Intercultural skills have been recognized as the top-valued skills for not only employers in various industries but for education from the earliest age. Multilingualism goes hand in hand with intercultural competencies, and is already a stated goal for EU-education and a need in increasingly diverse working and living contexts. Therefore, the aim of the course is to explore and critically evaluate the key issues in research on intercultural competence and multilingualism, especially from the standpoint of teacher education and foreign language teaching, by working with a range of art-based research techniques.

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University of Stavanger

Art-based Research Methods in Intercultural Competence and Multilingualism

Exploring, analyzing, and using various research methods

Entrepreneurship, technology and innovation

Critical and innovative thinking

Inter-personal skills

Intra-personal skills

Global citizenship

In this micro-module, you are challenged to design an educational escape room that teaches the core principles of Challenge-Based Learning (CBL): Engage, Investigate, and Act. The escape room will serve as a hands-on tool for educators seeking to implement CBL effectively in their own classrooms.

Design an Educational Escape Room

An educational escape room designed to teach the core principles of Challenge-Based Learning (CBL)

Energy and sustainability

Media and information literacy

This course aims to help you develop your understanding of sustainability thinking in education and its role in societal development towards more sustainable futures. It emphasizes the normative and value-based challenges of educational approaches to sustainable development. The course introduces the interconnectedness of the Earth's systems, both locally and globally, in relation to socio-economic structures. Sustainability challenges and the role of education in sustainable practices will be explored.

Sustainability thinking in education

Resilient communities

Circular economy

Societies across the globe are in dire need to decarbonize their energy systems and to switch to renewable energy production, a transformation generally known as the green transition. Whereas the motivation for this energy transition is particular – anthropogenic climate change – the transition from one energy source to another is not unique. Throughout history, societies have harvested different energies and transitioned from one energy carrier and system to another, such as from organic to fossil materials.In five thematic modules, students will learn about energy transitions through the lens of energy history and their wider implications for nature, societies, and cultures. They will explore energy transitions as a concept and as a political, social, and environmental reality. And they will learn about the importance of studying energy and energy transitions in history.This course will teach students that energy transitions not only are technological but also societal and cultural transformations. As such, *Histories of Energy Transitions* will be valuable for students from sciences, technology, engineering, humanities, education, and arts who are interested in energy issues.

Black transmission towers under green sky

Histories of Energy Transitions

The micro-module aims to contribute to an understanding of how digital technologies and media shape us as individuals within specific social structures and through various media cultures.

In a digital world, we are constantly challenged by the significant impact of digital technologies on our lives. We need to understand how different digital technologies and media shape our mindset and opinions, but we must also recognize the creative potential of digital tools.

Working hands-on with digital technologies provides practical understanding and being a producer rather than a consumer fosters new ways of understanding both our society and our own mindsets

Creative Hearts and Digital Minds

Media Literacy and building Resilience in a Digital World

In today's rapidly changing and increasingly complex world, it is essential to move beyond merely accumulating information. We must actively focus on equipping our children with knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, creativity, and emotional intelligence. These skills will help them process and understand the vast amounts of information they encounter and enable them to adapt, thrive, and lead in this dynamic and challenging century.

This course is designed to enrich students' knowledge and skills so they can use mathematics as a tool to support and develop children's thinking abilities. Through a combination of theory and practical application, students will learn to integrate mathematical concepts in engaging and meaningful ways, thereby enhancing children's analytical abilities, problem-solving competence, and critical thinking. This will ultimately contribute to green transition by equipping children with the tools to make thoughtful choices regarding sustainable alternatives for the community. 

This course has as one of its unique features the fact that it is developed entirely within a kindergarten, where theory and practice will be in constant exchange. The theoretical instructors from UiS and the kindergarten teachers from Sande Barnehage will be partners in leading the course.

Motivation letter is a personal statement and it might include a brief introduction of yourself, explanation why are you interested in the learning opportunity you are applying to, any relevant experience or skills that you have, your goals and how this opportunity will help you achieve them, This document should not be more than 400 words.

