TEACHING
EXCELLENCE
DATABASE

The course is designed to support international students as they temporarily settle into a radically different socio-cultural environment in order to study in an English-language programme, and to promote an interactive, dynamic and collaborative learning environment. Through the use of a variety of learning methods, such as the flipped classroom, discussion and activity-based assignments, and arts-based learning, students develop the skills to engage with social science topics and concepts and relate them to their personal experiences. The course also aims to highlight the social justice issues that arise in the process of socio-cultural adaptation. The academic content of the course is divided into four modules that students can explore during the two-week interval between face-to-face classes. In addition to the interactive learning materials, students are challenged with tasks that involve artistic skills, personal reflection and group dynamics (e.g. recording sounds, cooking together or making observations in a local place). These activities encourage greater interaction with the local community as well as with their peers. The course also offers students the opportunity to confront and overcome their intercultural challenges by keeping an experience diary, in which they are encouraged to describe their memories and emotions in a way that feels most comfortable to them. This can be done through collages or written texts about their adaptation journey. This activity also serves as an exercise to revisit their memories and reflect on their thoughts, and cultural shock or changes since arriving. The final outcome, an exhibition/performance provides an insight into the complex process of student integration. It also highlights the diversity of students' stories and the power of their perspectives in navigating challenging times. By the end of the course, students present an artwork of their own creation, based on the projects they have been working on throughout the semester. These artworks function as their personal stories of cultural adaptation, including the struggles they encounter and the tools they devise to combat and ultimately overcome these obstacles (e.g. Experience Diary, videos, collages, art paintings). In a deeply immersive experience, the exhibition combines personal storytelling with artistic expression, offering much more than a celebration of diversity, but helping to humanise the fact that we are all adaptable human beings.

Methodology

The Trolls in the Kitchen. Cross-cultural Experiences and Arts-Based Education course is an elective course open to all degree programmes offered in English at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Miskolc, Hungary. It is designed to last for 12 weeks, with students meeting in every two weeks with each other and the professor in the role of a facilitator and mentor while working on small-scale projects and carrying out activities inside and outside the classroom. The practice was implemented in the autumn term of the academic year 2024/2025. The scientific content of the Trolls in the Kitchen is based on the social sciences, especially socio-cultural anthropology and intercultural communication, such as mobility, migration, cross-cultural encounters, cultural adaptation and its models and social justice issues. Several learning methods are used: flipped classroom, discussion-based activities, project-based teamwork, and arts-based and collaborative learning inside and outside the classroom. The Flipped-classroom supports students to develop a basic understanding of the academic content of the course before entering the classroom. It also provides content and inspiration for the implementation of the small-scale semester projects, such as making an interview, recording sounds, making observations in a local place and cooking together (5 projects). Projects are carried out in the same groups of 3-4 students for the semester projects and everyone takes responsibility to create the final outcome, the exhibition/performance/installation. The course is discussion-based, e.g. students share and discuss in groups their personal experiences of arriving in an unfamiliar, radically different socio-cultural landscape, studying and living abroad among international students, and beginning to learn how to cope with different socio-cultural challenges in a foreign country. The course is also activity-based and project-oriented, offering students the opportunity to carry out both in-class (e.g. focused freewriting) and out-of-class activities and tasks (e.g. making an interview, recording sounds, making observations in a local place or cooking together) with their peers in order to discover and experiment with intercultural communication and collaboration while sharing both stimulating and challenging experiences. Arts-based learning methods and creative practices are used both inside and outside the classroom. As arts-based learning and participatory methods are part of the course design, students are encouraged to use their creativity and artistic veins to share their personal experiences (good practices & challenges) of adapting to a new culture that is radically different from their own. Examples of the arts-based learning methods being used are the followings: private and focused free-writing, creating an Experience Diary with images (pictures, drawings etc.), objects and handwriting based on students’ personal experiences, sharing personal stories or family histories of objects, object biographies brought from home or related to home. Encouraging creativity and artistic expression is also an integral part of the final outcome of the course, which can be an exhibition/performance/installation of the students’ own choice and creation. The exhibition contained two types of artworks: 1. outputs and artworks produced as part of the small-scale projects (semester projects #1–#5) and 2. an artwork dedicated to be exhibited or used as an integral part of the exhibition/performance/installation. Both based on personal stories of cultural adaptation, resilience and cross-cultural encounters, facing challenges and successfully overcoming them or finding ways to smooth them over, sharing frustrations, culture-shock as well as good experiences & practices. We collaborated with the International Student and Alumni Network (ISAN UM) in order to promote the exhibition to international students outside course and also invited them to share their own experiences of cultural adaptation and resilience. Fostering collaboration and using participatory methods to involve and engage visitors to the exhibition to share their own experiences, to promote cultural diversity, to raise cross-cultural awareness and to create a safe space for a cross-cultural artistic experience were also integral to the design of the final outcome. Activities included: 1) inviting visitors to pinpoint their country of origin on a world map, 2) writing thank you in the visitors’ own language, 3) taking part in a collaborative painting activity as we provided a 70x90 cm canvas, 4) using menti.com to collect greetings in the visitors' own language and also to receive feedback. We believe that the Trolls in the Kitchen course is a very good example of transformative learning. Being an international student in a radically different socio-cultural environment is in itself a situation that inherently offers countless opportunities and challenges to transform one’s ideas and assumptions about the cultural meanings and familiar functions of the world. Students, who generally move not only between countries but also between continents, are very sensitive to the new aspects of their everyday life making them more reflective and critical as well as vulnerable to both the new impulses and the conventional cultural ideas around them.

