Five Thoughts About International Education, AI, and the Future of Learning

Amid what’s being called an industrial revolution for knowledge workers, Jeanette Cheah believes that AI is already upending what has long been the implicit promise of higher education—work hard, go to a college or university, and get a job. AI, she argues, is in equal measures imperiling linear career opportunities and giving students the opportunity to innovate in new ways. “The future of work has completely combusted,” says Cheah, CEO and cofounder of Australian edtech company HEX.

A continent away, Justin Sleppy recalls attending a technology-focused teaching conference in Kathmandu, Nepal. As a guest speaker discussed the benefits of AI and how students are using it, Sleppy noticed a disconnect. Educators in the mountain country “didn’t have access to reliable internet or electricity,” says Sleppy, now international student and scholar program coordinator at the University of Virginia International Center. “It was not nearly as relevant to the issues that students and teachers were facing in their classrooms.”

These different realities reveal the complexity of a rapidly changing world and highlight the essential role that international education plays in these contexts. Interviews with international educators and experts on the impact of technology on learning confirm one thing: The value proposition of international education hasn’t changed.

Corrine M. Henke, senior director of global learning at Boise State University’s Center for Global Engagement agrees, “Students can get answers from AI, but they [also] need [exposure to] the subtle cultural differences that you only get from experience.”

In wide-ranging conversations about the intersection of international education, AI, and the future of learning on campuses and around the world, educators and experts coalesced around five principles.

“This is the time for broad-based questions,” says Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown University and author of the book Peak Higher Ed.

There are no easy answers, but there are useful ways to frame the sector’s ongoing thinking around how to chart a course forward in the age of AI.

1. The core value of international education is found in its enduring traits.

For decades, ROI—return on investment—has been a watchword in international education offices. Long before the advent of artificial intelligence, leaders understood the need to justify their programming in new ways.

“We continue to hear students expressing their appreciation for activities and experiences that improve their cross-cultural competence, drive personal growth, and help them develop a global network,” says Karissa Ringel, international student adviser at Western Washington University’s International Student and Scholar Services office. But she also acknowledges that students increasingly view global education experiences as “a very calculated investment.”

The good news is that on a macro level, the ROI equation hasn’t changed in the era of AI. “No employer is giving up on the idea of critical thinking,” says Peter Shea, assistant dean of AI integration at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts. “They don’t want employees to be drones. They’re looking for people who can work together, who know teamwork and conflict management. That [desired] soft skillset hasn’t changed.”

Opportunities to develop these so-called soft skills continue to draw international students to the United States and domestic students to global experiences. “The soft skills curriculum and high-touch support are things American higher education excels at,” says Alexander. “[They’re] a little underappreciated right now, but the postpandemic world makes them more in demand, particularly for younger people who were teenagers during COVID.”

These skills are also invaluable in contexts across the globe and different industries—and challenging intercultural experiences are one of the best ways to cultivate them.

Drawing from research involving thousands of students, HEX identified 30 qualities that its leaders believe will define the future of work. Broken down into three buckets—mindsets (curious, mindful, authentic, adaptive, community focused), skillsets (creativity, collaboration, problem solving, communication), and toolsets (risk assessment, systems thinking)—they reflect what employers want students to bring to the workplace to help companies navigate an AI-powered world, according to Cheah.

“Employers don’t want [passive] rule followers anymore,” she says. “They want people who can assess the world of AI.”

These disparate skills have something in common: “Nothing about them is about AI specifically,” she emphasizes. And some can only be built through exposure to new experiences, according to Cheah, whose company offers travel-based innovation and entrepreneurship programs for students. “They’re not in a familiar place, so their brains are forced to be much more creative,” she says.

The Value Proposition of International Education in a Tech-Saturated World

Artificial intelligence-powered tools can be useful supplements to a well-rounded education, but there are certain components they can never adequately replicate or replace. At the same time, international education experiences provide ideal opportunities to develop valuable skillsets and nurture personal growth.

Experiential learning.

Rooted in ideas dating back to John Dewey, learning by doing is a key element of multicultural experiences, one that yields lasting benefits. “The experience of going into a cooking class and learning how to cook a traditional dish is very different from going online and looking at a video,” Sleppy says. International education, he adds, “is really centered in experiential learning, and generative AI is counter to that—it summarizes, it takes away from the learning process by streamlining how students interact and [taking] away a lot of the nuances that are picked up through experiential learning.”

