Over the past half century, colleges and universities have prioritized students’ global awareness and intercultural communication skills as institutional outcomes. The goal is that graduates will be prepared to contribute to diverse workplaces and be ...
The term design thinking has cropped up in education journals and conference brochures more and more over the past few years, but its meaning remains a mystery to most instructors. The term comes from the ...
The format of face-to-face education encourages “big-block” course design. Faculty are assigned one to three classes per week, each between 50 minutes and three hours long, and those become the atom units of planning. They ...
Case-based learning (CBL) is a teaching method that uses real-life scenarios to teach skill-based tasks. At the same time, it enhances learners’ awareness of the various contextual factors that affect problem-solving in complicated cases.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL), developed by CAST, is an international framework for educators to design content for all learners. The UDL framework guides the design of instructional goals, assessment, methods, and materials that can ...
Students claim to be overwhelmed with additional work during the 2020–2021 teaching year, while faculty say that they are assigning no more work than usual (McMurtrie, 2021). Squaring these contradictory self-reports provides important insights into ...
As spring 2021 approaches, emergency remote teaching has perpetuated the need to offer online courses, without time to properly design and prepare for its implementation. While some faculty members were already teaching online or hybrid ...
Educators have long praised the value of simulations and role-playing exercises and the impact of those experiential activities on student learning. As Bjorn Billhardt (2005) explains, “Simulations offer huge advantages over lectures, handbooks, or on-site ...
Faculty tend to lament that student evaluations are just opportunities for students with bad grades to hammer their instructor. But I always believed that student surveys where actually designed to inflate approval ratings. They always ...
When online instructors and instructional designers work together to develop a course, communication is often one of the biggest challenges as thoughts and intentions on both sides get lost in translation. As a faculty member ...
Over the past half century, colleges and universities have prioritized students’ global awareness and intercultural communication skills as institutional outcomes. The goal is that graduates will be prepared to contribute to diverse workplaces and be able to communicate with people from different cultures. Historically, these institutions promoted study abroad programs to give students an opportunity to learn about other cultures in an impactful way. But these immersion activities are expensive and not readily available to all students.
With the advent of the internet, educators began contacting one another to foster virtual collaboration between classes and called this new pedagogy Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). COIL is a virtual study abroad program or simulated global exchange experience that uses technology to bridge the gaps between classrooms worldwide. Two or more teachers from various geographic locations connect and plan a course or unit that combines the curriculum from each class. Small student groups from each class work collaboratively on projects, typically with a problem-based learning (PBL) approach. As a result of this experience, students can build rapport with their international classmates, increase their understanding of other cultures, and familiarize themselves with innovative technologies.
Educators who want to create COIL courses have various training options. One organization that facilitates COIL training is the SUNY COIL Center. Created by an informal network of educators in New York, the center serves as a clearinghouse of COIL resources. This center offers workshops on integrating COIL into a course and serves as a means of connecting with educators worldwide looking for virtual collaboration. There are a few steps that you can take to start creating your own COIL class.
There are many benefits of COIL courses. These classes are an excellent option for instructors who want to offer students a high-impact activity to solidify course content using various online tools. Also, collaborative group projects are engaging and memorable class assignments. Furthermore, COIL classes are also an equitable way for students to enhance their intercultural communication skills in an engaging way.
Amy Anderson, EdD, is a communication studies professor at Spokane Community College, Gonzaga University, and Whitworth University.