Pedagogies Across Borders

Abstract

Aims of project: to explore some of the issues around the preparation, design, transfer and delivery of programmes from one educational environment to another.

During the past decade, the scale of transnational education has increased greatly, with the UK, Australia and the USA playing a leading role in delivering transnational programmes (Humfrey, 2009). Plymouth University has a growing number of transnational partnership programmes including Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. Various studies explain that it is crucial to develop an understanding of the respective cultural and learning profiles in transnational partnerships in order to consider appropriate teaching strategies (Heffernan & Poole, 2004., Heffernan, 2010., Jusdanis, 1995). Other studies critiqued the provision and level of quality assurance that is applied to transnational programmes (Billing, 2004., van Damme, 2001). However the pedagogy of transnational education remains largely under-researched. This research explores the experiences of transnational teaching and learning in the context of Hong Kong with the intent to understand the nature of the transnational classroom and the implications for the providers of transnational education.