Applied sociocultural learning.

Educators stress that learning theory and practicing in a classroom setting isn’t enough. It’s critical to apply academic learning in context. “[Applying] everything you’ve been learning academically to a social situation is a famously hard thing to do,” Alexander says. “If you’ve been learning intercultural communication or a foreign language [in] a class, you’ve got to apply it.”

The “productive struggle.”

The challenges of navigating new settings and situations are essential to cementing learning, but they serve another important function: They counteract the weakening effect of some students’ overreliance on AI. “The temptation of AI for students is to avoid the productive struggle and cognitive load that is required for learning,” says Shea.

Conversely, “being forced to be in a new environment constantly gets you comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Cheah says. “It gets you that grittiness. It gets you the ability to reinvent [yourself].”

Immersion.

“It’s hard to spend a lot of time immersed in a [challenging] virtual environment,” Alexander notes. But facilitating “that kind of persistence is something the face-to-face world does naturally.”

Immersion also reinforces other skills, Cheah says. “When you’re in an unfamiliar place with people you don’t know, you tend to lean into what you’re good at and get good at articulating it.”

Flexibility and adaptability.

Students who are navigating unfamiliar settings and new experiences quickly realize they must better manage their mental and emotional resources during periods of stress and challenge. Through this experience, they develop flexibility and adaptability, two qualities Henke notes that every employer appreciates.

Alexander adds that these experiences also cultivate what he calls “confident humility,” which he defines as the ability to travel to a new culture “and suspend judgement for a moment, pause, and learn [from what’s] around you.”

International education experiences are valuable in developing this quality, he continues, since “most people don’t have that intrinsically, and it’s a lifelong skill.”

2. AI can serve as a sandbox, but not a replacement, for navigating difference.

In recent years, many educators have noted that the post-COVID generation of students generally require more support to successfully navigate multicultural experiences. This is an area where AI can play an important—but not exclusive—role.

Generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude can be used to role-play, creating a sandbox for students to hone language skills, prepare for their first days in another country, or practice navigating new classroom dynamics or cultural differences.

With these tools, “you could in a very two-dimensional way prepare students for what to expect,” says CK Kwai, director of Cleveland State University’s Center for International Studies and Programs. Kwai recalls navigating his own study abroad experience in London, where he was surprised by the different classroom expectations. “That’s the kind of simulation AI could create to prepare students ahead of time,” he says.

In addition to creating purpose-built simulations, international offices can guide students to use popular AI chatbots more effectively, in a way that supports their overall learning. At Boise State, predeparture orientations now include lists of AI prompts—everything from packing tips and advice on navigating travel and setting up budgets while living in another country to understanding local customs to help build confidence.

However, caveats apply. Ringel notes that chatbots’ willingness to please and flatter their users does not support students in learning how to navigate discomfort. “AI, with all its positive framing of any question we may ask, does not foster these important skills nor promote the resilience that is more and more necessary in this modern world,” she says. Some of her students agree with this assessment, Ringel shares, noting that one of her international students “sees AI as a crutch” when it comes to developing language skills. “It can be really detrimental to a student developing the confidence to advocate for themselves and navigate complex social environments like job interviews,” she adds.

Another important consideration: AI models tend to be trained on western materials, and that contributes to a distinctly western mindset, Henke cautions. “We still need to talk about the nuances of culture that are below the [tip of the] iceberg,” she says.

Above all, AI can’t replace real-world experiences. “You can get [AI] to map out what an emergent experience would be like…in Madrid, [ask it to] give you lots of stuff to read, show you imagery,” Kwai says. “But I do not believe it can give you the sense of Madrid—what the air smells like, what the food tastes like. Those kinds of human sensations will be the missing part.”

3. AI itself can be a theme of exploration in international experiences.

Students’ interest in—and fears about—the impact of AI on their careers and lives can also provide an opportunity to explore global differences in how the technology is perceived and used. For example, faculty-led programs and independent study can draw on that interest among globally minded students and researchers.

“If I was in China right now, I’d be going all over the place figuring out how AI is being deployed,” Alexander says. “Is a taxi driver or shop owner using it? How?”

