Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy Generator Update cookies preferences

Teaching, Learning and Assessment


​Effective teaching, learning and assessment are foundational to design and delivery of education abroad programs aligned with the Standards of Good Practice and Code of Ethics.  If you are seeking to begin or further your journey as a reflective international educator, Forum staff have compiled the following resources to help you get oriented. 
​Have a teaching & learning resource to recommend?

Foundations

Educators ARE LEARNERS TOO:  PREPARING TO LEAD & Facilitate Learning Abroad
Like other forms of teaching and learning, Education Abroad (EA) is rooted in relationships. Minimally, the relationship(s) in question are between those holding roles as "learners", those positioned as educators, which may include advisors, host family members, faculty, internship coordinators, mentors or other partners in the sending country or in the receiving community(ies). However, tapping into the potential of education abroad, particularly to foster connection and perspective transformation among all learners enjoins educators to inquire into our own assumptions, emotions, biases, and aspirations and how these inform our approaches to education, including relating across lines of difference generally and in intercultural settings.

EA as a learning partnership
The Learning Partnership Model for Education Abroad (Nyunt, 2021) is one framework to think about relationships between educators and learners in education abroad. Learning partnerships which positions educators and students as learners and knowers working in a process of foster growth in intercultural maturity.  Cultural mentoring as a core facet of the educator role in these relationships.  The work of cultural mentoring include facilitating critical reflection of the cultural dimensions of their experience and coaching students in specific strategies for addressing challenges associated with intercultural adjustment and acculturation.    

The table below illustrates four principles of education practice. Each is organized by a challenge to educators and the type of supportive response recommended.  Each relationship, each context is an opportunity to apply the principles to meet the demands of the learners and the context.


​Practice: Questions for Reflection
  • What values/principles guide my decision making when it comes to teaching and learning? 
  • What assumptions do I bring to this learning partnership? 
  • How does a learning partnership align with or challenge my assumptions about learning?  How does it align or challenge my beliefs about my role as an (advisor, faculty member, a content expert, host parent, tour operator)?  
  • What have I done to prepare myself for the unscripted, experiential nature of learning in intercultural settings as well as different geographies and political systems?
  • What do I know about my own conditioning and socialization (e.g. cultural, regional, race/ethnicity, ability, faith, ideology, disciplinary and institutional) and the learners, places and institutions that students will interact with while abroad? 
  • What do I know about the conditioning and socialization (e.g. cultural, regional, race/ethnicity, ability, faith, ideology, disciplinary and institutional) of students at my institution? 
  • What have I done to prepare myself to foster trust with students whose lived experiences, bodies, worldviews, stances on issues and expectations of education abroad may differ from my own? Where do I still have work to do?
  • What do I know about the conditioning, socialization and group dynamics among program partners and host nationals that students will come into contact with?  How will I approach helping students prepare for and process unscripted and dissonant encounters that they may find offensive or triggering?
  • How might I need to adapt my program planning and preparation to account for others that may be part of this learning partnership?​​
Practice: Go Deeper
​
​SYLLABI, ASSIGNMENTS & ACTIVITIES
  • The Forum's ​Curriculum Toolbox - Includes syllabi and assignments drawn from courses and programs that align with the Standards of Good Practice. At present, the toolbox is in the process of being restructured to work on our new web platform.  Currently, only a selection of  of syllabi devoted to short-term education abroad programs and courses is available.  The complete toolbox will be restored and available in 2024.
  • Campus Compact Syllabi Library - for those designing community engaged learning programs in global contexts.
  • The HubICL Intercultural Toolbox developed and maintained by the Center on Intercultural Learning, Mentoring, Assessment and Research (CILMAR) offers a free, open access searchable repository of activities and assignments that educators can draw upon as well as contribute too. The HubiICL also includes sample syllabi.
  • The Interdependence & Local Actions Toolkit - developed by members of the Community Based Global Learning Collaborative, the toolkit provides a range of activities, assignments and readings to support learners in their intercultural development and praxis journeys.
​
Critical Reflection - COMING SOON
ASSESSMENT - COMING SOON

IN FOCUS: When emotions & tensions run H.O.T.
Increasingly, international educators find themselves party to tense interactions involving students in classrooms, at home and abroad, and in a variety of other learning and engagement settings (e.g., in transit between destinations, fieldwork, internships, excursions, homestays, etc.). If left unaddressed, these encounters can damage relationships and erode trust among educators, local partners, host nationals as well as students. For some, such interactions can serve as triggering events surfacing unresolved experiences, deep held beliefs and/or collective traumas  that challenge educators' composure, facilitation and intercultural skills.

