Interested in adding an international dimension to your class—and offering your students an international academic experience, without leaving campus?
Creating international experiences for all
The Global Classroom initiative offers instructors a way to add an international component to their classes by collaborating with a foreign partner. This gives students experience with the type of work they will likely engage in over the course of their future careers: cross-cultural, project-based, and supported by technology.
The goals of the initiative are to enhance the ability of students to communicate and collaborate across national and cultural boundaries, and to increase their understanding of and respect for norms and values different from their own.
How it works
The Global Classroom initiative takes a class already being taught at any IU campus and pairs it with a parallel course taught at a foreign university. The course can be about any topic and is not limited to study with an international focus. Faculty will continue to teach their respective courses independently, but will collaborate with their counterparts to design a project that requires students from both universities to work together. That work will take place virtually.
Eligibility
Open to all full-time academic appointees who are serving as instructor of record for the relevant class. Graduate student and other part-time instructors are not eligible.
Deadlines
Spring 2021: application cycle is complete.
Fall 2021: deadlines announced January 2021.
Each Global Classroom course will aim to enroll a minimum of ten students from each university, and should involve significant and ongoing student-to-student interaction over the duration of the course. This interaction should lead to the fulfillment of a set of cross-cultural learning outcomes.
Funding
Each participating IU faculty member will receive a $1,500 Global Classroom Fellowship grant, which can be used to cover travel to the partner institution, educational resources, materials, or other expenses incurred in designing and delivering the course. $1,000 will be disbursed at the time of the award, and $500 upon completion of the course and submission of a report of outcomes.
Fellowship
Each IU faculty member teaching a Global Classroom course will participate in the Global Classroom Fellows Program to support best practices in course development, implementation, and assessment. The Fellows Program will hold preparatory sessions during the semester preceding the courses, and one outcomes session during the semester following completion of the courses.
Application guidelines
- A proposal of 1,500 words or less that describes the proposed joint work, its sequencing and integration with other elements of the course, and the methods by which the proposer plans to assess its impact on student learning and global learning outcomes
- A short statement of the instructor’s qualifications, including a description of any prior work involving the pedagogies and technologies involved
- A letter of support from the instructor’s department chair
- A letter of commitment from the proposed partner that confirms the commitment to teach the course
A committee will review applications on the basis of the following criteria:
- Clarity, detail, and rationale of the proposed project(s);
- Integration of the proposed collaborative project(s) into the overall course;
- Feasibility of the proposed project(s); and
- Incorporation of clear international learning outcomes.
- Course has historically enrolled at least 10 students
- Significant student-to-student interaction throughout the duration of the course
- Identification and assessment of cross-cultural learning outcomes
- Participation in Global Classroom Fellows Outcomes Session (following course)
- Global Classroom Fellowship Grant of $1,500
- Global Classroom Fellows Preparatory Workshops (preceding course)
- Instructional technology support
- Cross-cultural learning outcomes assessment support
- Ongoing membership in community of Global Classroom Fellows
- Students of a communications professor at a U.S. university collaborate with the class of a law professor in Australia on a four-week project. The students role-play as CEOs and corporate lawyers to engage in legal test cases that involved conflict and mediation. The students have asynchronous email correspondence and synchronous mediations.
- A classics professor at a U.S. university work with a colleague in Italy to offer an upper-level project to their students. In the first part of the course, the students prepare independent research papers. Both sets of students study the same theoretical models. In the second half of the semester, the Italian master’s level students work as peer reviewers of the research papers, along with real-time class discussions on the theories they are both studying.
- A U.S. university and partner university in Russia conduct a collaborative course to explore the similarities and differences of gender and human sexuality between the different cultures with an emphasis on feminist perspective.
- Students in Turkey collaborate with students in the U.S. to design and build a glove for a Syrian refugee whose hand was permanently injured by a ricocheting fragment during the war.
Knowledge and Skills
Students have the ability to:
- Communicate and collaborate across national and cultural boundaries
- Make choices and design solutions informed by multiple frames of reference, including international, global and cultural contexts
Attitudes
Students can demonstrate:
- Openness, recognition, and acceptance of differences
- Willingness to adapt their own practices, values, and behaviors
Action and Responsibility
Students are willing to:
- Act upon acquired knowledge, skills, and attitudes in global and local contexts
- Participate in international experiences, interactions, and collaborations.
*Adapted from Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Global Change
Contact
Rita Koryan, Assistant Vice President for International Affairs, is available to answer any questions.