Motivation Letter

Children's Thinking in Kindergarten Daily Life

Supporting Children’s Thinking Skills and Confidence Through Engaging, Practice-Based Learning

This study module aims at enhancing cultural awareness as a key skill in Early Childhood setting.

Globalization has the last decades turned national and local communities into migrant societies. ECEC is an institution in which children, guardians, parents, and staff from various backgrounds and with multiple belongings meet. This gives ECEC a key role in creating inclusion and belonging in dynamic communities influenced by local and global concerns.

The course will enrich students’ knowledge and skills for leading and guiding processes of creating belonging in children’s groups, cooperating with a diverse group of parents/guardians, finding practical, enjoyable, and efficient ways of working as professional staff requires high level of intercultural competence.

Critical Cultural Awareness in Migration societies

Early Childhood Education and Care

*Nature & Nation* is an environmental history of Norway since 1850. Through five thematic modules, students will learn about the history of modern Norway seen through the lens of environmental interactions and concerns. The course will explore themes such as ideas of nature, the rise of sustainability discourse, resources production, formation of national identity, and coping with changing climates.

Drawing on a wide range of resources from historical sources, art and visual culture, and fieldwork, the course allows students to engage with cutting-edge environmental history theoretical and methodological approaches while remaining accessible for students who have not previously studied history.

This course would be valuable for students who are interested in Norway as a place and who want to know more about how environments are shaped by both the local and the global.

two people standing on edge of cliff at daytime

Nature & Nation: An Environmental History of Norway Since 1850

We experience several forms of silence in the course of our everyday lives, even if we are seldom pausing and reflecting about the impact that silences have in our communication with others, in our sense of connection with ourselves, others, and the environment. Therefore, silence can impact our well-being and in this micro-module students will, through challenge-based learning, strategically and critically reflect about the role of silence in communication, connection, and well-being.

Silence is a superpower: Exploring silence and well-being

Qualitative methods and application

This challenge addresses an often-neglected dimension of diversity and inclusion which is ‘age’, particularly ‘minor age’. Adultcentric bias can create barriers in recognizing the capacities of children and youth to contribute to society as they can be pre-judged to be ‘incompetent’ or ‘not-yet developed’ due to their age. Raising critical self-awareness of adultcentrism among adults in educational contexts can support them to develop more age-inclusive attitudes towards children and youth in daily life. However, this process of raising critical self-awareness related to one’s own adult age can bring up emotional responses e.g., fear, guilt, insecurity, denial etc. that can create obstacles in the learning process of adults and might worsen intergenerational differences.

The central challenge in this course is to propose a game to be used by adults to raise the awareness of the psychological concept of ‘adultcentrism’ among adults in educational relationships with children and youth.

A key ethical question in developing a game for this purpose is whether the design of such a game is age-sensitive towards adult learners.

The participants work in a Challenge Based Learning framework to propose a game designed for raising critical self-awareness i.e., of adult-centric biases, among adults in educational relationships with children and youth. The activities include readings, podcasts, teamwork, lectures and workshops. Participants will work part-time, digitally, over a period of three months. There will also be the opportunity for a 5-day visit to the University of Stavanger, but this part can also be attended online.

Adultcentrism in Educational Relationships

Creating Awareness of Adultcentrism in Educational Relationships through Game-based Learning

We are living through a period of rapid global extinction, called the Sixth Mass Extinction. Animals like the great auk, Tasmanian tiger, and passenger pigeon have all become recently extinct. This course will offer an interdisciplinary examination of extinction in the last 300 years.

How did scientists first discover that species could become extinct? How uncertain are extinctions? How are extinction histories told in museum exhibitions? How do cultures engage with extinction in literature, film, and art? How are nature conservation projects trying to avert extinction?

The course will be taught online in a flexible and innovative format to allow you to engage with extinction through multimedia sources.

