The Foreign Correspondent Study Tour is offered as part of the The Master of Arts in Advanced Journalism, in partnership with SBS, and has been hugely popular and successful learning experience over recent years. For an example, talk a look at Alyce’s journalist experience in India.
The study tour sets a high bar for engaging learners in International and Transnational Journalism. Some would say this guided professional experience is impossible to match! So how did Associate Professor Saba Bebawi and the Postgraduate.futures team rise to the challenge of making the learner experience in class and online just as engaging? (Well, let’s say almost as exciting as dancing in a Bangalore nightclub.)
A few examples of how we made the subject more spicy
First the subject was chunked into modules on Canvas in a learning sequence that scaffolded learning and skills necessary to working in the field.
For example, it’s important that learners understand and reflect on some of the theory behind globalisation and its implications for transnational and international journalism. So we designed polls around readings and web articles to get everyone thinking, and to test their assumptions about journalism with others.
With such a fascinating subject, it was also easy to set up forums for thoughtful reflections on the changing nature of journalism.
Postgraduate.futures fantastic media team were also on hand to record Irene Jay Lui from Google Newslab when she presented to UTS aspiring journalists. Learners who didn’t make it to the live session have video resources about Google Maps and visualising data – important tools to bring real imagery and data into digital stories.
Finally, we found that Canvas works well as a platform to pull together various social media to provide a window to all the amazing journalism learners produced.
Want to get more of a taste of the activities in International and Transnational Journalism? You can register for the taster course on UTS Open. It’s free.
Feature image by Taylor Kiser.
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