Project Aim:

Our project aims to enhance excellence of teaching and learning at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) by supporting and training academics to upskill and innovate their pedagogies to address the needs of students, to create inclusive international classrooms, and to embrace a new complex role as International Educators who are prepared to equip all students with global competences and harness the diversity in their classrooms.

The project will achieve this by introducing, piloting and disseminating a novel format of professional development: Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Our broader goal is to transform internationalization, away from its current understanding as a bonus for the mobile elite, towards prioritizing the rights of students to gain global perspectives and skills as an inherent part of their higher education. When this goal is achieved, international classrooms of teaching and learning will become an indicator of quality in higher education and diversity and inclusion part of the shared institutional narrative.

Among other activities, we will do this by introducing and piloting an innovative format of professional development, Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at all partner institutions. The PLC concept utilizes transdisciplinary groups of diverse stakeholders (academics, non-academics, and students) in a collaborative and intercultural approach that allows for continuous professional development of international teaching skills.

Project Partners:

The IEI team at Palacký University coordinates the project with international educators from the following institutions: The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) in the Netherlands; University of Minnesota (UMN) in the USA; Palacký University (UP), University Hradec Králové (UHK), and Ostrava University (OU) in the Czech Republic; Jaen University (UJA) in Spain; and Örebro University (ORU) in Sweden.

The inclusion of University of Minnesota widens the scope of European strategic partnerships with a world leading institution in IoC (Internationalization of Curriculum). UMN brings unique expertise in the University’s program of internationalization of teaching and learning which has its origin in ‚pre-Erasmus times‘ when the concept of internationalization of curriculum was pioneered by Czech émigré scholar, Josef A Mestenhauser, Internationally Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UMN.

Associate Partners:

Furthermore, we have carefully chosen Associated Partners (EAIE, Učitel naživo, Teiresias, Asociación Enseñanza Bilingüe) whose specific expertise will add up to the quality of project results, help us make our results more accessible, and considerably widen the international scope of the project’s impacts. We are particularly honored by the European Association of International Educators as an Associated Partner to the project and their role will be to provide input and expert guidance to enhance the quality of the project, and together with UMN will considerably enhance the impacts across the European Higher Education Area and beyond.