This course will be valuable as you face a world undergoing environmental change and will give you the tools to understand the cultural context of past, present and future extinctions.

The Sixth Mass Extinction

Understanding our Contemporary Biodiversity Crisis

Intercultural skills have been recognized as the top-valued skills for not only employers in various industries but for education from the earliest age. Multilingualism goes hand in hand with intercultural competencies, and is already a stated goal for EU-education and a need in increasingly diverse working and living contexts. Therefore, the aim of the course is to explore and critically evaluate the key issues in research on intercultural competence and multilingualism, especially from the standpoint of teacher education and foreign language teaching.

The students will work on one challenge provided by NorSea Group.

A specific method is used in the workshops: Challenge Based Learning (CBL). (CBL) has three distinct phases, Engage, Investigate and Act.

The workshop begins with the **Engage phase**, which moves from the Big Idea (green transition in offshore) to a concrete and actionable challenge by using the essential questioning process (Swiden, 2013).

Once this has been decided upon, participants can then proceed to the **Investigate phase**. Here, participants develop guiding questions to gain the knowledge needed to develop a solution to the challenge. Guiding questions continue to emerge throughout the challenge (Nichols et al., 2016). These could be gathering relevant data for their challenge. A problem-solving technique for this stage such as fishing techniques will also be presented. By these tool participants will understand problems in a more holistic and in-depth way and be enabled to structure their investigations. Participants will then develop their own guiding questions and resources to better understand their challenge. The learnings from this phase provides a foundation for the eventual identification of potential solutions to the challenge (Nichols et al., 2016).

In the **Act phase**, a technique to develop potential solutions will be presented. This includes the ‘six thinking hats’ technique, which encourages each participant to take a different role for developing solutions and help choose the best solution. These roles can include thinking more innovatively, or more cautiously, in a more risk-averse manner or in a more bold and experimental way. This is a key part of CBL as it demonstrates how participants do not have fixed roles and are able to change their roles to have different perspectives on their challenges.

Solutions should be evidence-based and implemented with an ‘authentic’ (real-life) audience. They should evaluate the effectiveness of the solution and make adjustments, which will deepen their subject area knowledge (Nichols et al., 2016). Within each of the phases there are opportunities for mini-investigation cycles and, if necessary, a return to an earlier phase.

Green Transition in Offshore Wind

Reduce the envioronmental footprint of ocean renewable systems

This transdisciplinary course will put doctoral fellow candidates at the front of knowledge, and with participatory research skills for research based on empathy, compassion and meaning. We offer this course in the believe that universities are not only to prepare doctoral candidates on how to do research, but to prepare scholars to do research that is implemented in ways that helps others and contributes to the better good in the world, and in accordance to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Empathy, Compassion and Meaning

Theory and participatory approaches

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) lets us solve the governing equations for fluid dynamics for complex engineering problems. CFD is today used in a wide range of industries, some examples are:

- Air resistance for airplanes and cars
- Wind and wave loads on buildings and marine structures
- Heat- and mass transfer in chemical processing plants
- Consequence modelling of fires and explosions in the oil- and gas industry

These challenges require handling complex geometries and turbulent flows. For a robust numerical solution, one needs to understand how to create an unstructured grid and how turbulence can be modeled. The course is divided into the following modules:

- Turbulence modeling
- Generation of unstructured grids
- Aerodynamics
- Heat transfer
- Multiphase flow
- Advanced turbulence modeling
- Development of numerical solvers

The first two modules are mandatory. You will choose additional two modules based on your own interest.

Applied Computational Fluid Dynamics for Industrial Processes

As the world grapples with urgent environmental challenges, the campus emerges as a powerful hub for innovation and sustainability, offering students the opportunity to lead transformative change, shaping sustainable practices that will resonate far beyond the university and into the future.