As educators, most of us aren't trained as mental health professionals or in conflict resolution. And it is important to recognize the limits of our knowledge and roles as educators when conflicts or tense moments occur. At the same time, there are important roles for educators to play in these situations as coach, mentor and guide.  

Sometimes tensions and conflict may create opportunities for growth and learning, encouraging students to practice perspective taking and suspend judgement. It is vital that we build our capacities to work with students and partners to shift unteachable moments in to teachable ones.  H.O.T. moments may be one approach that can you can use to work with learners to recognize, process and respond to topics that are difficult, perplexing and offensive.
H.O.T. Moments - The Basics
WHAT IS A HOT Moment?
The acronym HOT refers to moments that are Heated, Offensive, and/or Tense.  The term “hot" moments is often used as a catch all term for challenging or difficult interactions. In educational settings involving interactions among students, educators, and host nationals, HOT provides a resource for educators to use to critically appraise a situation and align their responses with the context.


Considerations for applying HOT moments in EA
  • Recognize the cultural specificity of HOT moments and be prepared to adapt when needed. HOT moments was developed to address classroom teaching issues in the U.S. Learning spaces in EA transcend traditional concepts of the "classroom."  EA occurs in both formal and informal settings; context matters so while HOT moments can be applied or adapted to most learning settings, be prepared to modify or adapt.  
 
  • Seek opportunities to supplement HOT with comparative, analogues relevant to the host culture(s) where possible. When working in other linguistic and cultural settings, there may be other culturally specific metaphors or imagery that can be called upon to help learners, onsite staff, educators and partners to reflect and unpack concepts like conflict and disagreement. Inviting comparative language, imagery and frameworks may serve as a bridge to engage with tense moments from a comparative stance. 

What KIND OF HOT MOMENT IS IT? ​
​Each of the three types of HOT moments are described below. Note that the categories are not mutually exclusive.  Indeed, there may be times that they overlap.

  • Heated moments can be characterized by yelling, accusations, or name-calling. In these moments, it is immediately clear that something has gone wrong and there is a rupture in the relationship among the individuals/groups involved. 
 
  • Offensive moments are when something offensive has been expressed through words or actions. Perhaps someone has used a racial or ethnic slur about a group or individual; perhaps a student wore a piece of clothing or jewelry that expresses a political or religious view others in the group find objectionable; alternatively, perhaps a local tour operative cracks a culturally inappropriate joke at the expense of a particular group during a cultural outing. These moments can escalate and morph into heated moments.  If left unaddressed or unacknowledged, it’s possible that those offended may sit silently or withdraw. They may not speak up during outings, may fail to respond to email, participate in activities.
​
  • Tense moments may be difficult to address or identify. There’s no single moment of explosion or reaction, but it’s clear that something has shifted. The sources of tension could be internal to the program or individuals within it and show up as moments when the table goes silent after a comment or remark has been made, or students are uncomfortable with a presenter or tour guide. In addition, tensions may be influenced by events, factors and forces that appear beyond the scope of the program.​
KNOW YOURSELF
Part of our role as educators is to create conditions that 1) challenge and support learners in their adjustment to a new culture and, 2) aid them in working toward managing this process on their own (intercultural maturity, self-regulation).

To foster these conditions, we need to prepare ourselves too. Like our students, we can experience strong emotions and/or be the source of a HOT moment. 

  • We cannot prepare for or forsee every possible contingency, but we can prepare ourselves to suspend judgement and manage our emotional states to respond when the unexpected occurs while on a program. 
 
