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. Since October 2025, we are offering the course again as part as Comenius University Internationalisation Action plan. Workshops are held biweekly, 9:30-13:00 (Friday).

Course schedule

Fall semester

2 October 2026: Welcome and Introduction. Designing courses for international students 

16 October: Class planning powered by AI

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

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

27 November: Facilitating learning for large groups of students

11 December: Assessing student learning

7 January 2027: Evaluating the outcomes of teaching and student learning

15 January: 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.

 

Spring semester

Workshop 1: Peer observation workshop (Gabi; hybrid): 12 February, 1:30pm-2:30pm

Workshop 2: Poster fair (Gabi, Agi, Ivana, parallel groups): 26 February 13:00-16:00

Research design draft version: 7 March

Research design final version: 21 March

Workshop 3: Data analysis (Agi): 9 April: 12:30-15:00

Meeting to discuss data analysis (between coach and coachee; based on data collected by course participants.): 23 April

Class observation: by 2 May

Class observation reaction paper: 9 May

Workshop 4: Scholarship of Teaching and learning: advice and experience sharing. Meeting of community of practice: 14 May, 13:00-15:00 (Gabi, Ivana)

SOTL paper (draft): 20 May

SOTL paper (final version): 10 June

Final conference and course graduation ceremony: 29 and 30 June

Accreditation

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

Application

After the first deadline for applications we still have a couple of free places for the course. If you feel undecided, you are welcome to join us for the first or second workshop and decide if this meets your needs. You can submit the application afterwards.

A short written application for the course 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 our Centre Instagram – we only post photos where participants look good or excellent:-)

You are welcome to consult the application - if needed - with Dr. Agnes Simon by email or an online appointment. Please submit your application by email to agnes.simonuniba.sk 

Testimonials from course graduates and their colleagues

I became familiar with several useful theories of teaching, learning, and internationalisation that are both practical and applicable to our courses. I genuinely believe that these principles can make a significant difference to the student-teacher experience in higher education. For this reason, I value this course very much. Thank you.

As a teacher I always strive to deliver the best courses to can and see it as a responsibility to improve myself when and where I can. The course offered me exactly that opportunity in regards to several aspects by familiarsing me with new concepts of teaching and learning as well as meaningful internationalisation.

I really like the idea that we as students/teachers plan our own study with the design and methods. I have learned a lot, I see lot of mistakes I made now, but I can tell also tell ways how to make the study or teaching better in the future. It also helped me a lot to listen to the work of my colleagues, because they really did a great job with high quality work.

I can 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 refer to 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.