Josef A' Mestenhauser Professor Emeritus Department of Educational Policy and Administration Compara

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Josef A. MestenhauserProfessor
EmeritusDepartment of Educational Policy and
AdministrationComparative and International
Development EducationHonorary Consul of the
Czech Republic

• University of Minnesota
• 330 Wulling Hall
• 86 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
• Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone]
• j-mest_at_umn.edu
• JosefMestenhauser_at_cs-center.org
• stpaul_at_honorary.mzv.cz
• http//education.umn.edpa/
• http//www.cs-center.org

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• The theme of internationalization of higher
  education is my work in progress. Comments,
  suggestions, critique or different perspectives
  will be greatly appreciated
• University of Minnesota
• 330 Wulling Hall
• 86 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
• Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone]
• j-mest_at_umn.edu
• JosefMestenhauser_at_cs-center.org
• stpaul_at_honorary.mzv.cz

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What isInternationalExperientialEducation?
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If you did not get enough sleep last night, this
is what the presentation is about

• It is a hybrid - you can also spell it high
  breed
• I prefer the metaphor of marriage of
  Experiential Learning
• with International Education
• Partners bring into the marriage extended
  families
• Character of the partners I will let you
  decide who is the groom
• Compatibility of the partners
• Beyond the metaphor
• multiple perspectives on both
• major issues
• Making our campuses laboratories of
  international experiential education

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By way of introduction

• Both concepts are educational mega concepts
• Need multiple perspectives (frames)
• EL and Intl Ed. complex, multi-faceted,
  composite, multi-dimensional concepts and
  practices
• Human experiences not fragmented
• Intl Ed. even more complex
• Higher education in global crisis
• Viz David Senge Fifth Discipline and Howard
  Gardners Multiple Intelligence

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Key frames/perspectives

• Cultural
• Cognitive
• Social psychological
• Systems
• Interdisciplinary

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First frame / perspective

• Cultural
• what is culture
• how important abstraction, values,
  socialization, cognition
• culture specific and culture general
• cultural variables time, activity, relations
• emic and etic perspective
• importance of reflection on own culture
• antecedents ethnocentrism
• three levels of abstraction micro, meso,
  macro

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Peeled-Onion Conception of Organizational Culture
Patterns of Behavior Valu
es and beliefs

T e c h n o l o g y
Perceptions Schemata
CultureBasic Assumptions
Adapted from Schein, E.H. (1985). Organizational
culture and leadership. San Francisco
Jossey-Bass.
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Third frame / perspective

• Social psychological
• Role of perceptions
• Majority-minority relations
• Role of trust trust is capital
  assymetrical, relational and institutional
• Leadership and role of groups

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Second frame / perspective

• Cognitive
• Learning, teaching, curriculum
• Subject-matter and cognitive skills
• Importance of prior knowledge see how these
  perspectives are interconnected
• context determined so is experience
• arrival of information
• tendency toward search for similarities
  differences not symmetrical
• tendency to favor single domain it takes 21
  disciplines to understand a culture
• learning and/or development?

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Fourth frame / perspective

• Systems thinking
• Adding two or more parts
• Relationships between parts and the whole
• relationships of parts among themselves
• with each addition increase level of analysis
• needs new cognitive skills

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Fifth frame / perspective

• Interdisciplinarity
• Several concepts
• transdisciplinary
• interdisciplinary
• multidisciplinary
• crossdisciplinary
• pluridisciplinary
• Translation cognitive sharing
• Knowledge production, utilization, and
  management (knowledge gap)
• Knowledge integration

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Background

• Both partners western heritage
• Inherited common genes Dewey, Piaget, Erickson,
  Perry, Kohlberg, Chickering, and younger Schoen,
  Argyris, Jacoby
• Genes of internationalists come from many more
  ancestors
• All these grandfathers live in many tribes, in
  all continents
• Represent not just differences of views
• Fragmented

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Beyond the metaphor

• Experiential learning mega concept
• and its extended family (process, product,
  skills)
• active learning service learning
• reflective thinking civics education
• community devt self-awareness
• group effectiveness leadership devt
• incidental learning field work
• real world relevancy theory-practice
• democratic education cooperative learning
• cognitive and moral development

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Beyond the metaphor

• International education
• Mega concept and its extended tribes

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(No Transcript)
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Key characteristics of Exp. Learning

• Anglo-Saxon roots (how did it get to France)
• 1000s studies persuasive evidence
• active learning
• reflection
• self-discovery
• cycle of cognitive development
• removes dichotomy between theory
  and practice
• facilitates processing new ideas
• learning and development

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Major criticism of Exp. Learning

• Culture-bound (individualistic, doing
  personality
• relationships, pragmatism)
• provincial focus on local communities
• little attn to second order of cognitive
  skills
• neglects subject-matter process oriented
• no attn to reflection on own thinking
• Kolbs stages not supported by learning
  theories
• learning cycle too simplistic, neglects other
  variables e.g. goals, motivation, choices,
  decisions
• does not explain how transfer of learning
  occurs
• weak in demonstrating how thinking leads to
  action