  • Reflect on your prior experiences with HOT moments in your own life and teaching. Invest time to understand what your own blind spots, cultural conditioning and implicit biases are as well as conditions that might spark a triggering event for you. a necessary part of improving your ability to not only manage your emotions. Investing in this work and how you show up across different phases of the program, in different cultural contexts, settings and interactions with students. 
​
  • Prioritize holding time in your calendar for this work before, during and after the program. It's easy to be consumed by the logistics associated with EA programs. When HOT moments happen in the classroom or in the community, students will look to you for guidance and modelling. Remember, this work isn't the "nice to do" work, it's the "need to do" work.
​
Practice: Questions for Reflection
When preparing for the possibility of HOT moments, it can be helpful  to reflect on your past experiences with similar situations: 
  • What sparked the HOT moment in your course/program (e.g., your own biases or assumptions, a community incident or geopolitical crisis, a particular course element, racial battle fatigue, student disengagement, an encounter with a host national)? (refer list of triggers in Obear, 2017)
  • How did you respond (or not respond) in the moment? 
  • What impact did your response have on the course/program, student engagement and learning, relationships with local partners and organizations? 
  • What might you do differently going forward? ​​​
​
​Practice: Go Deeper
​​
Navigating H.O.T. Moments
 AnTICIPATE & PREPARE FOR HOT MOMENTS

​In addition to understanding what can set off your own emotional responses. There are other ways you can prepare yourself and learners on your program.
​
  • Be aware of your home institution's policy on free speech as well as policies and laws in play at your program's destination. 
 
  • Seek guidance from EA professionals and others at your institution and your destination(s) as part of program development.
    • Policies, rules and laws governing freedom of expression. Campus policies on freedom of expression vary and have come under increasing attack. It's important to be aware of them as well as what the policies and laws are regarding free expression in the host nation(s) where students will be. Education abroad professionals at your institution, and where relevant, program provider organizations about:
      • Is there standard language you can use in the syllabus?
      • How do the laws, policies & local norms align with or differ from yours? 
      • How they approach acrimony, incivility and conflict in practice? 
      • Whose understanding/policies will take precedence? 
      • How much authority and autonomy do you have as the program director?
      • Institutional policies and local laws can impact you and your students in formal and informal learning settings.  
      • ​Recognize that individuals on site might have different levels of autonomy, authority and standpoints on these issues even when associated with an organization/institution (ex. onsite faculty, host families, internship supervisor, etc.). 
  • Perceptions and expectations of teaching and learning vary across culture, geography, institution, fields and profession. This includes variation in how conflict is understood and expectations for how faculty and students are expected to act. Consider how you might use HOT to create opportunities for conversations about variations in how faculty, staff and partners may conceive of, interpret and respond to conflict, authority, diversity, equity & inclusion. You might apply this to:
    • predeparture and onsite orientations with students to help them prepare for engagement with faculty and institutions abroad as contrasted with those at their home institution.
    • professional development sessions with on-site faculty, host families & staff peers involved with your program as advisors, mentors or supervisors. 
 
  • Know your students. A one-size-fits-all approach will not be successful.  U.S. students studying abroad carry a range of social identities into the study abroad experience that can impact what can ignite a HOT moment in them and how their varying capacity to respond in a given circumstance.
    • What is the demographic make-up of students at your institution? 
    • Whose experiences and interests are centered or distanced in the program based on the destination, norms and content of the course?
  • The Forum's Guidelines for Short-Term Study Abroad can be a useful reference as you plan. Also, check out the resources on resource page devoted to equity, diversity and inclusion.​
​​
  • Sensitize students to their comparative rights and responsibilities in relation to speech & expression. 
    • Include statements in program materials, and include discussion of this information during advising, pre-departure orientation and reinforce it in the early weeks of being on site. 
    • Provide local examples and engage students with scenarios to work through to deepen their engagement.
​
  • Develop community agreements. In addition to other guidelines and policies that govern safety in your program, another strategy is to develop agreements and guidelines that set expectations for discussions and behavior during
    • Determine whether you need one set of agreements to cover both formal group activities and expectations for students during informal formal activities or two different sets of guidance.
    • Consider developing these guidelines with students and participating partners to build rapport, encourage shared ownership and accountability.  
 
​
Practice: Go Deeper
​
​
​
RESPONDING: ACKNOWLEDGE, ASSESS, CLARIFY
Don't ignore the moment. Students will look to you for how to navigate when acrimony erupts. Model what you want to see in students.

