Speaker
Description
This presentation is sponsored by (Local Narratives)
How can educators create learning experiences where communities are not simply visited, observed, or studied, but become active co-educators? This interactive session introduces the Local Narratives approach to experiential learning, developed through rural immersion programmes with students from India, Japan, Australia, and other contexts. Participants will explore how local voices, livelihoods, culture, ecology, and everyday knowledge can become part of the curriculum, and how structured reflection and exchange can transform travel from consumption into meaningful intercultural learning and global engagement.
Abstract section 1: Relevance
Experiential and community-engaged learning can extend education beyond institutional classrooms, while intercultural learning emphasises meaningful engagement across cultural contexts. Yet international and rural immersion programmes can also reproduce unequal relationships when communities are positioned primarily as sites to observe, study, or “solve.” This practice-oriented session responds to this challenge by positioning rural communities as active co-educators. Drawing on the Local Narratives learning approach, the session explores how educators can design immersion experiences around exchange, reflection, local knowledge, and contribution, enabling learners to encounter communities as sources of knowledge rather than simply as destinations.
Abstract section 2: Contribution/research questions
The purpose of this session is to introduce a practical framework for designing community-based experiential learning in which local people actively shape what and how students learn. Participants will examine how to move from “learning about communities” towards “learning with communities,” and how structured reflection can connect lived experiences with intercultural learning. The session will provide educators with practical principles and tools that can be adapted to their own international, community-engaged, or experiential learning programmes.
Abstract section 4: Outcomes/results
By the end of the session, participants will be able to identify ways in which community knowledge can become part of a learning experience; recognise practices that risk turning immersion into observation or poverty tourism; and design opportunities for meaningful exchange between learners and communities. Participants will leave with a practical framework for preparing learners before immersion, structuring interaction during field experiences, and facilitating reflection afterwards. The session will also encourage participants to reconsider whose knowledge is recognised in experiential education and how local voices can contribute to intercultural learning and global citizenship.
Abstract section 3: Content/method
Combine short case examples, reflection activities, and facilitated discussion. Participants will first examine common assumptions learners may bring into rural or unfamiliar communities. They will then explore the Local Narratives learning sequence: Experience → Reflection → Interaction → Application → Impact, alongside practical principles including “People over Places,” “Stories over Itineraries,” and “Exchange over Consumption.” Participants will work through a sample immersion scenario and redesign it from a community-as-host model into a community-as-co-educator model.
| Title | Beyond the Classroom: Rural Communities as Co-Educators |
|---|---|
| Teaching Context | General |