A Transformational Learning Model for Designing Internationalized On-Campus Courses

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By Shelley L Smith


Abstract

Internationalizing on-campus courses is a key part of creating globally engaged students. An internationalized course should provide students with the opportunity to: (1) openly engage and value new perspectives; (2) develop skills for critical analysis of the knowledge and perspectives encountered during the course; and (3) observe, participate in, and reflect on the information gained. This article presents a four-step transformational model for internationalizing on-campus courses and curricula.


A Transformational Learning Model for Designing Internationalized On-Campus Courses

Introduction Constructivist psychologist George Kelly (1963) observed that “Experience does not constitute being in the vicinity of events as they occur, but in how one construes those events.” By making a distinction between experience and perception, Kelly’s statement draws attention to the heart of what it means to internationalize on-campus courses and curricula. It explains why internationalizing curricula is not merely the addition of a unit on international perspectives or adding a new book introducing intercultural material or case studies because without guidance students will likely construe or make sense of those materials through their own cultural lenses. Internationalization is defined as the “conscious effort to integrate and infuse international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the ethos and outcomes of post secondary education” (Task Force on Internationalization, 2008). Traditionally, “internationalizing” a campus has focused primarily on encouraging U.S. students to study abroad and bringing international students and scholars to the campus. These are essential components of the process, but they are not sufficient to a holistic and systemic definition of internationalization; recent approaches also involve the internationalizing of on-campus curricula, teaching, and learning (IOCCTL). This article describes why IOCCTL is an important part of promoting global and international engagement, and presents a model that integrates transformational learning theory with the development of intercultural sensitivity to help educators sequence and design internationalized courses that will promote students’ ability and desire to engage both globally and locally as they move from a monocultural to a multicultural framework. Importance of Internationalizing On-Campus Curricula, Teaching, and Learning There are multiple reasons why it is vital for colleges and universities to include IOCCTL in internationalization efforts and to maintain a focus on creating globally engaged citizens: 1. IOCCTL can be the carrot that intrigues students who have not considered the value of international education, and it can encourage them to engage with international students on their own campus and to consider an international experience. It provides an opportunity for students who have been abroad to put their international experience in perspective and to use the knowledge and skills they have learned abroad. Without this reinforcement and potential “sense-making,” key parts of an international or domestically diverse experience are often lost. 3. It provides an opportunity for international students and faculty to share their perspectives, experiences, and knowledge with other students, thus moving them from the periphery of the classroom experience to the center. 4. Finally, IOCCTL provides an exposure to and an awareness of international and global issues that profoundly impact the worlds of the majority of our students who may never study abroad. It can help to expand their awareness of global and intercultural issues (e.g., “think globally while acting locally”). Building an Internationalized Curricula IOCCTL requires an intentional approach to constructing new knowledge and designing and teaching courses. It is provocative by its very nature because it challenges deep-seated attitudes, beliefs, and values. IOCCTL involves the incorporation of transformational pedagogies that promote self-discovery, self reflection, and perspective transformation. As a result, faculty (or departments) who take on the task of internationalizing their courses and curricula will need to overcome their students’ (and sometimes their own) resistance to change, lack of tolerance for ambiguity, and inability to reflect critically on accepted “truths.” IOCCTL requires conscious and conscientious effort to integrate and infuse international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the ethos and outcomes of post secondary education. A fully integrated Curricula requires students and faculty to tackle information integration on two levels: (1) the content level—that is, providing international resources, models, and perspectives that can be discipline-, topic-, or culture-specific, and/or culture general; (2) the process level, where faculty strive to master skills (e.g., strategies, sequencing, facilitation, creating an inclusive climate) that facilitate individual growth and the development of an international perspective, and the skills to use it. Each level is necessary but not sufficient on its own, and it is at the process level where students and faculty encounter the most difficulties. In an internationalized course, international, cross-cultural, multicultural, intercultural, and/or global issues and perspectives can be integrated throughout the course. The following definitions are borrowed from Rogers and Hart (2002): 1. International refers to national cultures and may take a social and/or political meaning. 2. Cross-cultural refers to the comparison or contrasting of two or more cultures. 3. Multicultural relates to issues of domestic diversity (e.g., racial, ethnic, religious, etc.) and encompasses issues of power inequity and social justice. 