Global Classrooms: Using Digital Museum Collections to Develop Intercultural Capabilities

Using pieces from campus museums and art galleries across the U21 network to spark discussion, this Global Classroom project supports the development of intercultural competencies in students, both through interaction with global peers and their understanding of cultural artefacts.

A pilot workshop at The University of Hong Kong was followed by a workshop during the Global Education and Senior Leaders Meeting (GEMSL). The hybrid workshop brought together team members from the Universities of Melbourne (UoM), Hong Kong (HKU) and Singapore (NUS) along with delegates at GEMSL to showcase the object-based Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) developed during the project.

Future activities include a workshop at the Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference in Singapore in January 2025 and facilitation of multiple seminars, surveys and focus groups with 60 health students drawn equally from NUS, HKU and UoM.

With the team’s interdisciplinary expertise across medical sciences, cultural studies and technology, there are plans to expand this model out from Health Humanities students, creating a versatile framework for enhancing intercultural understanding.

There were two outstanding highlights from this experience: the opportunity to deliver the presentation as a cohesive, hybrid team; and sharing our work with like-minded and globally focused colleagues, from 12 different U21 institutions, who actively participated. The outcome was a unique experience, in which we made genuine steps toward future COIL collaborations.”

Dr Heather Gaunt, University of Melbourne, Dr Florian Knothe, Hong Kong University, Yueh-Siang Chang, National University of Singapore, Global Classrooms Project Leads