Centre for Learning and Teaching

Internationalization of Curriculum

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Shazia Nawaz Awan, Ed.D.
Educational Developer (Internationalization & Intercultural Competency)
Email: shazia.awan@dal.ca


If you make deliberate effort to add international and global perspectives through your course content, activities, assessments, and classroom environment, you are actively engaged in internationalizing or globalizing your course/curriculum.

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Who are the majority of the authors of your course readings?
  • Is most of what your course is about focused on Euro-centric and Americanized perspectives?
  • How are international and global perspectives represented and presented in your course?
  • Who are your guest lecturers and what are the topics they mostly talk about?
  • Are your course learning outcomes embedded in global awareness and world-mindedness? Here is an adaptation of a The Course Design Wheel that is focused on internationalizing pedagogy and can help you with designing learning outcomes for an internationalized course.
  • Are your course learning outcomes embedded in global awareness and world-mindedness? Being globally aware signifies efforts to build an inclusive environment where differences are both expected and respected. A globally aware environment promotes interest in politically, socially, economically, and environmentally evolving global context. World mindedness, on the other hand, builds on global awareness in that it refers to a person’s disposition to think and care about how their actions and decisions affect and are affected by other people around the world.

If the answers to these questions make you rethink about how your course is designed, you are in the process of internationalizing and globalizing your course.

Here are three main strategies you can adopt to internationalize/globalize your course depending on the content and the context.

Add-On

This is the easiest of the three approaches as you do not need to change a lot in your course from what you have been teaching. See examples below:

  • Add a reading from international perspective by an international author/s.
  • Invite a guest speaker who presents the matter with an international lens.

Integration

This approach may require careful rethinking of the design of the course and integration internationalized elements in the existing course.

  • Add at least one course outcome that is connected with intercultural competency.
  • Add an assignment that requires students to demonstrate understanding of diverse viewpoints.
  • Add a/more reading/s from international perspective by an international author/s.

Transformation

This approach may require careful rethinking of the design of the course and integration of internationalized elements in the existing course.

  • Think about a complete shift in the design of the curriculum.
  • Deliberately integrate intercultural and global aspects in the course from both pedagogical and educational points of view.

 

Internationalization statement for course outline (optional)

Following statement (Course Syllabus Guide, 2021) on internationalization can be integrated into the learning outcomes and environment of the course, ensuring a deeper understanding of the statement and your actions in the classroom. 

“Instructors can identify global learning outcomes and intercultural competency outcomes for the teaching, learning and assessment activities and observe the achievement of these outcomes through the formal, informal, and hidden curriculum.”

If you are interested in taking up any of the initiatives above, and would like to work with an educational developer, please contact the Educational Developer, Internationalization & Intercultural Competency. I’d be happy to help.