4. Intercultural relates to what happens when people from different cultures interact and negotiate meaning across differences that arise. 5. Global refers to macro issues that influence the global environment and how they may be manifested differently as well as how they are connected. An internationalized course consciously moves students toward an ethnorelative mindset by integrating theory and practice, providing cognitive, behavioral, and affective learning experiences, and using a multifaceted approach to learning strategies both inside the classroom and through engagement in available local and global communities. The affective dimension of learning drives student engagement, motivation to learn, and valuation of knowledge; the behavioral dimension comprises the development of skills and behaviors required to use and apply what is learned; and the cognitive dimension involves the integration of knowledge into one’s worldview. In an internationalized classroom, these learning dimensions translate to: (1) an openness to engage and value new perspectives (affective); (2) the development of skills for critical analysis of the knowledge and perspectives encountered (cognitive and behavioral); and (3) the ability to observe, participate in, and reflect on the information encountered (cognitive and behavioral). When faculty teach an internationalized course, topics and assignments are sequenced and scaffolded, with the level of risk and challenge rising gradually. Ultimately, IOCCTL is designed to be a transformational learning experience that results in: (1) an enhanced level of awareness of the students’ beliefs and feelings; (2) an open and thoughtful critique and assessment of one’s own and others’ perspectives, beliefs, and assumptions about the world; (3) a conscious decision to alter or enhance one’s worldview; and (4) the ability to take necessary and appropriate action based on one’s new perspectives (Mezirow, 1991). This kind of perspective transformation requires the balancing of four key learning modes: (1) education (access to knowledge, theories, models); (2) experience (being physically and emotionally engaged with new perspectives through case studies, film, simulations, civic engagement, and study abroad); (3) critical reflection (the internal processing and integration of new information); and (4) deconstructing and challenging our assumptions through dialogue (external processing of information through social construction). Without all four pillars, it is unlikely that a deep internalization of new perspectives will occur. Of primary importance is how students will ultimately view, analyze, and evaluate differing cultural perspectives, ideas, and approaches to common problems. While it is clear that there are numerous opportunities to embrace cultural similarities, it is the differences that both intrigue and challenge students—and that are most likely to create conflict in students’ reactions and interactions. Creating classroom environments in which students can learn to grapple successfully with issues raised by different cultural perspectives is no easy task. “Ghettoizing” international content to individual units within a given course or a single course within larger curricula, continues to set such content apart as an “extra” not significant enough to be integrated into the students’ worldview. Instead, the construction of an internationalized course should adopt an integrative approach in which intercultural information permeates the entire course, not just a part of it. As a result, the course must be re-conceptualized in a way that includes not just new material but clear goals, new strategies, and other cultural perspectives. Finally, internationalizing departmental and/or university Curricula in a critical mass of courses is the ultimate goal—and the most difficult to achieve. Research has repeatedly shown that teaching diversity issues in isolated courses does not have a significant impact on students’ attitudes and beliefs (Anderson & Szabo, 2007; Colville-Hall, MacDonald, & Smolen, 1995; Weisman & Garza, 2002). Students need to see issues of culture and diversity as integral to knowing and understanding any body of knowledge and their world; otherwise, those issues can be easily dismissed. The importance of faculty in the internationalizing process cannot be overstated. It is the faculty who must ask the hard questions and encourage their students to look beyond their own cultural assumptions and explore other cultural perspectives; however, these are skills most often left out of undergraduate curricula. The faculty must model this process as well as teach content, always recognizing that students are quite good at identifying any disparity between what an instructor says and how he or she actually behaves. Transformational Learning and the Internationalized Course The kind of learning that results from internationalizing a course tends to be transformational in nature. This is true for both the faculty who prepare the courses and the students who will ultimately take them. According to Mezirow (1991), transformational learning involves an enhanced level of awareness of one’s beliefs and feelings, a critique of their assumptions, an assessment of alternative perspectives, a decision to negate an old perspective in favor of a new one, an ability to take action based on the new one, and a desire to fit the new perspective into the context of one’s life. If one accepts Mezirow’s definition, then the students in an internationalized course, to some degree, need to be “transformed” for the process to be truly effective. This change is not a temporary condition: True transformation requires that students be changed in ways that significantly affect their worldview and that those changes persist after the transformational experience is over. This transformation is much like a network in which new knowledge interacts and integrates with existing networks of