Tools, equipment, technology used

We use a newly developed e-learning platform (CourseGarden), which is designed to be adaptable to students' needs and prior knowledge of the topic in general and the specific issues in question. It allows students with more prior knowledge to skip the theories assigned and move on to the next topic by successfully passing an online exam they are familiar with. The content of the e-learning is strictly related to the projects to be carried out, only the knowledge necessary for the implementation of the small-scale projects is provided as compulsory learning. The e-learning platform is accessible throughout the semester, so students can return to it to revisit any topic of their choice. The international teamwork is designed in such a way that each team member has their own specific roles and responsibilities during each project, such as documentation manager, time manager or organisational manager. Students provide regular feedback to the facilitator and to each other throughout the course. Out-of-class assignments are completed in the intercultural groups, submitted online and then presented in the face-to-face class. Inside and outside the classroom, arts-based methods are used to encourage creativity and reflection to support students in their adaption process when they face challenges or are overwhelmed by memorable experiences. Creating a safe space to share personal stories of successful adaptation or unexpected conflicts, frustrations and challenges supports students' well-being and self-understanding, empowering them to face radical cultural differences with greater dignity and confidence.

Outcomes and outputs, main results

I. The course was designed for students to develop two types of learning outcomes: 1) content-dependent and 2) transferable skills. 1) Content-dependent skills: 1.1. knowledge of basic approaches and terms in migration, adaptation, and cross-cultural encounters; 1.2. understanding that practices, norms, opinions and approaches are culturally embedded, and meanings are socio-culturally constructed; 1.3. understanding global citizenship; 1.4. recognizing and challenging stereotypes; 1.5. identifying issues of social justice across cultures. 2) Transferable skills: 2.1. planning, initiating and carrying out small-scale projects in an intercultural environment; 2.2. engaging in self-reflection and developing self-awareness while working with international peers; 2.3. giving constructive feedback on the work of other students; 2.4. presenting one’s own approach in a non-exclusive way; 2.5. improving the ability to adapt to new socio-cultural environments; 2.6. empathy and tolerance towards cultural diversity; 2.7. intercultural skills and competence; 2.8. experimenting with arts-based methods. Priority during the face-to-face classes: consultation, discussion on project implementation, discussion on group dynamics, conflicts, sharing challenges, and good practices. The space of the course, inside and outside the classroom, became a space for deep personal reflection, empathy and awareness of cultural diversity as students worked in intercultural groups (transferable skills: 2.2, 2.6 and 2.7). Both planning, initiating and carrying out small-scale projects in an intercultural environment (transferable skills: 2.1) and learning practical activities that are useful and applicable outside the classroom played a significant role in the course outcomes: “Studying cultural anthropology may require a lot of reading to understand other cultures, but having a place to discuss and do hands-on activities also helps with cultural adaptation as an international student experiencing and trying to overcome intercultural challenges first hand. This course has given us the opportunity to interact with both international and Hungarian students at the university. It provides not only a fresh and new approach, but also practical methods that we can try out in real life". The final outcome was an exhibition called ‘Cultural Adaptation’, where the students displayed their artwork and some of the results of the small-scale projects. The exhibition was prepared and organized by the students themselves to share personal experiences and stories of cultural adaptation without too much fear of judgement or misunderstanding: “The exhibition brought together the ideas and creativity of all the participants and, by inviting classmates from different countries, further widened the space for cross-cultural dialogue. This practical activity not only enhanced my understanding of other cultural backgrounds but also made me realize the bridging role that art and creativity can play in promoting cross-cultural understanding. It also inspired me to think about how to apply these methods and ideas in my daily life and studies, adopting a more inclusive mindset to embrace and understand cultural diversity.”