If you are present when the moment happens (e.g., during a lecture, in transit, during an excursion or fieldwork)
  • Pause. Breathe. Assess.
    • Determine the type of HOT moment you are witnessing or engaged in.
    • Decide whether the best course of action is to address it immediately or let it sit.  
      • Acknowledge that something has happened and determine whether to end the activity and when you will come back to it. (after a break, after lunch, next cohort meeting, etc.)
      • This tactic is also useful if you are caught unprepared, are yourself the cause or are triggered by what has happened.
  • Acknowledge. Invite Clarification.
    • Assume positive intent among the individual(s) involved (students, host nationals, organizational partners).
    • If you have developed community agreements, this is an opportunity to remind students of the principles and to put them into practice work through the situation.
    • Illustrative Prompts:
      • Could you please say more about that?
      • Can you elaborate on your point?
      • It sounds like you have a strong opinion about this. Would you tell me why?
      • What is it about this ______that concerns you the most?
      • I hear you saying X; is that what you meant?
RESPONDING: IDENTIFY, EXPLORE IMPACT, REFRAME
Identify & explore the potential impact on others. Sometimes we don’t understand that what we are saying or doing is problematic. In other cases, the statement or act may take the form of microaggression grounded in one or more stereotypes.  Whatever the source, it is necessary to help members of the cohort and individual identify what is problematic. 

Illustrative Prompts:
  • What do you think people think when they hear that type of comment?
  • What message do you think such a comment sends? What impact do you think that comment could have on … ? How do you think this message is understood by ...as contrasted with back home?(e.g., onsite students, host family, onsite faculty/supervisors, etc.)
  • Some might might find X problematic because of….
  • When you said X, I (or others may have) felt like Y. 
  • In the future, please [offer an an invitation for the group to figure out a shared language together]
  • Shall we talk about why the initial phrasing or act felt problematic?
  • I could easily imagine this might feel like an insult to people who…
  • This seems like a good time to revisit and remind ourselves about…

Navigating microaggressions abroad can be especially challenging, even for experienced facilitators skilled in inclusive practice. While systems of inequity and marginalization have been observed globally, the development of stereotypes and biases related to difference are historically, culturally and locally situated. HOT moments can involve both cultural misunderstanding and microaggressions at the same time. For example, when the incident involves individuals that have experienced discrimination/marginalization in their home country/community but are now confronted with behaviors that mirror their past experiences but which in context, may not have the same meaning.

​During the heat of the moment, it may not be possible to  address both. You may need to revisit facets of the issues iteratively throughout the remainder of the program. Acknowledge this. Pause and let the group/individuals affected know when you will come back to it. Follow up separately with the effected individuals. 

If a student reports a HOT moment that erupts during unsupervised time or involves interactions with onsite staff, homestays, internships, offer to meet with the effected student and schedule time with onsite staff to appraise the situation.  If you have worked to develop a plan with onsite staff to anticipate HOT moments, meet with them to address the specifics of the situation and respond.
​ 
  • How will your response address concern for the psychological safety of those involved? What trade offs 
  • What elements of your/their response will be consistent regardless of the person's identity, role, position, or affinity?
  • What would need to vary depending on if it was with a host family, an internship supervisor, a host national faculty member  etc. that was involved?
  • What sources power and cultural dynamics might be at play in this situation that will impact your response and that of onsite partners?
Change the Energy
  • Throughout the discussion, invite students to pause, take breaks and take stock. Offer prompts that help students name their emotions and engage with their senses (movement, drawing, writing, listening to music). Sometimes simply naming and then breaking the tension by doing something different with our bodies or minds can be very helpful for moving forward productively with a difficult conversation. 
  • After discussing intense issues, guide students to reflect individually and/or collectively on the issues raised and the perspectives they heard on these issues. Consider using a questionnaire where students can share what they appreciated about the conversation, what they learned from it, and what remains unresolved.  
Practice:  Go Deeper
​  
RESPONDING: PAUSE, Seek Common Ground, Reflect


Connect to Learning Goals
  • Find a way to connect the hot moment to program topics or learning goals. What does the big emotion present among the group suggest about the importance of the topic under study in the program? In what ways, can course materials help inform, anchor, or delimit the discussion that follows a hot moment?  Are there learning objectives in your program related to critical thinking, cultural humility, perspective taking, or precise framing of an argument that can be reinforced through the ways you invite students to engage?

