Intercultural Communication Institute

40 | Developing Study Abroad for the Learner: A Strategic Approach

This workshop explores the rapidly evolving learner-centered approach to study abroad that is challenging long-held views and practices. Changing attitudes about what constitutes effective intercultural learning are creating a widening gulf between what study abroad professionals increasingly believe their students ought to get out of studying abroad, and what many programs abroad now provide.

Designed for
Study abroad directors and advisors; professionals working for study abroad providers in the U.S. and abroad; resident directors and other staff responsible for delivering programs abroad; and college faculty, high school teachers, or college student services professionals interested in preparing for a study abroad career.

Objectives
Participants will have the opportunity to:

Explore and analyze ongoing changes in study abroad
Challenge some old assumptions, such as the idea that students achieve intercultural learning on their own
Understand the role that intercultural learning plays in the new study abroad paradigm
Consider the need for intercultural learning interventions and explore what kind of interventions are effective
Identify and develop study abroad learning goals, including who should be responsible for implementing them and how they can be evaluated

Learning Activities

Design and development of a learner-centered program abroad
Brief lectures and group discussions
Interactive activities and exercises that illustrate intercultural learning interventions
Participant presentations on strategic plans to integrate learner-centered study abroad within the context of their own institutions or organizations
Case studies and participant development of change-agentry efforts with campus decision makers and opinion leaders

Faculty: Mick Vande Berg
Associate Faculty: Adriana Medina-López-Portillo

Dr. Mick Vande Berg has worked at several institutions and organizations well known for their commitment to study abroad. Now vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer at CIEE, where his current responsibilities include designing and delivering workshops for staff abroad, he has held leadership positions at Georgetown University, The School for International Training, Michigan State University, and Kalamazoo College. He has published widely on education abroad topics, and was a founding board member of the Forum on Education Abroad. He has been the principal investigator of several study abroad research projects and served as guest editor of the special issue of Frontiers that focused on the assessment of student learning abroad.

Dr. Adriana Medina-López-Portillo is an assistant professor of intercultural communication in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She has served as faculty director of several study abroad programs and was principal investigator of a research study that assessed the second language and intercultural learning of students abroad. She has taught courses in Spanish language and intercultural communication, in addition to having designed and led workshops on a wide variety of intercultural and diversity topics for higher education, nonprofit, governmental, and corporate clients in the U.S. and abroad, including serving as orientation and reentry officer for the Scholar Ship.