SOe208 International Internship Reflection

Faculty of Education
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
0/0/.5. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. František Trapl, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M.A., Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Mgr. et Mgr. Markéta Košatková, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. et Mgr. Markéta Košatková, Ph.D.
Department of Social Education – Faculty of Education
Contact Person: Mgr. et Mgr. Markéta Košatková, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Social Education – Faculty of Education
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
Course objectives
The areas of the reflection are ethnographic research and observations done by students during the internship abroad, including study and analysis of documents, interviews, and other research outcomes. Students have support in a form of online consultations with a supervisor on the research objectives, preparation of an action plan relating to the target organisation, assessment of effectiveness and providing strategies for improvement. Students further engage in mindful reflection of their intercultural experience while abroad, utilize their intercultural skills when observing and assessing situations involving intercultural issues and misunderstandings. Students record their observations and reflection in their e-portoflios and share and discuss them via e-platforms. As a part of the assessment, the students’ intercultural development will be assessed before and after the mobility using theory-based assessment tools of intercultural competence development. To monitor and reflect on their experience with working with culturally diverse student body and foreign lecturers both at home and abroad, the students will write reflections and create vlogs in their e-portfolios
Learning outcomes
Students will be able to conduct ethnographic research and data collection in culturally different localities. They will be able to mindfully reflect on their intercultural experience, monitor and adjust their personal, cultural, and professional expectations while abroad. They will be able to demonstrate intercultural awareness in cutlurally complex situations and use intercultural skills (D-A-E/D-I-E) for observations and forming non-judgemental conclusions.
Syllabus
  • I. Pre-departure workshop: setting personal, cultural, and professional expectations.
  • II. Culture shock, preconceptions, intercultural critical incidents.
  • III. Professional expectations: ethnographic research context and design.
  • IV. While abroad: cultural and professional adjustment, reflecting and adjusting expectations.
Literature
    required literature
  • V. Savicki (ed.) (2008) Developing Intercultural Competence and Transformation: Theory, Research, and Application in International Education, Sterling, VA: Stylus
  • Gross, L.S., Goh M. (2017) Mindful Reflection in Intercultural Learning. In Barbara Kappler Mikk and Inge E. Steglitz (Eds.) Learning Across Cultures: Locally and Globally, 3rd edition, NAFSA: Washington, DC
    recommended literature
  • Deardorff (ed.) (2009) The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
  • Jackson, Jane (2019) Online Intercultural Education and Study Abroad. Theory and Practice, New York: Routledge
  • Borghetti, Claudia (2016) ‘Intercultural education in practice: two pedagogical experiences with mobile students.’ In Language and Intercultural Communication 16(3):1-12
Teaching methods
online individual and group discussion (synchronous and asynchronous)
Assessment methods
participation in online discussions, e-portfolio content contributions, pre-departure, while-abroad, and upon return assessment of intercultural competence development, ethnographic research data collection and preliminary conclusions
Language of instruction
English
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