Encouraging peer-to-peer discussion groups for international students

Feb 3

QI Consultancy with UNSW Sydney

21 February 2022 I The Queensland Institute

CASE STUDY

In November 2021, The Queensland Institute (QI) was engaged by the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) to consult on student discussion group projects to support the international student experience.

In Brief

The UNSW Peer Connections and English Language Support Initiative teams facilitate a range of projects every year to support international student engagement, connection and well-being on campus. The project brief was to work with staff and student facilitators to incorporate best practices for peer-to-peer discussion groups and promote intercultural communication on campus. One of the project aims was to support international students to feel confident, safe and supported to engage in peer-to-peer discussion groups in English.

QI Involvement

QI was engaged to showcase successful strategies for facilitating peer-to-peer discussion activities, for physical and virtual contexts. This involved collaborating with the UNSW Sydney Project team via Zoom to:

refine the project goals, scope and framework for QI workshop design
understand UNSW Sydney curriculum plans to support peer-to-peer discussion group leaders
design and deliver a customised 2-hour practical workshop for staff and student facilitators, including digital resources
review workshop outcomes and suggest enhancements to UNSW Sydney curriculum plans

Testimonials

"The ideas that were sparked during the workshop were a great start to our project. We were able to take a number of these ideas forward and we liked having the [digital resources] QI provided to refer to to continue the conversation. The modelling of effective facilitation was great and provided a blueprint that we could all agree on for our work.”

— UNSW workshop participant

"I learned a lot about digital tools that could help make workshops more engaging. The facilitators were very interactive and able to keep the audience attention very well. Not only did we, the attendees, learn about various strategies and activities, but we also experienced firsthand the application of those. Importantly, the facilitators were 'walking the talk' throughout the session.”

— UNSW workshop participant

Project Completion

In January 2022, QI completed the final consultation phase and presented a written report to UNSW Sydney, which included very positive participant feedback on QI deliverables and recommendations.

We wish the CommUNIcate Team every success as they implement their program! It was a delight to work with such a dedicated team of international education professionals.

QI Team
Fiona Wiebusch and Philippa Coleman, Directors of the Queensland Institute Pty Ltd

UNSW Sydney
Meet the CommUNIcate Project team:
www.student.unsw.edu.au/lets-communicate

Case Study release granted by UNSW 17.02.22