Curriculum Integration
“Curriculum integration,” in Education Abroad refers to the process of incorporating a student’s overseas educational experience into the undergraduate academic program. In a broad sense, curriculum integration means getting students to think critically about why they want to study abroad before departure; immersing them in the local culture as much as possible in situ; and helping them to reflect upon their experience both in- and out-of-class upon their return to the home campus. In a narrow sense, curriculum integration is about the mechanics of study abroad: making sure that classes taken overseas count towards students’ graduation, getting approvals for those courses beforehand, and using that information to make the application process easier for future students.
The database found here is part of the curriculum integration project at Villanova University. If you are a faculty member and/or adviser, please use this database if students express to you an interest in studying abroad. Use it to get a sense of the various locations that are available to our students as study abroad locations (where should our students be going?). Look at what courses are available to our students overseas (what classes should our students be taking?). And, given the information with which students are returning, please help us to think of what programming should be “next steps” for our students (how can we build on and further this student learning?). As a faculty member, you have more impact and influence on students than any member of the campus community, and we hope to work with you to better integrate the students’ experiences.
If you are a departmental chair, please use this database as a tool for course approvals. Hopefully it will speed up the approval process by giving you a sense of the equivalencies that have been assigned to courses in the past. Further, you can use it to see what classes have been taken by students at specific locations that might be more appropriate to the student’s curriculum.