On 15 March 2024, I attended a conference at my work The Hague University of Applied Sciences / de Haagse Hogeschool: Internationalising in de praktijk (Internationalisation in practice).
I’ve been very interested in and involved in internationalisation in higher education for my whole teaching career, of almost 10 years now. However being based in the Netherlands, I can’t always follow the events held in Dutch, however I’m improving and tried my best.
This event was opened by a wonderful colleague of mine, Marloes Ambagts – van Rooijen, who explained the competencies required from Mbo teachers.
She is a coauthor on the publication below relating to the conference, worth a look if you can read Dutch:
Een verkennend onderzoek, in samenwerking met het lectoraat Global Learning van de Haagse Hogeschool, dat een eerste aanzet is tot een overzicht van docentcompetenties voor internationalisering in het mbo. Het geeft daarnaast inzicht in perspectieven op internationalisering en daarbij passende kernactiviteiten op vijf mbo-scholen in Nederland.
https://www.nuffic.nl/onderzoek-en-cijfers/onderzoeken/internationalisering-in-de-praktijk
Building PLC’s (Professional Learning Communities)
Two other respected colleagues in this field of internationalisation, Claudia Bulnes and Eveke de Louw, ran a session in the afternoon on building learning communities.
A few of the points made in this session were that:
- Lecturers are often in their comfort zone and don’t connect outside of programme
- There is a shift to internationalisation at home – for those who aren’t able to travel
- Bonds can be built in person where possible
I know Claudia & Eveke well and love how they initially offered to run the session in Dutch, English – or Spanish! – if necessary. We broke into groups of preferred language and did an interesting activity based around a learning community star:
The star was credited to Wallner & Heemskerk and asked the questions:
- What do we want to learn?
- How do we want to learn?
- How do we recognise learning?
- What roles do we have?
- Why do we learn?
It was interesting to take some time with other lecturers to reflect on all these questions and share.
Brainport Eindhoven
At lunch, I had a very interesting chat (in a mixture of Dutch and English!) to Hans Vasse, Regional Coordinator for internationalisation at Brainport.
“We are the future” is the tagline of the internationalisation of education in Brainport. Though some resistance sometimes from Dutch nationals who seem to have a fear of losing their language and identity. However many are also coming to realise that you can still “stay Dutch” and ensure that you actually have a strong future in this country by better understanding and including an international perspective.
Overall it was an interesting day, though I feel like I missed a lot as following Dutch is really tiring. I know the event was run in conjunction with NUFFIC but was also a bit confused about the target market. There were a lot of Dutch teachers, but very few “internationals” which surprised me on such a topic as internationalisation. We have such a valuable resource of the international colleagues around us to learn from.
Zestee 