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Curriculum Development with International Partners. How to Build a Joint Communication Degree Program Kevin Gore. Outline. Why create international curricula? Which curriculum for development? Where to actually begin? What we envision! Our long-term goals.
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Curriculum Development with International Partners How to Build a Joint Communication Degree Program Kevin Gore
Outline • Why create international curricula? • Which curriculum for development? • Where to actually begin? • What we envision! • Our long-term goals
Why create international curricula? • International student exchange programs are well-established with large numbers of mobile students • However, often it appears that the exchange is an ”academic break” when it could offer much more • For students, a joint curriculum between ”strategic” partner schools could add: • An extra incentive to study abroad • Result in a concrete benefit: • An area of specialization • For HAAGA-HELIA: • Real input to our ”home” curriculum
Which curriculum for development? • In joint curricula and student exchange, high risk of overlapping subjects from the student’s perspective • However, one area is clear: Communication • Students report it is something they want to improve • It is culture-specific, thus exchange enhances it • It is one of HAAGA-HELIA’s main foci in education
Where to actually begin? • Get together with all members involved in the development and get to know each other! • We too have to communicate our aims, desires and understanding of what we want to jointly create (time-consuming but worth it) • Have a clear ”driver” (Luuk van Leeuwen in our case) • Determine what is the ”competitive advantage” of each ”strategic” partner • HAAGA-HELIA: PBL • Hogeschool Utrecht: Multimedia • Fach Hochschule Wien: Integrated Communications
Where to actually begin? (cont’d) • Come to a consensus on what is the joint vision and mission • ”The power of belief” • Do a detailed audit of what each partner can bring to the table: • Specific courses and content • Credits, assignments, reading materials, class size, electronic learning platform, etc. • Clarity about who teaches what, wherewhen and how. (easy to say, hard to do)
What we envision! • Suomi • HAAGA-HELIA • Nederland • Hogeschool Utrecht • Österreich • Fach Hochschule Wien
What we envision! (cont’d) • Each school would send and receive 3-5 students during their 4th-5th semester, spending (at least) one semester abroad • Students are integrated into current courses at each school, but special gatherings and seminars organized only for them to create a sense of community • Set ”core” communication curriculum at each school, plus elective courses • Local language courses REQUIRED!
Our long-term goals • One semester is study, another is work placement, either in same country or other partner country • Highlight to companies that we are offering work placement interns with a specialization in communication • E.g., work in internal communications • Platform for communication-oriented theses (research and execution)
Our long-term goals • Lecturer exchange • Exchange of pedagogocal practices • Interest in PBL • Easier to build and conduct joint research projects in an establish network