In our recent 2025 China summer program, our teaching team, Dr Peter Adjei-Bamfo, Ms Leanne Gaul and Dr Helen Taylor, took the opportunity to welcome a group of undergraduate students and their academic supervisor from Tianjin University of Commerce (TUC) to Port Macquarie campus. The two-week summer program is part of strategic activities for strengthening CSU’s international reputation and collaboration with partner institutions of our China Joint Cooperative Program (JCP). We brought together a range of expertise across economics, finance, accounting, management and entrepreneurship to deliver rich and engaging sessions. These topics were scaffolded throughout the two weeks and were delivered using various engagement activities to enhance the learning experience of our summer students. The experience of team-teaching in this way exposed us all to new approaches and ways of conceptualising a stand-alone two-week program, depending on each other’s insights as well as our own experiences delivering education to international cohorts. We were excited about the program and have lots to share!
Leanne shares her experience….
When I was asked to teach in the TUC summer program, I felt it was important to start connecting prior to day one on campus. I was aware the WeChat app was a broadly used social networking platform for Chinese Australians so proposed we start a group chat. This worked well, we were able to coordinate all administrative requirements, lecture planning, answer questions or concerns from students and start building the excitement of coming to Port Macquarie through photos of local scenery – including the beaches and CSU Port Macquarie campus. This also provided opportunities for me to introduce myself, so they knew who I was on the first day.
The teaching team all met prior to the event and coordinated our strategy to developing the teaching plan. We wanted to make it more cohesive and embed an Australian experience into the teaching resources. As we are in a regional space, we also wanted to take a rural approach to embedding a case study across the two-week course. As the content had a sustainability lens, the organisation we chose had a solid triple bottom line approach and we were able to discuss the subject matter from each discipline with a familiar resource to deepen our students understanding of sustainability in Australian agribusiness. The students loved this.
Prior to the start of the two-week session, I felt student engagement might also be an issue and this was confirmed by the accompanying TUC finance lecturer. He indicated that as part of the experience he would like them to improve communications, not only to immerse themselves in improving English skills but to empower them in their learning journey. Some students were more proactive in responding to questions and this evolved into asking them, but many did not participate in spoken form. I had been prepared for this and introduced Mentimeter responses into slide presentations. Student responses were collated on screen, and we were able to discuss these in class to get some deeper insights into their understanding and explore the content in a more proactive manner.
I also used a psychometric testing resource to demonstrate how individual risk is measured. Each student participated in the MCQ risk tool and calculated their own risk rating. This was then compared to given risk profiles which suggested a range of investments appropriate for their portfolio needs. The measurement and application of risk metrics is critical across business disciplines, but we also opened this up to sustainability and climate change risks. These were new approaches for them and there was such a willingness to immerse themselves in this learning experience. One of my students gave me the following message:
“Dear Leanne, it was truly delightful to meet you and spend these few days enjoying your course together. I learned a lot from your lively and fascinating class. Thank you very much and welcome to China!”
Our time together forged close relationships with TUC students and faculty members. It became something for them to look back on not only for the local experiences, which were spectacular, but of new concepts, greater insights into Australian business, and expanding their experiences in empowered learning. From a peer-to-peer experience, it was wonderful to have a meeting of disciplines with Helen and Peter whose willingness to collaborate allowed us to develop an innovative program that integrated such broad, and seemingly, disconnected concepts in a seamless manner.
Explore the insights from our CSU teaching team