knowledge, organizing and ultimately transforming the original in sometimes surprising and unanticipated ways. IOCCTL can raise important ethical concerns as well. When instructors put students into situations in which they will confront their implicit assumptions and strongly held cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors, those instructors are pulling the “cultural rug” from under their students’ feet. Thus, faculty need to be sure they are able to catch their students before they “fall.” Since the essential ethical message here is “Do no harm” (Smith, 2001), this is a task that should not be undertaken lightly. Intercultural educators need to assume responsibility for helping students to coherently reconstruct the cultural realities that they may be dismantling (Smith, 2001). In so doing, the instructor needs to safely and effectively guide students through the all-important transformational learning experiences needed for effective learning related to culture and communication. Because it is not enough for instructors to challenges students’ cultural realities, three additional principles have been added to the four transformational learning outcomes listed earlier. When teaching an internationalized course, faculty must also be responsible for: 1. Assisting their students in their struggle with reorienting their assumptions about issues of rightness and wrongness (Smith, 1998); 2. Helping to guide students in understanding that context and cultural realities must be considered before information and behaviors can be evaluated (Bennett, 2004); 3. Helping students to develop an awareness of, and to be mindful about, their ability to make choices as they develop an ethical structure for guiding them in their own journey toward intercultural awareness—that is, a view in which “ethnorelativism and a strong ethical principles coexist” (Bennett, 1998, p. 30). Because global interdependence is a reality with which our students will need to deal both professionally and personally (Friedman, 2005), these ethical concerns become risks worth taking as faculty prepare students to function effectively and compassionately on a multicultural playing field. The challenges for instructors of internationalized courses are multiple and involve five key questions: 1. How can faculty facilitate change in students’ awareness of and openness to difference? 2. How can faculty strategically plan that change? 3. How can faculty sequence activities and readings designed to guide students toward this transformation? 4. How will faculty know if students are learning what they had hoped? 5. How can faculty measure that learning? Finding the answers to these questions is at the heart of successfully internationalized curricula, and two theoretical models help guide both the way information can be sequenced and presented, and the tasks and strategies employed. A Sequenced Approach This article presents a four-stage sequencing approach for developing transformational curricula for an internationalized course. I recommend that it be used in conjunction with one of the backward design models proffered by Wiggins and McTighe (2005) or Fink (2013). When an educator deliberately and strategically considers solid internationalizing goals and outcomes for a course, the process of developing assignments and assessments, locating appropriate resources, and choosing teaching strategies falls more easily into place. The first theory is a four-stage transformational learning model for internationalizing courses that elaborates on work by Mezirow (1991, 1995), Taylor (1989), and O’Donovan (2004): 1. Generating consciousness through the deliberate creation of disorientation among students that helps to generate opportunities for students to identify and articulate the underlying assumptions in their current knowledge/approach. 2. Transforming consciousness through critical reflection and dialogue, encouraging the student to consider where these underlying assumptions came from, how these assumptions influenced or limited understanding, and to recognize that the resulting discomfort is shared and that others are having/have had similar struggles. 3. Expanding consciousness through engaging in critical dialogue with other students and instructors, and examining, understanding, and integrating new information and perspectives into one’s worldview. 4. Adapting behaviors that reflect change and can be applied in multiple contexts by building competence and confidence in exercising new skills and perspectives, and reintegration into one’s life based on one’s new perspective. The second theory is Milton Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), which presents a framework for understanding the stages one goes through when encountering cultural differences and provides guidelines for the sequencing of course content and activities. The underlying assumption of the DMIS is that, as one is able to think in more complex ways about confronting difference in intercultural interactions and experiences, one moves through six stages: two monocultural (ethnocentric) stages (i.e., the ability to wrap your head around one cultural perspective at a time), a transition stage, and three intercultural (ethnorelative) stages, leading to increasingly sophisticated understanding and behavior around the issue of cultural difference. For most, growth requires the integration of education (concepts and frameworks for “making sense” of cultural differences), experience in intercultural settings and relationships, and reflection on that experience. The next section examines the implementation of these models in curricula development and offers ideas for strategies and resources that faculty can adapt to their internationalized courses. Much of what the instructor does in the classroom is described as facilitation because the kind of learning occurring in such an environment needs to be generative, and meaning needs to be co-created between and among