It’s hard to think of two more divergent educational themes than experiential learning, where the student gains skills by doing, and generative artificial intelligence, which some fear for its power to replace human agency.
The fact that they were equally emphasized at Georgia State University last month shows the variety of challenges that professors face as they seek to improve international business instruction in a changing global landscape.
Getting a handle on the latest teaching trends — and gaining inspiration from innovators in the field — animates the annual International Business Pedagogy Workshop from the GSU Center for International Business Education and Research, or CIBER, which returned to an in-person, on-campus format in May for the first time since the pandemic.
The federally designated and partially funded CIBER, which aims to improve U.S. competitiveness by strengthening the teaching and practice of international business, drew 86 attendees and 18 speakers from 10 countries, 20 states and 46 institutions to the conference.
That last metric is vital, as CIBER is tasked through its U.S. Department of Education grant with leading the CIBER program’s outreach to what are known as “minority-serving institutions,” including historically Black colleges and universities. Six MSIs were represented at the workshop.
Cuneyt Evirgen, senior academic professional and faculty director at GSU-CIBER, said the workshop is meant to help educators learn the latest content, gain inspiration from master teachers and experts, acquire specialized knowledge in certain courses and network with peers.
“It’s great that at such a conference we hear how international business is taught Norway or Nigeria, or in the U.S. or Turkey,” Dr. Evirgen said, noting that the sharing of cross-national perspectives was enabled and encouraged by the diversity of the participants.
Some common threads ran across the two-day summit, which featured kickoff reception remarks from GSU President Brian Blake andRobinson College of Business DeanRichard Phillips, as well as a presentation by Tim Duvall, Senior Program Officer, International and Foreign Language Education at the U.S. Department of Education, who gave an overview of department programs focused on minority-serving institutions.
After the evening reception on Wednesday, Thursday’s programming kicked off with a keynote speech from John Riesenberger, who explored mega trends in higher education and its interactions with the business world. Key themes included the new language around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging that companies are embracing, as well as a newfound focus on capabilities over credentials.
“Businesses are now looking not for degrees necessarily, but skill sets, so we need to make sure that students graduate with certain skills, not just knowledge,” Dr. Evirgen said.
Increasing student engagement was an area in which many presenting scholars traded ideas, and where Georgia State itself was able to showcase innovative new programs.
Mourad Dakhli, Associate Dean for International Student Engagement and Partnerships at the Robinson College, presented on the collaborative virtual exchange projects that he and colleagues have undertaken with university partners in Africa, linking student teams on both sides of the Atlantic with American companies that are seeking insight into market expansion on the continent.
While virtual exchange isn’t new, it accelerated dramatically during the pandemic as traditional study-abroad programs were canceled and virtual meeting software became more widespread.
Now, it’s seen as a low-risk, cost-effective way to get students engaged, teach cross-cultural communication and participate in experiential learning, Dr. Evirgen said.
“It’s a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing,” he said.
On the student engagement front, Dr. Evirgen pointed to another presenter, Nukhet Vardar, whose Brand Whisper’g Consultancy Ltd. creates video cases inspired by real-world situations and includes input from the executives and companies that experienced them.
“The key word here is to increase student engagement, which is a common issue across countries — it’s a global aim, so hearing different examples from different parts of the world has been very enlightening,” Dr. Evirgen said.
Other program highlights included:
- A look at students as case writers by Pinar Buyukbalci of Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul
- A focus on International Entrepreneurship — how teaching international business changes in a world where tools are available to take companies global from launch, by Manuel Serapio, University of Colorado-Denver, and Nicole Coviello, Wilfrid Laurier University
- Presentations from scholars visiting from Finland, England and Turkey and beyond.
See the full program embedded below, and learn more about GSU-CIBER here and the pedagogy workshops here.
GSU-CIBER 2023 IB Pedagogy Workshop Detailed Program
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