks, are a widespread feature of this harsh present reality in our universities”

Studying abroad is both challenging and exciting. For LGBT students, unfortunately, is much less of excitement, but of a tough challenge.

Common barriers, ranging from insulting comments to even physical attacks, are a widespread feature of this harsh present reality in our universities. However, seeing beyond this deep-rooted belief in our societies, the conditions are changing for the better and the quality of life for these students is evolving in many countries.

UK universities are a perfect example to illustrate this progress. It’s a well-known fact that UK universities are global leaders and their firm commitment toward equality principles in higher education accounts for this reputation, and we see their efforts having effect each day.
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Mobility of Indian Students: Preparing for Future Growth

“The majority of Indian students are highly-price-sensitive, value-maximisers who are trying to search for options that lower cost and increase career opportunities”

 

In this blog, executive vice president of global engagement and research at Studyportals,  Rahul Choudaha, explores the issue of whether the number of Indian students studying abroad will continue to grow in the current political and economic environment.

More than 5 million international students were studying outside their home country in 2016. With over 3,00,000 Indian students studying overseas, India is the second largest source of international students after China. However, in the recent times, the political turmoil triggered by the results of the UK’s referendum to leave European Union or Brexit and the American Presidential elections has also created an environment of restrictive immigration and visa policies in two leading destinations.  Will the number of Indian students studying abroad continue to grow in this environment?
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Feedback matters: how can universities truly capture the student voice?

“For too long student evaluation data has been underutilised”

Policy changes mean that universities around the world are having to take a more robust and strategic approach to course and module evaluation. 

I have been helping universities to improve teaching and learning through the way they capture, analyse and respond to student feedback for the past 10 years. At Explorance we find that what UK universities really value is an insight into how other countries are approaching the issues, challenges and opportunities around capturing student feedback. Working in Australia, Canada, China, Spain, Mexico, UAE and USA give us a compelling insight into what ‘good’ student engagement looks like.

But the UK is also an interesting case study for international universities. Here, the National Student Survey (NSS) poses questions on how students have the opportunity to give feedback and how their feedback is acted on – and the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), which provides a resource for students to judge teaching quality in universities, draws on data from the NSS. All this points to student engagement rising higher up UK universities’ priority list than ever before.

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