Charting Your Path as an Global Educator

Education abroad is more than logistics—it’s an opportunity to create transformational learning experiences. To support education abroad educators in their efforts to develop courses, programs and experiences that are academically rigorous and culturally relevant, The Forum provides curated resources to support you in continuing your journey as a reflective, international and global educator. This section of our website is designed to help you conceptualize, design, and facilitate high-impact courses and programs rooted in evidence-based practices.​

How to use the Teaching and Learning section of our website:

• Foundations
  • ​Educators as Learners & Leaders: Effective teaching and learning begins with us. Examine your role, assumptions and expectations.
  • Education Abroad as a High-Impact Practice: How to maximize education abroad's educational benefits.
  • Where's the Learning in Education Abroad?: Discovering integrative and transformative learning in education abroad.
  • Critical Reflection: Understanding the role of critical reflection in transformative learning.
  • Syllabi & Educator Resources: Links to instructional materials and open access resource banks.
• In Focus
  • Addressing Unteachable Moments: Approaching difficult topics with confidence and care using the HOT Moments Framework and Deliberative Dialogue.

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Relating The Standards of Good Practice to Pedagogy

The Standards of Good Practice stand at the intersections of policy, compliance, and pedagogy. However, the work of conceptualizing education abroad as an instructional practice and area of pedagogy is not only bound by the Standards and Code of Ethics; rather, these are springboards for practice and reflective inquiry for those that lead and facilitate education abroad programs.   

Like other , high-quality teaching and learning through education abroad invites the consideration of: 

• Underlying theories of experiential education and student development from a range of scholarly traditions and ways of knowing.
• Grappling with one’s own assumptions and expectations about the role of educators; including the importance of self-care.
• Attending to one's own assumptions and expectations about the assets, capacities and readiness that students and onsite partners bring to a program context.
• Aligning goals, objectives and activities in ways that challenge and support all learners academically as well as in their intercultural growth and development.
• How to effectively integrate education abroad with related instructional strategies (e.g. COIL, internships, mentored undergraduate research, community-based learning, capstones, etc.)
• Effectively using critical reflection and other tools in which students build their capacities to analyze and wrest meaning from immersive experiences.
• Integrating feedback loops, learning assessment and evaluation that support learners to demonstrate their learning and growth.
• Examine how border crossing experiences "out there" intersect with broader issues connected to disciplines, professions, wicked problems experienced "at home."
• Balancing the interests of the potential benefits of education abroad with the costs to the environment and host communities. ​​

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Opportunities: Gather Together and Grow Your Expertise

Annual Conference 2025: Teaching and Learning Sessions

During the virtual and in-person Annual Conference in Toronto, there are a number of Teaching and Learning sessions that relate to this work. and add them to your schedule you are attending the annual conference.

Featured General Session in Toronto

Wednesday, March 19 | 4:15 p.m. - 5:15 p.m. EST​

Panelists Vanessa Nichol-Peters (Marist College - Italy), Uttiyo Raychaudhuri (University of Denver), and Timothy Shaffer (inaugural Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Chair of Civil Discourse), along with moderator Dawn Michele Whitehead (American Association of Colleges & Universities), will discuss how higher education professionals and leaders are expressing increasing concerns over upticks in incivility, the erosion of civic discourse, and democratic norms among college students at home and abroad, including in the context of education abroad. 

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Beyond Polarization Residency: Transforming Conflict into Collaboration

The education abroad field has long acted as a catalyst to bridge cultural divides. Today's climate demands renewed conflict resolution strategies. Political and technological changes are deepening divisions, eroding trust in institutions, and making it harder to connect and agree on basic facts. When differences become seen as insurmountable, the essential work of educating students across cultures grows more challenging.

The Forum on Education Abroad’s new Beyond Polarization Residency will unite international educators to share frameworks and tools, such as H.O.T. Moments, for productive engagement across differences. Participants will learn from both peers and experts from various fields, exploring ways to address polarization and build global understanding. By integrating insights from other domains, the program empowers mid-career professionals to senior international officers to lead conflict transformation in their institutions and communities.

Learn More & Register