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Key characteristics of intl education

• Major educational mega-goal of global
  proportions
• international dimensions of learning intended
  to be infused (mainstreamed) into all aspects
  of education on all levels
• theories located in all major academic
  disciplines, e.g. philosophy, psychology,
  history, political science, education, arts,
  sciences, journalism, communication, economics,
  management, etc.
• each discipline different methods, research,
• emphasis, epistemologies, application

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Major criticism of intl education

• Instead of being mega-goal, is in the margins
• It is also culture-bound- only thing in
  common is competitiveness
• Involves very small numbers of students
• teaching dominated by academic theory
  emphasizing subject-matter
• each discipline has different epistemology
• too much theory driven, many not relevant to
  job market or reality of global affairs
• not integrated with domestic knowledge
• experience-based learning dominated by
  positivistic assumptions
• effort to showpiece study abroad as exp.
  learning

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Putting it altogether

• How is it? Adding intl ed. to exp. Learning?
  Or the other way around?
• How much is one plus one?
• 3 theoretical possibilities?
• adding unequal qualities
• intl ed. too many cultures are they
  relevant to multicultural education?
• learning theories of different disciplines
  determine nature of learning, knowledge,
  application, role of theory, epistemology

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Issues to consider

• Integration with mainstream education
• Relevance to changing societies and jobs
• Transfer of knowledge
• Sustaining knowledge
• Institutionalization
• How to produce change and reform H. Ed.
• Motivation
• Assessment and evaluation
• Cognitive skills and how to teach them
• Leadership driven but missing

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• Here at last
• My answer to the question
• What is international experiential education?

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• It depends.

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• On whom you talk to
• Where you stand
• What questions you ask and
• What language you speak

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My favored example of best practices in intl
experiential education

• Learning with foreign students

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Example of using theory in programs learning
with foreign students

• decrease mutual isolation
• make them insiders instead of outsiders
• increase contacts - communication
• participants in classrooms and campus life
• domestic and f. s. learn to think
  retrospectively
• domestic and f. s learn meta-skills
• learn to synthesize new ideas in conflict with
  old
• sustain knowledge and production
• domestic students are f. s. when abroad
• heterogeniation recipes for creativity

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Conclusion

• Despite criticism and shortcomings EL is the
  only concept able to address major global needs
• Global crisis of education major issues
  self-regulation, differentiation, massification,
  democratization, relevance, adjustability to
  change
• Our own culture is a barrier dualistic
  thinking, premature closure, excessive focus,
  one-thing-at- a-time
• Antecedent to I.Ed. is ethnocentrism, and to
  EL is cognitive rigidity
• Change is slow and costs it is not an event
  but on- going
• Change others and ourselves
• This sounds slow, arduous, complicated and
  pessimistic but there is help our brain and
  intellectual skills that come with EL and I.Ed.

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Key bibliographic references

• Batchelder, Donald and Elizabeth G. Warner (Eds)
  (1977) Beyond Experience. Brattleboro, Vt The
  Experiment Press
• Chickering, Arthur W. (1977) Experience and
  Learning. New York Change Magazine Press
• Comprehensive reviews of articles on experiential
  learning on lthttp//reviewing.co.uk/research/exper
  iential.learning.htmgt
• Early, Christopher P. and Soon Ang (2003)
  Cultural Intelligence. Stanford, CA Stanford
  University Press
• Evans, Norman (Ed) (2000) Experiential Learning
  Around the World
• London Jessica Kingsley
• Gruenzweig Walter and Nana Rinehart (Eds) (2002)
  Rockin in Red Square. Critical Approaches to
  International Education in the Age of
  Cyberculture. Muenster, Germany LIT Verlag and
  Transaction Publishers, Rutgers University
• Hofstede, Geert (1984) Cultures Consequences.
  Beverley Hills, CA Sage
• Jacoby, Barbara and Associates (1996) Service
  Learning in Higher Education. San Francisco, CA
  Jossey-Bass
• Kluckhohn Florence R. and Fred L. Strodtbeck
  (1961) Variations in Value Orientations.
  Westport Greenwood Press.
• Laubscher, Michael R. (1994) Encounters with
  Differences. Westport, CN Greenwood Press
• Marzano, Robert J. (2001) Designing a New
  Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Thousand
  Oaks, CA Sage
• Moon, Bob, Sally Brown and Miriam Ben-Peretz
  (Eds) (2000) Routledge International Companion to
  Education. London and New York Routledge
• Schoen, Donald A (1987) Educating the Reflective
  Practitioner.
• San Francisco, CA Jossey-Bass
• Scott, Peter (Ed) (2000) The Globalization of
  Higher Education. London Open University Press
• Sternberg, Robert J. and Joseph A. Horvath (Eds)
  (1999) Tacit Knowledge in the Professional
  Practice. Mahwah, N.J. Lawrence Erlbaum

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Thank you

• for not falling asleep when you heard the
• word theory