teachers and learners. Willingness to feel one’s way with students, to flex, revisit, and explore unexpected outcomes is essential if the learning process is to be successful. Applying Theory to Internationalized Courses: Fostering Transformational Learning Mezirow (1991) also identified the following key strategies that teachers of adult learners must use in order to facilitate transformational learning: • Progressively decrease learners’ dependency upon the educator, and assist learners in assuming increasing responsibility for their own learning. • Help learners “learn how to learn” by selecting learning experiences that require choosing, thus expanding the learner’s range of options. • Facilitate learners in engaging alternate perspectives and ways of understanding, problem-posing, and individual and collective action. • Encourage the use of criteria for judging that are increasingly inclusive and differentiating in awareness, self-reflective, and integrative of experience. • Make explicit the distinction between learners’ understanding the choices available to them and thinking critically about the choices they make. • Foster a self-corrective, reflexive approach to how students learn, engage in perspective taking, and ultimately make ethical choices. • Make learning experiential and participatory, and model and support desired behaviors. Another key strategy—and perhaps the most important—involves the creation of a safe and supportive context in which critical, reflective dialogue can be authentic and successful (Grabove, 1997; Mezirow, 2000). Such an environment requires establishing trusting relationships between and among students and instructors (Imel, 1998; Taylor, 2000) in order to create a community of learners. These strategies and recommendations inform the approaches suggested in the following discussion. Throughout the process, instructors will be challenged to move from their role as “purveyor of knowledge” to “facilitators of learning,” to move from “classroom managers” to “learning guides” who create a climate in which students can grapple honestly with their reactions to new ideas and perspectives, and finally to move from taking responsibility for information to taking ethical responsibility for their student’s emotional and behavioral learning and well-being. Internationalizing Model It is important to note that the four stages of the internationalizing model are not linear; rather, they build on one another in a fluid, integrative way. Different students progress at different rates through these stages, so instructors must be closely engaged with students in order to gauge the rate of change occurring and to lend support and assistance when needed. At the third stage, students become aware of new and different cognitive models, and they will continue to progress if they can communicate with and gain support from others who are going through the same process. In this way, they coalesce into a community of learners who are engaged and interdependent. By shifting to an expanded view of reality and committing to the exploration of new perspectives, the students are able to approach learning that is both intellectually challenging and emotionally engaging. Stage 1: Generating Consciousness Generating consciousness, the first stage in the process, involves helping students to recognize their own embedded cultural assumptions and perspectives. In this case, ethnocentrism 1 is defined perceptually as a lack of awareness of other cultural perspectives. As a result, it can be assumed that we are all to some degree ethnocentric because we can never be totally aware of all the possible permutations of human cultures. “Un-demonizing” ethnocentrism in this way helps to facilitate openness to challenging what one knows and engaging the struggle of understanding new knowledge and perspectives. Additionally, making it clear at this stage that “difference,” even profound difference, is not inherently “bad” or “wrong” is vital. Throughout this process, educators need to be prepared to deal with student resistance, resistance based on fear of both losing a secure sense of the world and appearing foolish, ignorant, or “politically incorrect.” Making progress in discussing global and cultural issues and concerns requires the development of a shared purpose and language (e.g., How are culture, ethnocentrism, ethnorelativism, etc. defined?) and a climate of trust where students feel safe in taking risks and exposing their own vulnerabilities. Experiential learning strategies using film, case studies, simulations, and role-plays that induce awareness of implicit cultural assumptions are vital at this stage of the process. Because all learning starts with what one already knows and believes, knowing where students are starting is critical. Helping students—whose cultural perspectives and identities at this stage in their lives are likely to be unchallenged—recognize what they do not know can be a somewhat daunting task. Perspectives are most often acquired uncritically and unconsciously in the course of childhood socialization and acculturation. These perspectives “mirror the way our culture and those individuals responsible for our socialization happen to have defined various situations” (Mezirow, 1991a, p. 131). 1 It should be made clear here that ethnocentrism is not viewed as fundamentally “bad”; in fact, it plays a key role in the creation and maintenance of cultural systems and allows people within those systems to function in an environment that minimizes ambiguity and maximizes the potential for understanding. In intercultural interactions, however, it can also be the chief cause of misunderstanding and conflict. There are multiple ways to bring students’ assumptions into awareness, and the strategies an instructor chooses will be dependent on the topic of the course, the level of student knowledge and familiarity with the topic and cultural issues at hand, and the perceived importance or necessity of student change. Students likely to engage with people who are culturally different (e.g., medical personnel, teachers, social workers, students who are going abroad, etc.) can be given the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) (Bennett & Hammer, 1999) early in the term. Based on Bennett’s DMIS, the IDI is a survey designed to identify how one comes to grips personally and cognitively with the concept of difference. 