  • Seek Common Ground - Provide a basis for common understanding by establishing facts and questions about the topics raised in the tense moment. You can share key information yourself or invite students to do so.
    • If in a classroom setting, you might write categories on the board (“what we know,” “what is disputed,” “what we want to know more about”) and elicit items for each category.
​  
  • Check in after the organized activity and discussion with the students most directly involved in the moment, to show your commitment to their well-being, to help them learn from the experience, and to learn from them more about their experience of incident and their experiences in the program. 

  • Connect with your own support network. This individual or group may the EA staff on campus, colleagues, or others. These relationships are especially important, if you felt targeted or personally affronted by whatever emerged during the HOT moment. It can be very helpful to process your responses with trusted colleagues or friends in order to return to the cohort with confidence and optimism.
our GOAL is TO CREATE Opportunities for Students to practice vocabulary, concepts and skills that "moves them into Humility, Openness, & Analysis Rather than Certainty, Rebuttal, or Refusal."
Sensoy & DiAngelo (2015)


IN FOCUS: Generative Conflict & Democratic Skills
LEARNING TO NAVIGATE CONFLICT IS A NECESSARY PART OF DEEP LEARNING & INCLUSIVE PRACTICE
All teaching and learning, including Education Abroad (EA) is rooted in relationships. EA relationships may involve a network of individuals and organizations that include students, educators, advisors, host family members, faculty, internship coordinators, mentors or other partners from both the sending and the receiving nation(s), organizations, communities. 

​Disagreement, disequilibrium, contention and conflict are inherent facets of social, cultural, economic and institutional life.  Education abroad settings and activities, like other forms of education is a political and moral practice that is carried out across multiple sites (classroom, homestays, advising offices, Zoom rooms, internship sites, etc.) and systems of geographic, cultural and community affiliation (campus, neighborhood, city, region, nation, transnational organizations, etc.).

​Conflict is a pervasive and important launchpad for learning and action. Conflict in teaching and learning can be experienced:
  • individually as an internal dialogue as part of the process of sensemaking;
  • interpersonally involving relationships between oneself with others in the EA teaching and learning relationship or 
  • intra or intergroups manifest over elements of civic and collective dimensions of human social and cultural experience (e.g.,). 
​
Conflict can be generative or it can undermine trust, reinforce biases, stereotypes and deepen alienation & marginalization in relationships.  Generative conflict involves working to creates spaces for dialogue where people can move past avoiding conflict or only seeing conflict as destructive.  Setting the conditions to engage in generative conflict invites participants to engage in productive, but often tense conversations. The goal of harnessing generative conflict is to arrive at a fuller understanding of how individuals view the issue and a broader accounts of the facts, to build trust, and when ready, move the conversation forward to developing shared solutions. 

​We can all think of a topic or issue that we try to avoid (e.g. Politics, ideology, race & colorism, religion, faith, climate change, immigration status, grading, etc.) in everyday interactions, in professional and academic settings and with people different from ourselves.  However, by not coming to terms with generative conflict as part of our teaching repertoire, we diminish our ability and effectiveness to effectively mentor and model for students the dispositions, skills and knowledge needed for pluralistic, multi-racial and pluricultural societies to thrive.

PRACTICE: GO DEEPER
RECKONING WITH TEACHING & LEARNING AS A SOCIAL, CULTURAL, MORAL & POLITICAL PRACTICE
As international educators, one of our roles is to support learners in becoming more mindful of the workings of interpretation and culture in their own lives and develop bridges of understanding with members from other groups and ways of life through the lens of a particular topic, profession or field of study. The work of educators, like our students, is culturally and socially positioned.

Teaching and learning in education abroad:
  • Is a social and cultural practice.  Teaching and learning involves social relationships that play out in both informal and formal settings. Both educators, students and partners come to these relationships with varying awareness of the relationships that are partially shaped by their prior experiences and cultural knowledge. 
 
  • Is a political practice in the sense that it involves international educators, students, onsite staff and other groups in both the sending and receiving communities recognizing and negotiating power and interests across a range of institutional contexts (classrooms, internships sites), systems and  and a variety of informal and formal relationships.  
 
  •  Is a moral practice because our intentions and choices are not value neutral. Decisions we make as educators engage us in making a moral and ethical judgements. Here are some examples of types of choices that are steeped in values:
    • The content to we include/exclude about a topic in our syllabus.
    • The accommodations and locations students will stay in.
    • Who gets a say in evaluating the quality of our program.
    • How we approach grading.
 
