Classes at the University of Management and Technology (UMT) in Lahore, Pakistan, used to be mostly lectures.
Waqar Ahmed, the university’s director of institutional development, said that was pretty standard in Pakistan. But that changed after he and 20 colleagues spent two weeks at George Mason University last spring observing and talking about best practices. Now discussion-based classes are more the norm at UMT, as are syllabi that concentrate on daily rather than semester-long goals.
“This is a big change that has come from attending Mason,” Ahmed said.
A second wave of 20 UMT faculty visited George Mason in September, as part of a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of State. The program of professional and curriculum development, academic exchanges and joint research is designed to strengthen ties between the countries, and Richard Boyum, the State Department’s university partnership coordinator, said Mason’s part of the program has been “textbook.”
“They have a good model here of a capacity-building approach for international education and higher-ed linkages,” Boyum said. “That’s exactly what Pakistan needs and wants.”
The Mason program, developed by Professor Rebecca Fox in collaboration with her colleagues in Mason’s College of Education and Human Development and UMT officials, is one of 22 partnerships between universities in the United States and Pakistan the State Department has funded since 2010.
Fox, academic program coordinator for Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning at Mason, said to make the program “come alive,” it focused on individual and institutional change through interactive teaching strategies, performance-based assessments and content-specific research.
“The major takeaway is how we can improve our syllabi, our curriculum,” Ahmed said. “It’s not like we don’t know anything, but how can we get the best of what is being done in the United States and at Mason?”
The learning goes both ways, Fox said.
“We share our best, but we receive so much from our international partners,” she said. “The development effects of our collaborations are seen in our classes, our syllabi and in the broader perspective international-mindedness brings to our educators.”
Faculty from the universities will meet again in Lahore in spring 2017.
“The program is well-designed,” said Richard Klimoski, professor of psychology and management in Mason’s School of Business who took part in the program as a member of a research panel and to offer guidance in the areas of teaching and research. “They’re bringing people to campus who are interested and ready for partnerships. It strikes me that it has possibilities.”