Developing cultural intelligence: Experiential interactions in an international internship program

In recent years, the demand for more culturally competent candidates has risen as employers seek workers highly adaptable to the global marketplace. Study abroad internship programs offer a rich training ground for college students to gain valuable international and intercultural career experience. This study examined the effects of experiential program design on the cultural intelligence of participants in an international internship program. College students from a large Midwestern university were enrolled in an international internship program in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Lima, Peru; or Seoul, South Korea. The program design incorporated principles of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) to increase student reflection on their experience and engage them in the ELT cycle. Participants were scored on the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) before and after the internship, and pre-test and post-test scores were compared and analyzed. Findings indicated significant growth in participants’ cultural intelligence. The intentional incorporation of experiential learning principles in the design and implementation of internship abroad programs has clear potential to increase participant’ intercultural competence and develop their skills for the 21st century workplace.

Challenges and Adjustments in Undertaking Teaching Practice Across Countries in Disruptive Era of Education

This article disseminates a small part of the result of a research project in relation to teaching practice across countries. Specifically, it investigated the challenges & adjustments of EFL pre-service teachers’ experience in undertaking international teaching practice. The empirical research has been conducted in an interpretive qualitative paradigm underpinned by a complexity theory conceptual framework. Convenience sampling has been used in this study. This study employed interviews and questionnaires to collect the data. Pre-service teachers’ perspectives offered further depth of understanding and highlighted unforeseen difficulties during international internship. The findings of the study revealed challenges faced by pre-service teachers that ranged from designing - Lesson plans, preparing teaching media, and learning material, managing teaching time allocation, adjusting a new environment and culture, adjusting a new education system, adjusting high demand of teaching material (level of complexity, understanding the new country context) and facing students’ criticality. From this study, some meaningful insights are presented that can further provide the discussion of professional practice in the context of teacher preparation, not only nationally but also globally. Field based learning and teaching experience across countries are important components in constructing distinctive English teacher identities and achieving international recognition. Keywords: Adjustment, Education Disruptive Era, Flexibility, Lesson Plan, Internship, Pre-Service Teachers, Teaching Practice

International Industrial Internship: A Case Study from a Japanese Engineering University Perspective

In this globalization-focused era, the demand for globalized engineers in the creation of borderless societies is increasing. Despite the initiatives by the Japanese government to promote internalization through increasing the intake of foreign students, the exposures gained by the Japanese students from these programs are minimal. For years, internship has been used globally as a platform for training and educating future engineers, but only a few studies have examined the proactive transformation from domestic to international internship. International internships overseas offer a completely new dimension of experiences when carried out in multicultural environments. This article reports and offers evidence of a Japanese engineering university’s rapid global internship reform strategy toward the expansion of international internships in Malaysia. This paper provides insights into the process, from initial setup to implementation of the internship program covering all the necessary preparation and support. From the establishment of an overseas collaboration base and rapport building with hosting industries, the systematic steps taken are reported. Regarding the internship program, feedback from Japanese engineering students who completed their internships show improved satisfaction due to continuous improvement of the internship program with progressing years. It was also discovered that the low participation rate in overseas internship by Japanese students is not due to their inward-looking temperament, but due to the lack of internship program availability that is administered with sufficient preparation enabling them to challenge themselves in a new environment. The challenges encountered in the program, and the sustainable improvements made in alignment with sustainable development goals toward equitable quality education and promotion of lifelong learning are also stated. In this paper, the future perspectives and outlook of internships are also described considering today’s rapid technological advancements and the fast-changing needs of industries, which require future internship programs to have flexible approaches and ideologies.

ASSESSMENT OF AGRO-STUDIES INTERNSHIP PROGRAM AT THE LAGUNA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

Internship is a great opportunity to gain experience in the actual field practice, improving oneself, building acquittances with other that will provide opportunities for employment and a possibility to land a job after graduation. The purpose of the study is to assess the the Agro-Studies Program in the case of Laguna State Polytechnic University in relation to its effect on socio-economic status of the graduates, employability, personal and professional growth and job satisfaction. On the test of variables undertaken using Minitab software, data revealed that a significant finding were shown. The Agro-studies as international internship program for agriculture students provides great factor in job seeking which is advantage to the students undergo the program.

ACADEMIC CULTURE BARRIERS FACED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS JOINING INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

Academic culture barrier is one of the barriers that students faced when they were going abroad whether for studying or doing their internship. There are lots of students’ encounters a problem when they were doing their internship. This research was conducted to examine the academic culture barriers faced by ELED students joining the international internship program to Thailand. In conducting the research, the researcher utilized the descriptive qualitative design to obtaining formation related to the problem in academic life. The participants of this study were eight students of ELED UMM who join the international internship program in Thailand 2018. The researcher used semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaire in order not to limit participants in telling their experience. The results of this study are divided into 3 categories which are academic problems, solutions, and academic differences. The academic problems that the participants faced involve language, English knowledge, the use of Thai letters, curriculum, and students’ participation. The solution that they gave were using gesture in dealing with the language problem, using role-play in dealing with lack of knowledge in English, teach the students alphabet in dealing with the using of Thai letters, designing their own material in dealing with no exact curriculum, and try to interact to the students outside the class in dealing with passive students participation. Furthermore, the academic differences are the relationship between student and teacher, and school culture.

Freedom of Master's Degree Students to Study in Health Curricula: Switching to Optimized Blended Learning as a Solution!

Summary Objectives: The Grenoble (France) Master's degree in health includes 17 sub-specialty programs, 120 separate teaching units (TUs) and caters for up to 400 students per year. We present the pedagogical transition to blended learning based on flipped classroom initiated in 2010 to overcome the pedagogical limitations of classical lectures. Methods: The pedagogical organization of each TU is based on the weekly and sequential implementation of five sequences. The first three sequences comprise the learning stages of (1) self-learning on knowledge capsules, (2) interactive on-line questions and votes of interest, and (3) interactive on-site training and explanation meetings. The last two sequences include the evaluation stages with (4) positioning tests, and (5) an anonymous evaluation of the TU allowing access to personalized follow-ups. This pedagogical sequence is completed with a final certification on a tablet computer. Results: The systematic evaluation and debriefing sessions of TUs gave us a clear SWOT vision of the revised Master's degree in health. The feedback was very positive from students, teachers, and the institution, which encourages us to move forward in this transition. Nonetheless, some of this positive feedback was unexpected, such as the ease of managing mobile learners (e.g. Erasmus, International internship) or personalized reinforcement. Conclusion: Our results indicate that a switch to blended learning is feasible in a large Master program, with improvements on student/teacher equity and for the institution.