  • Our claims to objectivity, independence, humility, freedom, harmony, efficiency, sustainability, mobility all represent examples of values. 
  • Our biases are patterned in culturally complex ways that vary with who is involved and the context of the encounter. ​
​

Education Abroad (EA) like other forms of experiential education involves students, educators and host nationals in a set of complex engagements that take place across time and place, and involve multiple dimensions of cultural boundary crossing. Some of these boundaries may be visible and explicit like behaviors, ritual practices, modes of dress, language, architectural designs and the placemaking. Other engage us with tacit dimensions of culture, both our own, as well as other members enrolled in the program and those in host nations and communities.

Culture refers to a shared and negotiated system of meaning informed by knowledge people learn and put into practice by interpreting experience and taking action. Culture includes what we say and do (cultural behavior), what we know & how we relate (cultural ways of knowing and being), what we make and use (cultural artifacts). 

Culture goes beyond spoken language, architecture, mannerisms, modes of dress and systems of government and economics. It also lives in the taken-for-granted beliefs, values, rules, moralities, and behaviors within social groups that feel natural. Because culture includes unspoken or tacit knowledge, we may not be able to readily recognize or describe facets of our own cultural knowledge.  We engage in the work of interpretation often without recognizing that we are doing it. Teaching and learning itself is a form of cultural knowledge. 
​


Practice: Go Deeper
Check out the resources under the accordion tab on this webpage labelled: EDUCATORS ARE LEARNERS TOO:  PREPARING TO LEAD & FACILITATE LEARNING ABROAD
​ ​​

DISTINGUISHING DEBATE FROM DIALOGUE & DELIBERATION
The Standards of Good Practice in Education Abroad (4.4 and 6.1-6.3) point to the importance of preparing students for the work of navigating cultural transitions, including engagement with diverse others; communicating expectations for conduct and consequences of behaviors, and supporting students to interact in respectful, ethical and mindful ways.   

Dialogue and deliberation are building blocks to fostering an inclusive climate, cultures of belonging that are pluralistic and pluricultural. If your program aims to support students in becoming:
  • more comfortable with cultural differences,
  • more aware of their own standpoints, strengths and limitations,
  • more capable of collaborating and working through disagreements in intercultural groups
 then, you will want to prioritize offering students adequate guidance, practice time and opportunities for examination of their experiences as your develop and implement the program.  


What is the relationship between debate, dialogue and deliberation?
  • Debate, dialogue and deliberation refer to specific ways of engaging in discussion with others.  Each differs in their structure and goals although they aren't mutually exclusive and sometimes a discussion may involve elements of two or more of these strategies.

  • Debate: 
​
  • Dialogue: Open-ended discussion that builds trust and understanding. Through dialogue people are free to speak honestly and disagree respectfully. They are encouraged to consider different points of view but they are not required to reach consensus. Looking at a range of viewpoints can help people work out their differences, overcome a past history of conflict, find areas of common concern, and come up with solutions together.

    Deliberation: Careful consideration of complex issues.  When participants move from dialogue to deliberation, they explore the complexity of the issues and the tradeoffs that are necessary to make progress, and they see these issues from the perspective of others as well as themselves. As people consider a range of solutions, they are more likely to come up with action ideas and strategies that make sense in their community, while addressing the needs of others. 

​​The table below outlines different facets of these three approaches to discussion. You can use it to help you and your students become more conscious when they are engaged in a debate, dialogue or deliberation.

