Effective teaching for internationalisation

One-year course for PhD students and all higher education teachers is designed to prepare them to teach international students and mixed groups of home and international students. It was developed and piloted during the IMPACT project. From October 2025, we are re-launching the course as part as Comenius University internationalisation Action plan.

Course schedule

3 October 2025: Welcome and Introduction. Designing Courses for international students 

17 October: Class Planning powered by AI

31 October: Facilitating learning for small groups of students I.

14 November: Facilitating learning for small groups of students II.

28 November: Facilitating learning for large groups of students

12 December: Assessing student learning

8 January 2026: Evaluating the outcomes of teaching and student learning

16 January 2026: Microteaching demonstration

23 January: submitting a microteaching reflection paper

In the summer semester, participants apply what they learned in the winter semester to their own teaching practice. Each participant is supported by a coach who helps them design and implement teaching innovations.

Accreditation

The course is internationally accredited by the UK-based Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA). All graduates will receive an internationally recognised certificate. Doctoral students will additionally be awarded 5 ECTS credits for each successfully completed semester.

Application

You can apply for the course by submitting a short written application by 29 September 2025 (12:00), which should include the following:

a) Motivation letter (approx. half a page, max. 450 words)
Highlight your motivation to participate in the course by answering questions such as:

• Why are you applying for this course?
• What kind of teacher do you aspire to become? What are you currently doing to improve your teaching?

b) Short statement of your current teaching principles (approx. half a page, max. 600 words)
Respond to some of the following questions:

• Do you have any experience with teaching international students and/or mixed group of home and international students? If yes, does your current approach differ from teaching home students?
• How do you work towards achieving your teaching goals in practice?
• Which key principle(s) or theory/ies guide your teaching?
• How do you think students should be assessed?
• What do you see as the greatest challenges in teaching? How do you try to address them? (You may also describe a situation where you did not succeed in responding effectively and reflect on possible reasons.)
• How do you see the relationship between your teaching and research?

c) Short CV (max. 1 page) including:

• Department and faculty where you work
• Institutional email address
• Education (degrees, institutions, programmes)
• Courses you have taught so far or other teaching experience (e.g., language schools, non-university levels)
• Course(s) you plan to teach in the upcoming summer semester

Format of the application
Please structure your application with subheadings. Submit it as one document (Word or PDF) in the following order: CV, teaching principles, motivation letter.
In line with GDPR, please add a statement like this “Photographs of me taken during the course may be used for the promotion of the course.” (We post pictures from workshops on Instagram – we only post photos where participants look good or excellent:-)

Testimonials from course graduates and their colleagues

“I only speak positively about the course – for me it was a total game-changer in how I perceive teaching! And what is important, students themselves also view this kind of innovative teaching very positively, based on what they tell me after seminars. Whether it also affects the quality of their knowledge is hard for me to tell, but it definitely makes learning more enjoyable for them.”

“My colleagues speak about the course only in superlatives, so I am truly very grateful for such an opportunity for them. And at the same time, hats off to you for being able to maintain such quality even in online teaching – it really is admirable.”

“I sit and listen to how (my colleague) teaches: it is nicely interactive, with some small talk at the beginning, a big change and improvement – that’s the impact your course has had on him.”

Course impact

For further evidence of results of the Effective teaching for internationalisation course please see Our publications: we have published 8 scholarly articles and 1 book documenting the course outcomes at the level of participant teachers and their departments. For case studies of change see also https://impactportal.eu that we created.