Adapting international immersive education experiences to online education platforms: Discussion paper

International study travel within the tertiary education framework provides students invaluable formative experiences. The current COVID-19 pandemic has put a halt to these excursions, sidelining the valuable learning outcomes that are specific to international immersive study opportunities. This paper explores how the benefits of these trips could be transferred to an online teaching environment. Consideration of benefits, deterrents, barriers, and opportunities
are explored. The potential of a flipped classroom model brings forward more structured opportunities to introduce a decolonization of global study culture, a common problem experienced during traditional international study trips. This is relevant both in terms of broad perceptions of international cultures and First Nation perspectives. The potential to increase collaborative cultural exchange through media and technology coursework contexts will be discussed. The discussion paper draws on the experiences of the authors as lecturers involved
in preparing and executing study trips situated in Japan.
The paper also considers a range of issues that make traditional reciprocal study arrangements problematic. These issues include cultural and linguistic barriers, disparities in crediting systems, mismatches in academic calendars, and keystone staff vulnerabilities. As the current pandemic has transitioned many teaching and learning experiences to the online space, persistent barriers to MOU and partnership arrangements core to traditional reciprocal study are less relevant. It is time to consider how we can more flexibly propose international student
exchanges designed for implementation in the online learning environments COVID-19 has forced us to adopt. The purpose of this paper is to consider how the benefits traditional study trips can be translated to an online environment. It considers how collaborative online teaching and learning research in post-covid education can open discussion on challenging issues frequently encountered in international study exchange programs.