Lessons learnt

There are a number of important aspects, on the one hand, that underpin the successful delivery of the course: 1) Providing a variety of learning paths: The e-learning platform allows students to vary their learning path according to their prior knowledge and understanding of the course content. 2) Using arts-based methods: Encouraging students to creatively and artistically express their personal stories, both challenging, frustrating and memorable, by undertaking small-scale projects in intercultural teams and providing opportunities for regular reflection on their own experiences in a radically different socio-cultural environment. 3) Small-scale projects: Students carry out 4-5 small-scale projects in intercultural groups of 3-4 students with a specific role in the project cycle, such as documentation manager, time manager or organisational manager. On the other hand, some features of the course need to be improved: 1) Providing a module on arts-based learning for students to better understand its importance and relevance in the final outcome (exhibition/performance/installation). 2) Encouraging students to work more collaboratively and engage in peer-learning online, e.g. with online forums to discuss what they have learnt about a particular content. 3) Developing the variety of online course materials: adding e.g. more videos, documentaries or poetry.

Adaptability and sustainability of the best practice (for other institutions)

The e-learning platform allows for flexible learning paths and students can manage their time to complete assignments. They can revisit the resources as often as they like, and the e-learning content can be re-used and flexibly modified. In addition, the use of e-learning not only provides an opportunity for students to develop their content knowledge and digital skills, but the immediate feedback allows the IT department to develop better platforms for students and professors alike. The course designed to support international students in their cultural adaptation process and resilience can be similarly successful in a variety of higher education environments, either in Hungary or in Europe, as internationalisation is a common opportunity and challenge of today.

Promotion of best practice

We took professional photographs of the exhibition, and the students produced various creative artefacts such as the Experience Diary, short videos or collages. We intend to use these to promote the course to a wider audience of incoming international students at the University of Miskolc, Hungary, to encourage them to enrol on the course. We worked with ISAN to promote the event to the international community. We intend to work more closely with ISAN and the International Relations Office to ensure the continuation of the course and to obtain financial and institutional support in future years. The professor-student team preparing the application aims to publish an article analysing the results of the course experience and the methodology of project- & arts-based learning and its transformative potential.

Scope and impact

• Course/department level
• Faculty level
• Institutional level

The use of arts-based methods, the creation of the final outcome (exhibition/performance/installation) and the presentation of the diversity of the students' personal socio-cultural adaptation journeys to fellow international and Hungarian students and professors serves as a tool to better understand the complexity of diversity and to connect with each other in a more inclusive way, with more curiosity and empathy. However, the greatest impact is considered to be the change in students' behaviour and its spin-offs in terms of their personal cultural adaptation journeys, and that they gain a deeper understanding of diversity and their own adaptation process in intercultural contexts.

6.1 Digitalization

• Outstanding, innovative, excellent practices of online / blended / hybrid learning
• Innovative, novel methodology in using digital tools/devices in teaching
• Digital skills development and assessment both general and profession-related, embedded in course design, in teaching and assessment

Reasoning: The course is based on a blended learning strategy: 1) the e-learning site facilitates self-study of theories and concepts related to cultural adaptation, allowing for adaptive learning pathways, and 2) small-scale projects are carried out in intercultural groups to deepen learning. Students share their thoughts and experiences in class every two weeks. An exhibition/performance on cultural adaptation showcases the knowledge and personal experiences gained and reflected upon by the students.

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6.2 Internationalization

• Developing students' multicultural awareness
• Students engagement in international projects
• Courses offered to international multicultural students both online and offline
• International projects/research results embedded into course development and T&L

Reasoning: The diverse backgrounds of the students from South America, Asia and Europe brought unique perspectives to the study of global issues, such as mobility, migration and cultural adaptation. Studying concepts and theories of these global issues on an e-learning site before class discussions allowed students to engage with these issues in a thoughtful way. Both similarities and differences in students' views were encouraged to emerge. Collaborative projects, class debates and outdoor activities transformed students' understanding by integrating theoretical knowledge with real-world experiences. These interactions fostered unity among students, strengthened their connection to the local community through social experimentation, and provided a scientific framework for understanding migration, adaptation and social justice. This combination of academic study and practical engagement deepened students' understanding of these complex global issues.

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6.3 Inclusion and diversity, universal design

• Innovative teaching methodology for inclusion and meet diverse student needs
• (Innovative) use of devices and tools for inclusion

Reasoning: The course allowed students to creatively engage in discussion-based (interviews, street interactions) and activity-based (cooking, sensory experiments) assignments, as well as art-based methods (e.g. experience diary, exhibition). Small-scale projects focused on culturally diverse environments and coping strategies, encouraging participants to approach these challenges from both human and cultural anthropological perspectives, combining theory and practice in dynamic online and offline formats.

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6.4 Sustainability

• Teaching material contains profession related sustainability aspects

Reasoning: The objectives of the course align with those of the SDGs, particularly number 4 on Quality education and number 10 on Reducing inequalities, as it promotes cultural diversity and uses personal stories and experiences to foster intercultural understanding and collaboration between international students and with Hungarian students.

3.3 Public contact datas

Name	Email address	Website
Veronika Lajos	veronika.lajos@uni-miskolc.hu