Summer School 2023
The project Critical Incidents in Intercultural Communication and Promoting Diversity (Erasmus+, 2020-2023) organized an international intensive week in spring 2023. The title of the course was International Project Management: design of diversity-specific higher education settings and it was organized by FH Upper Austria.
The module involved working in a multicultural environment. The aim was to develop participants' international project management and cooperation skills. The concrete development task of the module was to create more meaningful learning environments for students in higher education and to take into account groups of students at risk of exclusion.
Students from SeAMK bachelor's degree program of Automation Engineering and master program participated in the intensive week. They were joined by students from Austria (Fachhochschule Oberösterreich), the Czech Republic (Skoda Auto University) and Germany (Wechsächsische Hochschule Zwickau).
About three weeks before the intensive week, students participated in a two-day online seminar. On the first day, they learned about international project management and the Head Wheel framework (Higher Education Awareness for Diversity Head Wheel - FH OOE (fh-ooe.at)). The Head Wheel is an overview of the five diversity segments. The Head Wheel allows to look at the concept of diversity from different perspectives and to outline the variables that influence diversity management in higher education.
At the end of the first day of the webinar, small group discussions were held on the theme of the day and the discussion was summarised by the whole group. On the second day, students were introduced to Design Thinking and completed a group project on the topic which was presented at the end of the online seminar.
In Austria, during the Intensive Week in Hagenberg, participants got to know each other face-to-face and continued with a webinar exercise on site. The task was to develop an innovation to improve the learning experience of so-called non-traditional student groups in higher education (e.g. adult learners, refugees, people with physical and sensory disabilities, etc.). All teams innovated apps for different purposes such as contact, hobbies, studies and leisure. The course ended on 27 April with online presentations in which each team presented its innovation.
The Intensive Week was held at the Hagenberg campus of the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. For SeAMK's foreign degree students, this was also their first trip to Austria and an opportunity to get to know the city of Linz, which is located about 20 km from Hagenberg.
English lecturers Riikka Ala-Sankila and Anne Vuokila from SeAMK and Heli Simon from SeAMK Language Services were involved in the Critical Incidents project. The final conference of the project took place in Mlada Boleslav at Skoda Auto University in June 2023. The outputs of the intensive week were also presented at the final conference.
References
Gaisch, M., Preymann, S., Aichinger, R. (2020). Diversity management at the tertiary level: an attempt to extend existing paradigms. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education. Vol. 12 No. 2 Diversity management at the tertiary level: an attempt to extend existing paradigms | Emerald Insight
University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. (i.a.). How does the FH OÖ define Diversity Management? Head Wheel - FH OOE (fh-ooe.at)
Heli Simon, Senior Lecturer, SeAMK Language Services
