For a long time, internationalization was mainly associated with the mobility of students and staff. Subsequently, more attention has been paid to the international dimension for students who do not go abroad. This includes virtual mobility, involving incoming students in the curriculum and inviting guest lecturers from abroad.

Internationalization is not an end in itself, but a means to foster students' personal growth, language proficiency, global engagement, international disciplinary learning and intercultural competence.

The ICOM framework can be used to add an international dimension to the learning goals within your course unit (SAP / COIL/ MOOC ...). This is important because internationalization is one of the goals within RUN EU.

Educational design typically follows the principle of constructive alignment. However, in the development of internationalized curricula / course units, the alignment of student learning goals with assessments and teaching and learning activities becomes even more crucial and challenging.

A constructively aligned and internationalized curriculum involves the integration of international and intercultural dimensions throughout the study process. This includes:

Articulating the intended internationalized learning goals
Planning teaching and learning activities with carefully selected materials, content and literature that incorporate international and intercultural perspectives
Assessing the intended learning outcomes using explicit criteria that reflect the international or intercultural dimensions.

The first step in embedding internationalization in your course unit is to identify and integrate international and intercultural dimensions in the learning goals. The ICOM framework has been translated into the competence trajects to ensure the lines of learning and the progressive development of international and intercultural competences. You will notice that one domain of the ICOM framework is missing, namely 'personal development'. This is due to a rather general interpretation of this domain and to the fact that this domain overlapped strongly with the domain 'Intercultural competence'. Consequently, the learning goals of the 'Personal Development' domain have been integrated into the learning goals of other domains. You will find the ICOMs (from the original document) as learning goals at the 'Integration closing' level.

Below are the competence trajects for the four domains (1. LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY, 2. GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT, 3. INTERNATIONAL DISCIPLINARY LEARNING, 4. INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE): of the ICOM Framework:

ICOM- ENG 2.0.pdf

Look carefully at the different domains of the ICOM framework. Which domains of international and intercultural competences do you want to cover in your unit? Select at least 3 learning goals from different domains of the ICOM framework at the level of integration ('closing') of the competence pathways. At least one of these learning goals should be from the domain of 'Intercultural competence'.

(P.S. learning goals that build towards these closing learning goals can possibly be used as lesson objectives/goals)

Fill in the selected learning goals on the preparation form.