Distinguishing Between Debate, Dialogue & Deliberation

​Practice:
  • Take stock of the role of formal and informal discussion in your program as well as its purpose as your develop the program.
    • While developing your EA program, consider how often you will include discussion as an element of your program design. he format, goals and types of discussion you plan to include throughout the program.  Is the goal to establish a broader understanding of a phenomenon (ex. non verbal communication styles in Spain, 12th century Mayan monumental architecture, responses to climate migration in Morocco, etc.), demonstrate the strength of a particular position 
  • Consider using simulations, peer presentations, media meditative practices, and other forms of expression culture to help students develop an explicit awareness of the complex interactions between verbal, non-verbal communication and emotions. Have them begin to make observations of this in their daily lives prior to arriving in the host community.
    •   
    • Be mindful that some popular presentations on non-verbal communication may be problematic.
  • ​Identify community and student assets.
    • to help you identify students that have participated in or served as leaders in intergroup or deliberative dialogue in their personal lives or on campus. 
    • Include questions during the application process, during predeparture or during the early weeks of the program.
Practice: Go Deeper
Publications:
Patterson, M.L., Fridlund, A.J. & Crivelli, C. (2023). Four misconceptions about non-verbal communication. Journal of Psychological Sciences. 18(6). https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221148142
​
Merculieff, I. & Roderick, L. (2013). Stop talking: Indigenous ways of teaching and learning  and difficult dialogues in higher education. University of Alaska Anchorage Press. 
​
Ropp, S. (2021). "Stop Talking" by Ilarion Merculieff & Libby Roderick: What would it mean to indigenize our approach to dialogue?"  Blog Post. Accessed 2/1/2024. 
​
Media, Activities & Facilitation Guides:
CULTIVATING DEMOCRATIC HABITS THROUGH DIALOGUE & DELIBERATION in EducaTION ABROAD
Intercultural learning & global citizenship are often identified as intended outcomes of education abroad programs. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone not only has the right to education but that "education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace." 

Inviting international educators to integrate engagement with democratic principles in everyday life not just those of the ballot box, formal deliberative bodies but the messiness of everyday politics in our living rooms, dorms, classrooms, and workplaces.

All of us involved in education abroad programs they are also inherent to the practices of democratic life as constituted______.

​Concerns over diversity, equity, justice and belonging are concerned with attending to and addressing representation and inclusion in group settings; and they are also an opportunity to concentrate or redistribute how a those involved in a group or partnership whose voices are visible, how disagreements are to be surfaced and handled, how decisions are made and how authority for these decisions is distributed. In essence, they are also an opportunity to practice individual and collective self-governance and self-determination.


​Practice:  Formal, Informal & Intergroup Dialogue
There are many approaches to dialogue, a few of them are listed below.
​
Many campuses and community organizations/NGOs in the U.S. and abroad have individuals or offices that lead intra and intergroup dialogues. Check around to see who might be 

​Practice:  Public Conversations & Deliberative Dialogue
The resources below includes tools, facilitation plans and models that are derived from work inside U.S. based understanding of a pluralist democracy.  These tools and ideas remain salient for use in education abroad for two reasons.
  1. The concept of democracy as a means of collective self-governance, the practices of everyday democracy and what it means to be an active participant in democratic processes are contested, globally and even in the U.S. Connecting experiences abroad to taken-for-granted or unchecked assumptions can help us improve.
  2. ​Students return to their home communities and that is where many will apply what they learn. Engaging with dialogue and deliberation and connecting these concepts to expressions of everyday democracy in action, can help students extend the processing of their study abroad experience, and encourage them to connect and reexamine patterns of their lives at home with those those witnessed while abroad.

​Practice: Go Deeper
Publications
​     ​ ​
Talking Politics and Polarization:
​
  • ​Talking Politics Resources - Institute for Democracy in Higher Education & the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU)
​
​
​
​
Supplemental Guideposts

Consider how you might use portions of or adapt the guides and resources below as part of a recruitment strategy, pre-departure or re-entry programming. Look for opportunities to tie the issue to a comparable topic, concept or issues that is a touchstone or point of exploration in your program(s) abroad.
  • Check with academic units (political science, global studies, sociology, education, etc.) other student engagement units (diversity, equity and inclusion, civic engagement, etc.) or the campus community engagement offices to see if they already host a dialogue.
​
  • Alternatively, check in your local community, non-profits, inter-faith, civic engagement and NGOs often are sources for opportunities.  
​
  • If you partnering with another entity isn't possible. Remember, you can develop a wrap around framing and debriefing component to the experience to help provide the scaffolding.

Resources: ​  
Check to see if your institution is part of national/international networks that offer support resources.
The Forum on Education Abroad is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission as the Standards Development Organization for Education Abroad. The Forum on Education Abroad is hosted by its strategic partner, Dickinson College
© 2024 The Forum on Education Abroad.  All Rights Reserved.
P.O. Box 425, Warren, RI 02885 | Phone: (717) 245-1031 
About Us | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Donate
Search The Forum
Subscribe to Forum News