Looking back on the symposium “Birds of a feather… a discussion on internationalization in teaching”

Last Tuesday, 11 February, we spoke with participants from ten different universities about internationalization within education.
The day, organized by the teacher communities of Utrecht University and VU University and with the fantastic chair Nelleke Moser, started with an awareness session. Actress Eva Heijnen showed the participants how it is to be different.

“The acting workshop was a great eye opener for how bias influences self confidence”.

Then Anna Grönlund, head of Internationalization and Higher Education Policy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, spoke about pathways from policy to practice.

“I thought the Finnish keynote speaker very informative, and would have liked to hear more from her”.

During the network lunch it was possible to discuss the challenges within internationalization.

In the afternoon there was a choice of four workshops:
– A discussion about the English language in education by Ad Verbrugge
– Teaching in the international Classroom, from a perspective of various universities
– Teaching in the international Classroom, from a student and teachers perspective
– The importance of Buddy projects within universities by Donya Yassine

All in all, great day and nice set-up for the networking during lunch as well. The people who attended were a mix of teaching staff and policy advisors.

Severina Grotenhuis