There’s an article I just stumbled across from September 2015 discussing global pedagogies and global analysis in education, and I thought it would be perfect to share with you all.

Pushing students to reflect on their own lives and histories is critical to giving them the opportunity to translate this cultural literacy outside of their own…[Read more]

The Parthenon Group has a fascinating infographic showing university student mobility around the world. You can hover over each country/region to see where the lines lead to:

http://www.parthenon.com/parthenon_proj/index.html

Some interesting points:

Inflow to China is almost as high as outflow. We always view China as sending students out for…[Read more]

Most of us here are used to the multiculturalism of every aspect of the US, Canada, Western Europe, Brazil, and Australia/New Zealand. However, there are many places in the world that are still heavily, and often almost solely, made up of a single culture.

Two of the least culturally diverse countries in the world are North Korea and South Korea.…[Read more]

Now that it appears the US and Cuba will become closer once again, this might open up a new market for education (both traditional and professional education). Obviously, one big hurdle that might need to be cleared up for many of us are the export issues, which I have not seen much about (as of now, Cuba still appears to be one of the “five bad…[Read more]

While not engineering specific, the Journal of Studies in International Education has an article in their November 2014 issues about Chinese students and why many of them decide to go abroad for Master’s degrees.

The main reason for going outside of China appears to be, interestingly enough, cultural enrichment. This is not just to master a…[Read more]

Just a reminder for anyone interested – please consider submitting a paper proposal for the ASEE International Forum, taking place June 14, 2015 in Seattle, just before the ASEE Annual Conference. The deadline for proposals is January 23rd, and information can be found…[Read more]

Many of us are tasked to work with, and want to work with, the People’s Republic of China. It’s a wonderful place, with great people and a huge economy that is impossible to ignore and tempting to partner with. But how long can that economy be sustained? Too often, China is viewed as an endlessly growing behemoth.

The Brookings Institution put ou…[Read more]

”Leading the Globally Engaged Institution: New Directions, Choices and Dilemmas” is a great white paper that I believe can be used for both continuing education and traditional education. In my opinion, the most interesting and useful sections are ”Faculty Engagement” and ”Western Attitudes and Assumptio…[Read more]

This is a good reference for many of us and you are right, it is an easy read.  Also wanted to share info from a SUNY Conference we just hosted about Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), which focuses on jointly taught online courses from faculty in two different countries – http://coil.suny.edu/6th-coil-conference.  Many of the s…[Read more]

I stumbled on to this very interesting read about teaching across cultures which can apply not only to teaching international students in the US, but is also very critical when looking to expand internationally. It’s from the International Education Association of Australia; however, the US and Australia have extremely similar learning cultures,…[Read more]

MOOCs can provide better access to students who might be shut out of courses that fill up, or to students at remote campuses which don’t offer the full panel of courses that the flagship university campus does.  In this case, MOOCs could allow more students to finish their degree in four years or less.

What is the value of HRSU (Highly Regarded State University) in a MOOC world?  What value do we bring to learning when it’s all out there?

Barriers?  It’s all about RISK (and change) – financial, pedogogical, faculty engagement/time, public perceptions, institutional culture…. the list is endless.

If I have an employee that’s completed a MOOC, how do I know she/he learned anything?  (A cynic would say the same thing about how we award grades in traditional courses 🙂 but it’s a bigger issue with MOOCs.)

Why do we all teach an introductory course in Statics or Physics or Calculus (or Econ, Psychology, Biology, etc.)?  Why not get the best teachers in the country/world to teach them as a MOOC – the content is amazingly similar across all our institutions.  We could focus our courses on those things in these areas that we want to tailor or extend t…[Read more]

At this point, there is value in getting your feet wet – experimenting and getting experience.  But is jumping in with both feet worth it?

Also, ideological benefit: if a university’s mission is to extend education (especially in their special niche) to the world, MOOCs align with this mission .

MOOCs seem to be a good fit with the “land grant mission” – educating the “masses.”  This is just a new tool with which to do it.