What is Internationalisation of the Curriculum?
Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC) is an initiative to incorporate international and/or intercultural elements into curricula. There are multiple ways to do this, including by using international case studies and examples, inviting international guest lecturers, incorporating diverse cultural perspectives, and encouraging students to share their diverse experiences and views in class.
There are many documented benefits of intercultural teaching and learning. The CSHE has prepared a concise literature review summarising the empirical literature on the benefits of intercultural learning for university students.
There are multiple ways to add international and intercultural elements to curricula, including small changes to learning activities and larger changes in program offerings.
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Strategies
There are many ways to add international and intercultural elements to curricula. Suitable strategies will depend on your teaching context, discipline, and learning objectives.
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Resources
A curated list of high-quality websites, guides, and collections to assist you in designing learning experiences that incorporate diverse perspectives, build students’ cross-cultural skills, or utilise inclusive pedagogies.
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Examples in practice
Examples of ways that curricula have been designed to purposefully incorporate international and/or intercultural perspectives into the material, facilitate interaction between students from diverse cultural backgrounds or provide experiential learning opportunities.
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Further reading
Additional literature related to IoC, including theories, frameworks, empirical studies and discussion papers.
IoC at the University of Melbourne
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