Strategies for Effective Teaching in International Education Experiential Learning 

This graduate-level course is aimed at students who are willing to engage in a career in the field of international education, and who wish to acquire relevant perspectives and skills to teach classes to an international audience, both abroad and in their home country. The course will provide a theoretical background on most up-to-date and engaging teaching strategies to address a multicultural class, as well as a hands-on case-study based framework of elements of reference to build effective and stimulating teaching situations, with consistent reference to both didactic and educational objectives of a course.

This course is made unique due to its connection with the three main educational assets implemented as core educational values by FUA: experiential learning, field learning, and cultural integration. Experiential learning at FUA rethinks the concepts of the classroom and field experiences as related rather than distinct environments. The classroom is an on-going environment that extends beyond the physical spaces of lecture halls and laboratories; classroom learning is applied to the outer world. Field experiences must be rooted in academic contexts and give back to classroom learning a wider perspective of taught knowledge. Experiential learning is an active and lasting contribution, based on cultural integration, of international student perspectives to the local culture, and vice versa. Outreach and collaboration with the community increase awareness and expand an engaged knowledge of the local territory. Therefore, FUA offers a unique learning model that allows students to benefit from an all- encompassing educational experience based on theory and practice applied to real-life situations while learning comprehensive operational processes, problem-solving strategies, and leadership and management techniques. Ultimately, this course enables students to understand how to place the teaching experience as just one portion of the whole study abroad experience, so as to acquire the necessary expertise to teach international students in a fully dynamic and community-outreaching context geared to cultural integration.

This course includes experiential learning hours with our Community Engagement Member Institutions (CEMI). CEMI are dynamic learning environments created to foster learning through a structured interaction with the community. In addition to regular lecture hours, students will be involved in learning by doing through real projects and integration with the local population and territory in order to remove cultural and learning barriers as well as to develop a strong likelihood for success in life. The experiential learning hours are fully supervised by instructors who track students step by step during their learning experience, monitor and advise according to student needs, and support student initiative. This unique learning model allows students to benefit from an all-encompassing educational experience based on theory and practice in real enterprises, learning of comprehensive operational processes, problem-solving, leadership, and management.