Surveys have shown Americans have by far the lowest level of trust in the technology in the world, while countries in Southeast Asia have the highest levels of optimism. “I’d ask people about their attitudes. Listen hard to the opposition,” Alexander says. “That would be endlessly interesting.”

Faculty and students with other interests, including sustainability, could be drawn to programs that explore the negative externalities of AI use, such as energy and water consumption, or the conditions of workers from the global south who are involved in AI training.

4. AI is exacerbating the ongoing challenge of striking the right online-offline balance.

“What balance?” Kwai laughs. “For 99.9 percent of my students, their phone is an extension of their anatomy.” But now AI has become “a force multiplier, building on the challenges we’ve seen with a generation of technology,” Shea says.

International educators—who know the value of face-to-face experiences but also embrace virtual ones as opportunities to broaden access and attract students—must navigate a broad range of questions that don’t have easy answers.

When it comes to striking the right balance, Ringel sees several areas in which excessive time online or heavy use of virtual tools can have a detrimental effect on students.

She notes that students experiencing homesickness often turn to virtual connections and familiar online spaces, but that this can actually “exacerbate feelings of loneliness,” she says. To counter this, activities on her campus focus on “analog activities” including bowling, game nights, or crafts “that encourage low-stakes socializing,” she says.

In similar fashion, Ringel urges students who use AI to build confidence in their language skills to remember the importance of social connections. “Sure, they may get the tutoring they need for a class, but they won’t randomly hear about a club meeting or be encouraged to join a pick-up soccer game,” she says. “AI does not foster belonging nor build community, which are two of the most important aspects of being a successful student outside the classroom.”

Ringel also cautions that international educators must continue to be mindful of how students can best navigate the complexity of overlapping academic, health, and immigration issues. “I purposefully do not have an AI chatbot on our website for FAQs because I want students to talk to me individually,” she says. To that end, she is considering implementing mandatory advising check-ins during a student’s second term “to reinforce the importance of person-to-person connection offline,” she says.

A more controversial question is whether to encourage AI use at all, according to Sleppy. “I think a lot of people are asking the wrong question. I don’t think it’s a given we have to use AI in a lot of cases,” he says, noting the frequently discussed concerns about the technology, including those related to accuracy, ethics, and the impact on learning.

It’s important to place these considerations in the broader context of what education now looks like, Alexander urges. “It is ultimately artificial to talk about face-to-face vs. screens. The two are so intertwined right now, and most of our lives are blended this way,” he says. “The real charge for higher education is how to create the right mix of that—when does a certain configuration of online life deskill you, and when does refusing a part of the digital world hurt you as well?”

5. International education is a differentiator in the age of AI—with the right approach.

By providing opportunities to develop skills that can’t otherwise be replicated, international education can be a “competitive advantage” for institutions, particularly as global conditions and domestic politics make it more difficult for every institution to attract students from around the globe, Alexander argues.

Educators must think about what international experiences mean in a world in which almost every endeavor will be enhanced by AI and other technologies—“the cyborg age,” as Shea calls it. At Middlesex, he says, leaders are supporting faculty-led communities of practice around AI use while also encouraging instructors to pursue pedagogy familiar to international educators: “spending as much time talking to students as possible.” This communication should include what he calls “real talk” about handling challenging experiences, particularly for first-generation students navigating an unfamiliar college culture.

As powerful technological tools continue to develop and all educators become more familiar with the limitations and strongest use cases of AI, educators can help students shape a more positive relationship with the technology “Know how it’s being used, recognize when students are using it, and guide them in directions that do not distract them from learning,” Sleppy says.

For students who learn how to effectively leverage AI tools and successfully navigate difference in a complex world, the payoff could be enormous. “The barriers to entry have never been lower,” Cheah says, noting that students have opportunities to innovate that their peers from previous generations didn’t. “To do that,” she adds, “they need context, and that’s where an international program can help them understand their ideas in the context of the world.”

Providing that context is exactly how international educators are preparing students not only to compete in a tech-saturated world, but to flourish as grounded, integrated human beings. It’s also a principle that should extend far beyond the international office. As Shea puts it, “We have to be more intentional about preserving the parts [of education] that haven’t been turned over to technology and much more conscious of the human-to-human interaction we took for granted.” •