CoP: Community For Enhancing Intercultural Learning Experiences

THE COMMUNITY

This Community will support and promote the efforts of faculty and staff to enhance the intercultural learning experiences and competence of students at HKUST. Findings of a survey of UG students regarding their intercultural learning experiences (conducted in 2017), as well as those from a study of faculty and staff and their understanding of student expectations of these experiences (conducted in 2019) indicate a need for attention to these issues.

Over the next two years we will offer members opportunities to participate in training by professionals in this field. We will invite guest speakers to share with us their knowledge and experiences. We will support, document and share best practices, and champion interventions in and changes to courses and other learning activities.

Details about training opportunities starting in December will be discussed at this meeting.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Our guest speaker at this meeting is Till Kraemer, Director and General Manager of Inter-cultural Education (ICE), Hong Kong. ICE has been building global awareness among youth through facilitating cross-cultural encounters since 2010.

Run by a team of locals and internationals, ICE aims to build a foundation for global competence by sparking curiosity about different countries and cultures through facilitated and curated exposure.This can take the form of "Human Library" sessions where students explore the lives of guests from various cultures, or cultural awareness and sensitivity training as well as experiential simulations on refugee or poverty issues.

Till will share the motivation behind and the journey of his social entrepreneurial endeavour, as well as his team's experiences working with Hong Kong and mainland secondary schools and universities.

Check out ICE’s website here: https://icehongkong.com/

WHO ARE WE?

Melissa Megan, Principal Coordinator
Melissa is a Senior Lecturer in the CLE. Melissa has been living and interacting interculturally for about 30 years, 21 of those having been spent at HKUST. Melissa is a proponent of Internationalisation at Home: ‘…the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments’ (Beelen & Jones, 2015), and hopes this is what this Community can work towards achieving at HKUST.

Beatrice Chu, Coordinator
Beatrice is an Educational Developer and heads up the professional development programs and initiatives at CEI for faculty and frontline teaching staff. She has over 20 years of experience working in different sectors in tertiary education. Beatrice was trained as a physicist, and her current interests are innovative instructional approaches and programs that facilitate students' knowledge, skillset, and mindset for the 21st century. She involves in multiple intercultural teaching competence initiatives at HKUST.