2 One of the key advantages of the instrument as an advising tool is that is allows for measuring both where people would “like to be” and where they “actually” are. This should be a gentle process in which the instructor collaborates with students in setting goals for their own development. One of the most effective ways to help students identify with the challenges faced when encountering other cultural perspectives is to involve them in a simulation in which they must interact without knowing the proper rules for communicating and accomplishing tasks. There are a number of well-known and highly effective simulations of varying complexity (e.g., Barnga, Albatross, Aid to the Minorians, Bafa Bafa, and Ecotonis). Which one an instructor chooses can depend on the number of students, students’ level of openness, resources, and the amount of time the instructor has to run the simulation. While it is sometimes difficult, part of creating an environment of trust requires the instructor to carefully manage discussion and be supportive of all student perspectives. Sharing some of the instructor’s own struggles with the same issues students are dealing with can help increase students’ trust in the instructor, the process, and in one another. Choosing activities and exercises that help to create a “community of learners” and to establish a shared purpose and language, will form the basis for discussions and activities throughout the term. Instructors also need to provide students with tools and opportunities for identifying their implicit values, assumptions, and mental models, and for comparing them with different cultural perspectives through the use of stories 3 , case 2 Giving the IDI requires certification that is obtained by taking a three-day training course. One of our trainers is certified, but in most cities it is relatively easy to find someone who is IDI-certified and can oversee this process. 3 Including Horace Miner’s wonderful “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” studies, exercises, and critical discussion and debate around key issues (i.e., cultural values, behaviors, and culturally embedded ethical concerns). Some of these activities should serve as unexpected or “disorienting” events that elicit insights from the students. The disorientation results from the clash in cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs that lead to behaviors that seemed inappropriate from a U.S. perspective. The insights come from understanding (not necessarily agreeing with 4 ) the values, attitudes, and beliefs underlying the different cultural behaviors. The goal is to help students to delay judgment—at least until they have learned a great deal more about other cultural perspectives––when faced with cultural situations they do not understand. Because such judgments sometimes carry an emotional, even gut-wrenching component, this is easier said than done and requires practice. Understanding how such behaviors are situated within a cultural context allows for a more accurate understanding of the purpose of those behaviors and ultimately the ability to make more astute judgments about their usefulness and effectiveness. At this point in the first stage, students should begin keeping a journal of reflections, questions, and observations. This journal, kept throughout the course, can be shared with the instructor and/or fellow students via blogs or online discussion boards as students navigate the process of growth and change. Stage 2: Transforming Consciousness The goals of the second stage of the internationalizing process are to: (1) help students continue the shift from a monocultural to intercultural mindset; (2) increase their ability to question and even challenge existing assumptions; and (3) become more comfortable with the ambiguity inherent in acknowledging that there is more than one “right way” for people and cultures to exist. This is the time when students begin to apply new learning strategies and concepts to their understanding, and to anticipate and negotiate issues that create resistance to alternative cultural perspectives. At this stage, case studies and simulations should become more challenging, debates more invested, controversies more intense, and critical analysis deeper. Films with high-impact portrayals of issues of cultural difference and discrimination are useful tools in creating this more challenging environment. 4 This is a key ethical distinction for participants and students alike, one that we found needed to be stressed and discussed constantly throughout the sessions. Students are given information about models that classify cultural dimensions (Hall, 1984; Hofstede, 1994, 1998; Kluckholn & Strodbeck, 1961) so that they can use them prototypically (not stereotypically) to organize new information and perspectives and form hypotheses about different cultural behaviors. Special attention is paid to the ability to shift frames of reference and to practice seeking emic (i.e., culture-specific) meaning from readings and experiences. Instructors must take great care in supporting students as they confront repeated challenges to their existing worldviews. Failure to navigate this stage successfully can result in retreat to and entrenchment in a monocultural perspective and its more comfortable assumptions about the predictability of human behavior. During this stage, students confront numerous discrepancies between their own cultural perspectives and those of other cultures. It becomes increasingly difficult for