Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) for global learning in partnership: art-based collaboration for Internationalisation at a Distance

Because true partnerships are based on reciprocity, respect and shared responsibility, they are an ideal framework for teaching global citizenship, as this entails valuing diversity across difference, understanding how one’s actions affect both local and global communities, and seeking to address the world’s most pressing issues collaboratively and equitably. In other words, collaboration is an ideal pedagogical approach for global learning, because it models what it aims to teach. This article describes how we adapted Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a rather hierarchical approach based on open-ended, yet highly structured discussions of visual art of increasing complexity that is designed to enhance skills in the cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal domains, to make it functional to work in partnership, and focusing on global learning online, through Virtual Exchange. It will be of interest to educators and students looking for innovative and effective means to use partnership-based approaches for Internationalisation at a Distance.