Transforming Experiences: a Reflective Topical Autobiography of Facilitating Student Nurse Development Through International Immersion Programmes

<p><b>The focus of this study is the impact of an international education programme on baccalaureate nursing students taken by me, their teacher/professor, to become immersed in another culture. This is an unusual undertaking for a nursing education programme but it is one to which I have been passionately committed for more than 20 years. This study examines my life-work in a deeply reflective and narrative way. I have used many sources of data to assist in the creation of my story including the framework of Moustakas (1990) and Reflective Topical Autobiography as described by Johnstone (1999). My story is woven throughout this thesis as I gradually reveal more of myself as I feel that who I am should be a continuous thread that lends credence to multiple sections of this work. Several of my reflective stories about the immersion programme experiences, called here, vignettes are included, so that my reflections, thoughts, and feelings can be expressed. “I didn’t have to create the world I wrote about it. I realized that words could tell. [sic] That there was such a thing as an emotional sentence” (Lorde, 1984, p. 85). The genesis of the emotional sentence emerged through the use of interviews with student participants and my own introspective process. In this way I came to a new understanding of myself and my passion for this way of working.</b></p> <p>I found that these educational experiences had the ability to change the personal and professional lives of participants. Students’ world views expanded exponentially as the true-life experiences in which they actively participated nurtured a profound metamorphosis. It is important to recognise the critical social nature of this work. I have carefully considered the issues of class and gender, poverty and powerlessness, and the inherent dialectic as key elements in the reflective process. The awareness of these social issues coupled with profound personal changes that occurred when immersed in another culture frame the contribution of this work to the profession of nursing in general and to midwifery specifically. In addition, I have been changed. My “way of being” has become radically different. I realise that I facilitate life transformation for participants by providing the platform; I realise the connection, potency, and power of student-teacher relationships; and most of all I learned that I teach from the heart.</p>

Transforming Experiences: a Reflective Topical Autobiography of Facilitating Student Nurse Development Through International Immersion Programmes

<p><b>The focus of this study is the impact of an international education programme on baccalaureate nursing students taken by me, their teacher/professor, to become immersed in another culture. This is an unusual undertaking for a nursing education programme but it is one to which I have been passionately committed for more than 20 years. This study examines my life-work in a deeply reflective and narrative way. I have used many sources of data to assist in the creation of my story including the framework of Moustakas (1990) and Reflective Topical Autobiography as described by Johnstone (1999). My story is woven throughout this thesis as I gradually reveal more of myself as I feel that who I am should be a continuous thread that lends credence to multiple sections of this work. Several of my reflective stories about the immersion programme experiences, called here, vignettes are included, so that my reflections, thoughts, and feelings can be expressed. “I didn’t have to create the world I wrote about it. I realized that words could tell. [sic] That there was such a thing as an emotional sentence” (Lorde, 1984, p. 85). The genesis of the emotional sentence emerged through the use of interviews with student participants and my own introspective process. In this way I came to a new understanding of myself and my passion for this way of working.</b></p> <p>I found that these educational experiences had the ability to change the personal and professional lives of participants. Students’ world views expanded exponentially as the true-life experiences in which they actively participated nurtured a profound metamorphosis. It is important to recognise the critical social nature of this work. I have carefully considered the issues of class and gender, poverty and powerlessness, and the inherent dialectic as key elements in the reflective process. The awareness of these social issues coupled with profound personal changes that occurred when immersed in another culture frame the contribution of this work to the profession of nursing in general and to midwifery specifically. In addition, I have been changed. My “way of being” has become radically different. I realise that I facilitate life transformation for participants by providing the platform; I realise the connection, potency, and power of student-teacher relationships; and most of all I learned that I teach from the heart.</p>

Does Short-Term International Immersion have a Sustainable Impact on Teachers’ Cultural Competence? Follow-up Interviews Eight Years After a Teaching Experience in South Korea

This qualitative study was conducted with teacher candidates studying in a Masters program at a university on the west coast in the United States. The main goal was to capture if immersion in a foreign culture and the short-term teaching of primary and secondary school students in South Korea had any sustainable impact on the participating teachers’ perception of their cultural knowledge, competence, and awareness almost a decade after their immersion experience. The researchers interviewed four teachers who had participated in one of two immersion projects conducted in 2010 and 2011. A questionnaire on teachers’ self-efficacy regarding culturally responsive teaching (modified from Chu & Garcia, 2014) was administered prior to the interview giving the participants a tool to reflect on what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher and to self-assess their own cultural competence and teaching practices. Four themes emerged from the interviews, namely, perspective-taking ability, relationships, teaching strategies, and cultural knowledge. The findings indicate that international immersion not only offers an effective way for pre-service teachers to receive intercultural training. It also has the potential to create transformative learning experiences by immersing students in cultural contexts unfamiliar to them. The findings from this study will be interesting to teacher educators who consider integrating international immersion projects into their teacher education programs.

Project-Based Learning in Business Education

The authors explore project-based learning (PBL) pedagogy in international business venturing (IBV) under trends and drivers affecting higher education. They look at the genesis of higher education, recent developments in innovations, globalization, and socio-economic trends. Following the examination of mega trends affecting universities, the case of PBL curriculum at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is discussed in LMU's strategic context. They evaluate PBL essentials and examine its proliferation and current status across academic disciplines. The analysis of LMU vs. “peer” schools reveals some economic constraints. One developmental step is PBL pedagogy. The proposed PBL study abroad curriculum includes two courses. Course 1 (on campus) covers essentials of IBV. Course 2 (abroad) focuses on PBL applications, socio-economic problems, and skill development. This 4-week overseas program includes 12 face-to face hours, 4 company visits, 3 international immersion projects, 1 local market immersion, 1 strategy challenge, 1 service-learning project, and other experiential learning activities.

The Processes of Teaching Languages to Sixth Grade Students in an International Immersion School in a Midwestern City, U.S.A

This paper examines the teaching strategies used in an international immersion school in a Midwestern city in the U.S.A. A good number of teaching strategies are highlighted in literature review to provide context for this particular study. The immersion program is considered a teaching strategy and an additional name for bilingual schools in which students learn through a second language’s environment with the purpose of developing proficiency in two languages. The significance of this study is that students in immersion schools should have the same quality of education as their peers have in public schools. The participants in this study used the cognate, cooperative, structural strategies and other strategies in teaching the second language itself or when teaching subjects in the students’ second language. This study is a basic qualitative research and the data was collected though observations and interviews. The data was analyzed by using the ground theory approach. This study shows that immersion schools help students to achieve their second language acquisition and help them in the future to have the ability to access different languages of curriculum. Because the school is under development, this is one limitation that is presented in this study.

Learning Context Effects : Study Abroad, Formal Instruction and International Immersion Classrooms, edited by C. Pérez Vidal, S. López-Serrano, J. Ament and D. J. Thomas-Wilhelm (2018)

Learning Context Effects : Study Abroad, Formal Instruction and International Immersion Classrooms Edited by C. Pérez Vidal, S. López-Serrano, J. Ament and D. J. Thomas-Wilhelm (2018) Berlin: Language Science Press, 328pp.