Collaborative Online International Learning: An innovative pedagogy to connect and build global community

Presenters

Amy Ramson, Professor, Behavioral & Social Sciences, Hostos Community College
Olga Aksakalova, Associate Professor, English, Laguardia Community College
Grace Pai, Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, Guttman Community College

Abstract

The pandemic has laid bare the awareness that building tomorrow together requires engaging our students in global dialogue to solve worldwide problems. The new normal must involve teaching our students to become global citizens. An evidence-based way this can be accomplished is through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), which internationalizes curriculum by linking classes of two or more higher education institutions located in different countries or cultural settings. Three CUNY campus representatives of a CUNY COIL “working group”, which includes 10 campus members, will discuss COIL and its benefits for faculty and students, especially within CUNY where most students face constraints to academic mobility. The presentation will show how COIL successfully pushes the boundaries of online learning by facilitating collaboration across borders to build the empathy and understanding that is needed to solve global problems and crises, a dire need demonstrated by the global COVID 19 pandemic.

The presenters will demonstrate different forms of COIL engagement on several CUNY campuses. They will also illustrate how a range of virtual practices from COIL exchanges, such as ice-breaking and collaborative multimodal composing, can be effectively adapted for non-COIL remote learning contexts to increase student engagement. The presenters will also reflect on challenges and opportunities before concluding with a vision to develop COIL across the university in a way that would institutionally embed it into the new CUNY norm.?