1. Ideas on designing International Learning Outcomes

2. International learning outcomes
You could create new ones…..
….. but this is usually not necessary.
The most common approach? ….Make the learning outcomes you have more international

3. ….but which outcomes to make more international?
Start by defining the characteristics of your graduates. Are you making them fit for working and living in a globally connected, interdependent and culturally complex world? What do they need to know? What should they be able to do? What values and beliefs do they need? This will be different for each program.

4. Ask students to have a global outlook
Business:
able to watch trends from around the world
To make LOs international, think about how graduates need to be international….
Ask students to have a global outlook
Include students’ intercultural communicative competence
Choose problems that are global, interconnected.
Help students see that people and ideas are connected.
and ….
Childhood education: communicate with parents from diverse backgrounds
Biology: solve the Big Problems of the world – like global warming
History:
Compare how people in two apparently similar national contexts acted/reacted differently

5. Making LOs more international (continued)
Train students to think and act with awareness of the context …. and help them learn to be context-sensitive
Make your values explicit: ‘We believe people should be inclusive, open, tolerant.’ Cultural differences should be ‘heard and explored’ (Webb 2005)
Using and valuing the diversity and experiences of all students.
Computer science:
Develop systems that are appropriate to the local context (social, economic, cultural and political) – design systems that will work in a specific context

6. Tools for making LOs more international
refer to diverse contexts, people and/or perspectives & specify culture, language, and national background.
make an explicit requirement for intercultural interaction.
add the word ‘global’.
require several contexts; make comparisons with specific attention to culture, language, nationality or globalisation
evaluate from a perspective relevant to internationalisation or globalisation.
specify diverse recipients where internationalisation, globalisation or intercultural capability are relevant
use data, research or ideas from a number of contexts / situations / perspectives

7. How LOs become international
original Learning Outcome
International Learning Outcomes
Analyze [subject x]
Critically review [subject x]
Solve [problem x]
Create [thing x]
Investigate [situation x]
List the components of [topic x]
Do not change the verb....
How LOs become international

8. LO = action + object of action + how well
original LO
ILO
Analyse the Dutch flower growing industry
Critically review the management of hospital infection
Solve the problem of traffic flow in central Amsterdam
Create a marketing strategy
Investigate the ethics of [experiment x]
List the components of being physically fit and relate fitness and functional capacity

9. Analyse flower growing in at least two different countries
Analyse the Dutch flower growing industry
Analyse flower growing in at least two different countries
Change the context

10. Focus on diverse recipients
Critically review the procedures for managing hospital infection
Critically review the management of hospital infection .. with particular attention to globally mobile patients
Focus on diverse recipients

11. Make comparisons (to raise context- awareness)
Make three recommendations to solve the problem of traffic flow in central Amsterdam
Compare solutions to traffic problems in both a European and a non-European setting.
Make comparisons (to raise context- awareness)

12. Add ‘global’ Create a marketing strategy
.....a marketing strategy for a globally active company
Add ‘global’

13. Add intercultural …. make intercultural skills explicit
Investigate the ethics of [experiment x]
[Investigate the ethics of replacement sibling IVF]
Investigate the ethics of doing experiment x in a multicultural, multi-faith society
Add intercultural …. make intercultural skills explicit

14. Make diversity important and explicit
List the components of being fit and relate them to functional capacity
List the components of being fit and relate them to functional capacity .... with appropriate reference to issues of race, gender and cultural contexts
Make diversity important and explicit

15. Have a look at 2 VU examples

16. Learning Outcomes: what to avoid
Assuming everything/everyone is the same
looking at things only from your own perspective;
only making comparisons outward – seeing yourself/your context as normal
making the context implicit or invisible
making ‘international’ stand for ‘intercultural’
Assuming that being diverse means automatically being inclusive
trying to make everything ‘international’

17. Learning outcomes: include
Mention diverse contexts, diverse people, diverse perspectives
Require intercultural interaction [amongst students, in problem solving etc]
Use ‘global’ where it matters
Use several different contexts: How would it look from someone else’s perspective?
State diversity characteristics in the recipients
Use comparisons, collections
Active steps to include and value the diverse backgrounds and knowledge that students bring.