them to ignore or keep from questioning the universality of their cultural values and beliefs. They begin to realize that what they consider “reality” or “the way things are” is to some degree culture-bound and, in fact, varies from culture to culture. The students’ task then is to integrate this new awareness of “other ways of being in the world” into their worldviews. Students are also challenged with expanding their sense of who they are— that is, cultural beings whose view of the world has been constructed within specific contexts that are, by their very nature, limiting. This can be an uncomfortable process, but it is necessary if students are to move toward an intercultural paradigm shift in their understanding and behavior. This struggle indicates that deep learning is taking place. It can also produce enough stress and cognitive dissonance that some students will need extra support as they struggle to reconcile what they are experiencing in relation to their own deep-seated cultural values. This stage therefore requires instructors to be compassionate and supportive, and to proceed carefully and skillfully when assisting students in the process of self-discovery, self-reflection, and personal transformation and acceptance of their own (often multiple) cultural identities. Stage 3: Expanding Consciousness In the third stage of the training, students continue to undergo significant change and develop expanding awareness and skill in dealing with cultural difference. The tasks now are to reconstruct and integrate new knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors into their personal and disciplinary worldviews. Throughout this stage, students settle into a more intercultural perspective and internalize constructs that make them more open to recognizing, confronting, and embracing difference. Students learn “how to learn” in an intercultural environment, and they continue to engage with cultural difference. However, because cultural sensitivity and culture learning are ongoing processes that provide, according to Janet Bennett, “an infinite opportunity to make a complete ass of yourself in every culture in the world,” 5 it is vital that students are able to reflect on their experience and translate those experiences into an awareness of how culture learning takes place. At this stage, students should be able to use strategies that enable them to explore cultural differences without using their own culture as the only touchstone for their experience. It is this awareness that makes it possible to continue to engage and learn about cultural difference as they continue to encounter differences throughout their lives. This can be an optimistic and productive time. Course materials take on a new dimension because students look at the content with new eyes and are often excited about sharing their insights with others in the course and using others as sounding boards as they progress along the intercultural continuum. Stage 4: Wrapping It Up and Sending Them Off To demonstrate what they have learned, students need to apply their knowledge to projects that show an: (1) increased understanding of their own cultural perspectives and how those perspectives color their view of reality, and (2) awareness of diverse perspectives regarding the course topic and materials. To support this process, instructors need to spur students to apply what they are learning in activities and assignments that challenge them (either individually or in groups) to take responsibility for their own learning. Instructors should also continue to encourage self-reflection, self-motivated learning, and valuation of personal transformation. It is vital for instructors to continue to model those attributes for students because at this stage, more than ever, students will be much more closely attuned to the instructor’s behaviors and attitudes, especially those that are not perceived as open or authentic. Finally, instructors should “let go” of control whenever possible and embrace the role of “facilitator” as students take control of their own learning. Stage-four activities and discussions should be designed to assist students in re-conceptualizing their course content in order to integrate 5 J. M. Bennett, personal communication, 1985. international perspectives, identify performance objectives, and engage in formative assessments and assignments which will demonstrate how well the students have learned what was intended. Summary When one’s identity is threatened because of the need to integrate different, often contradictory, cultural attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, one can either retreat or embrace the challenges and grow from the experience. An internationalized course is not an end in itself but rather the beginning of each student’s personal journey toward understanding an increasingly globalized and multicultural world. As students become more aware of different perspectives in the safety of the classroom, they will also be more open to exploring diverse experiences outside the classroom. Overall, the systematic process (one that should always remain flexible) of leading students through the stages of generating, transforming, and expanding consciousness, and affecting change can prove an effective and theoretically grounded way of re-conceptualizing course goals and content, and thus of helping faculty to successfully internationalize their undergraduate courses. In so doing, established education principles and sound pedagogical practice combine with the content of a variety of different disciplines to provide students with a more global perspective as they navigate their undergraduate education and engage a globalized world. It can help faculty guide students as they develop a more global mindset, broaden their worldviews, expand their sense of self, acquire the tools for civic and global engagement, and, it is hoped, move one step closer to peace and understanding. See Appendix A.