An inspirational education blog

With the promise of an inspirational education blog I was lured to the EAIE website ... and yes this does have the potential to become an interesting site to add to my RSS feeds on international education.

Clipped from: www.eaie.org (share this clip)

The EAIE (European Association for International Education) is a non-profit, member-led organisation which serves as a centre for expertise, networking and resources in the internationalisation of higher education. For all those people actively involved in the internationalisation of their institutions it has a lot to offer, not least the stimulating annual conferences.
And now they've launched a blog, as part of their entirely new website. To reflect their expanding global presence in the international higher education arena they have given their site a spectacular facelift, they state, packed with a host of interactive features. This is definitely most welcome !
It's always good to have sites that keep track of the latest trends and offer insightful commentaries, especially with a topic like internationalisation. The fact is that for many involved in higher education, internationalisation is not core business, but something they do alongside, next to many other activities and responsibilities. For all those a one-stop site like this is a real boon.
Although I've never attended any of their training seminars or professional development courses, I've often been tempted to register for one. Who knows maybe one day I will attend ?
Those who have outspoken views and keep a close track on developments and trends in international higher education may feel the urge to write an essay as a response to an appeal on the blog.
* How will internationalisation evolve in the coming 25 years?
* What are the main challenges, opportunities and new manifestations of internationalisation emerging in the coming decades?
* What will be the role of European higher education in the global context?
Intriguing questions to think and write about indeed.
Let's see what visions for the future will come up !

Talking about families at risk

By special guest writer: Jet Houwers

Here you see 16 of our students of Pedagogical Work from Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences exchanging knowledge in a college of Social Work in Girona, Spain.
The students are talking about factors and indicators in risk- families. As you can see, they are enthusiastic and working very hard!

Prior to a study trip

Some of our students were already welcomed well in advance of their journey. A fantastic welcome video was sent to them from Serbia !
Enjoy this friendly, preparatory and informative introduction of their country and capital city Belgrade here:

Anyone would feel welcome after watching this !
Another example of a wonderful experience on a study trip as experienced by the year 2 students of Pedagogical Work.

On a study trip

A short visual impression here of the study trip by our pedagogical work students now visiting Girona and its university.
As you can see they are enjoying the lecture they are given in Girona.

This is the week that all the year 2 students of pedagogical work are abroad in order to learn how social work is done in other countries.

Much more is on the programme the coming days !

a benchmarking visit

Just over a week ago we were visited by a Finnish delegation from Humak university. Their purpose ? to do a benchmarking visit in a few European countries. During the autumn of 2011 they had made six benchmarking visits to universities of applied sciences within their own country. Now the time had come to go abroad. At the back of their mind was to find innovative pedagogical practices.

In their university they had come to a crossroads where they now had the opportunity to renew all the curricula. Interestingly, they chose to look abroad to broaden their perspectives.
All the core elements of course programmes were covered in the list of questions they sent off to us in advance.

Exchanging information about your own procedures, methods, ideas, research, field work contacts, student satisfaction, quality assurance etc. etc is always a good test. It requires one to (re)think carefully why it is that we chose to arrange educational issues the way we did. In that respect an informal benchmarking visit from abroad can serve as a good pre-run to the real accreditation procedures that we are faced with this current year.
All in all, it was good to talk about how we have arranged our department and course programme the way we have and hear from relative outsiders that we have found interesting solutions, models, tools, strategies and procedures to make it work as a whole. Measuring the quality of a programme is not easy. The principles behind benchmarking could provide new insights into how to go about it and for example compare your programme with others to get an idea of what position you take.
This is the definition that Nuffic applies: Benchmarking is the process of comparing the quality, cost or time of what one organization does against what another organization does. The results are often used to make improvements."
In other words, our next step would be to visit Humak university within a year or two and ask them the same questions and start the comparison for real.

Added a little later .... a news item from the Nuffic website specifically dealing with developments in benchmarking, not to be missed !