Outside in: New contexts, new students and
new ways of internationalising our teaching

Increasing numbers of Australian academics are teaching offshore as universities expand their horizons in response to global markets and local pressures. Alongside this development in academic work is the emphasis on university wide graduate attributes, often including reference to internationalisation.

This paper describes potential synergies in the implementation of these two policy demands from the perspectives of academic staff associated with the Master of Education program. Research draws on experiences from lecturers who are concurrently teaching the same units in different countries. Two issues are discussed. The first is the way in which overseas teaching provides authentic opportunities for internationalising the curriculum, adding interest and an extra dimension to the teaching whilst satisfying university expectations in relation to graduate attributes. The second issue discussed in the paper is the reflexive nature of the teaching in the two contexts, as lecturers grapple with the dilemmas and challenges posed by different learning styles and experiment with 'outside in' thinking.