Utilizing challenge-based learning (CBL) as an innovative approach, we emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, merging insights from diverse fields to address real-world sustainability challenges. Participants will engage in problem-solving activities, working in teams to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) as a powerful tool for developing sustainable services that support the green transition on campus. By fostering critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration, this challenge prepares students to become proactive, informed agents of change in the pursuit of a more sustainable future.

Smart & Green: Leveraging AI to Empower Students as Change Agents for Sustainable Universities

This challenge addresses an often-neglected dimension of diversity and inclusion which is ‘age’, particularly ‘minor age’. Adultcentric bias can create barriers in recognizing the capacities of children and youth to contribute to society as they can be pre-judged to be ‘incompetent’ or ‘not-yet developed’ due to their age.

Raising critical self-awareness of adultcentrism among adults in educational contexts can support them to develop more age-inclusive attitudes towards children and youth in daily life. However, this process of raising critical self-awareness related to one’s own adult age can bring up emotional responses e.g., fear, guilt, insecurity, denial etc. that can create obstacles in the learning process of adults and might worsen intergenerational differences.

The central challenge in this course is to implement a game to be used by adults to raise the awareness of the psychological concept of ‘adultcentrism’ among adults in educational relationships with children and youth.

A key ethical question in developing a game for this purpose is whether the design of such a game is age-sensitive towards adult learners.

The participants work in a Challenge Based Learning framework to propose a game designed for raising critical self-awareness i.e., of adult-centric biases, among adults in educational relationships with children and youth. The activities include readings, podcasts, teamwork, lectures and workshops. Participants will work part-time, digitally, over a period of three months. There will also be the opportunity for a 5-day visit to the University of Stavanger, but this part can also be attended online.

Illustration showing many people, starting with a small child, child, youth, and adult.

Game the Bias: Challenging Adultcentrism by Design

This micro-module is a collaboration between 6 ECIU universities: UAB (Spain), KTU (Lithuania), UiS (Norway), UniTn (Italy), INSA (France), and UT (the Netherlands). This means you get to gain knowledge from experts of all these different universities! This is therefore a unique opportunity that offers multiple perspectives and an intercultural experience.

### **Why learning about interculturality matters**

Interculturality is a crucial skill in today’s globalized world, enabling effective communication and collaboration across cultural boundaries. It fosters empathy, helps navigate differences with respect, and is essential for addressing global challenges like climate change and migration. In academic and professional settings, intercultural competence is highly valued, supporting teamwork in diverse and international contexts. Personally, it enriches your worldview, enhances self-awareness, and opens you to new perspectives. By embracing interculturality, you contribute to a more inclusive and collaborative global society.

### **What you'll learn**

This online micro-module is designed to give you a comprehensive understanding of interculturality through a structured blend of expert-led lectures and interactive discussions. The course is divided into three thematic blocks, each building on the previous one to create a cohesive learning experience:

**Block 1: Understanding cultural differences**  

You’ll start by exploring foundational theories of culture, learning what defines and distinguishes cultures around the world. This block highlights the importance of cultural diversity in today’s globalized world, helping you develop an awareness of how cultural differences shape interactions and perceptions.

**Block 2: Global perspectives**  

In this section, you’ll examine the effects of migration, media representation, and the concept of global Englishes. These topics will give you a broader perspective on how cultural narratives evolve and influence societies across the globe. You’ll gain insights into how these factors contribute to both challenges and opportunities in intercultural communication.

**Block 3: Practical intercultural skills**  

The final block focuses on practical workshops to equip you with effective communication techniques for interacting across cultures. You’ll learn how to navigate cultural nuances in professional and personal settings, ensuring your interactions are respectful, clear, and impactful.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of cultural theories, a global perspective on societal changes, and the practical tools to engage effectively in intercultural settings. This combination of theoretical and hands-on learning prepares you to adapt in diverse environments and address the complexities of global communication

Member university

University of Stavanger

Member university

University of Stavanger

Learning opportunities of University of Stavanger