As part of last weeks workshop on internationalising the curriculum (see previous blog) three colleagues gave us their valuable views and experiences on setting up and running Online International Learning (OIL) projects.
An OIL project is considered to be one of the first steps in giving students an international experience and developing their inter-cultural awareness, so valued by graduate recruiters. Building and enhancing competencies such as communication, resilience, global networking and embracing different perspectives are critical – but doing so is not always that easy. As a bit of background this is also quite interesting and looks at the benefits of inter-cultural dialogue in a globalizing world as well as the enhancement of digital skills: O’Brien, A.J., Alfano, C., Magnusson, E. (2007) Improving Cross-Cultural Communication through Collaborative Technologies. Persuasive Technology. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4744, 125-131. Their study showed that choosing the appropriate technology, tasks and modes of delivery allowed students to a) get the most out of a globally distributed team, b)develop their analytical skills and c) build inter-cultural competencies and sensitivity.
OIL is a great way to do this in a safe and relatively cost effective way. Groups can be made private (ah – privacy settings, a digital skill!), guidelines for interaction given and neither staff nor student needs to leave the country (no flying = lower carbon emissions! – this is one of the things I think is GREAT about OIL!). In many areas “internationalisation” has rarely been an issue as it was already ingrained (e.g. languages and geography). But in others it becomes more challenging, for example how do you take 30+ students to an oil refinery in Nigeria to see how the process works and what the local community and environmental impact is without drowning in permissions, expense and H&S paperwork? On-line discussion doesn’t get over this but allows other discussions which can be as valuable as seeing the “real thing”.
The following have been used by my HEI to pull together the benefits and learning outcomes of OIL projects:
Leask, B. (2004). Internationalisation Outcomes for All Students Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Journal of Studies in International Education, 8(4), 336-351
Stone, N. (2006). Internationalising the Student Learning Experience: Possible Indicators. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(4), 409-413
It is an issue that is high on the agenda, and one that doesn’t just focus on the “easy” OIL projects, but looks at how this can be developed though out all levels of study and how OIL can be the stepping stone to field trips and placements. Some 40 or so OIL project have been/are running at my HEI with a good degree of success. Not just in numbers of students engaged which is in my view a useful metric, but not necessarily an indication of success, but also in terms of developing or continuing projects within cohorts and courses. There have been some key learnings (based on staff observation, official surveying of students and anecdotal evidence from students) seemed to be:
- Students need more guidance than you might think
- You need to consider whether your entry point right?
- Think about assessment – is a reflective diary enough and is it effective?
- Some thought needs to go into how its effectiveness is measured (it has to go beyond purely the number of students participating)
I was given the opportunity to develop a project with a Community College in New York. The class in question is run by a teacher with very similar interests to myself (environment, climate, running, mountains) so we’ve got on quite well and have similar aspirations for the collaboration. Therefore picking learning outcomes and topics for discussion was relatively simple, even though my class were studying a very different module to that of their US counterparts.
We’ve adopted the following approach:
- Online small group discussion – self determined but encouraged to speak via Skype at least once.
- Tutorial reflection/discussion
- Field trip (UK only)
- Lectures (more US than UK)
With the following learning outcomes:
- Students will gain greater understanding of the partner country and the cultural norms of that country, gained through discussions with their peers
- Students will gain greater awareness of resource management strategies used by different countries, through readings, videos, and discussions
- Students will learn about and develop an appreciation of differing public opinions towards environmental issues, such as climate change, renewable energy, and public park management in their own country and the partner country through readings, videos, and discussions
- Students will improve their presentation and communication skills, through communicating with each other and by making presentations to share with the class
- Students will develop the capacity to apply international standards and practices within the fields of energy, environment and climate change through discussion and debate.
We haven’t yet thought about how we can measure success. Obviously we can report on the numbers of students engaged and we can also report on the number of students passing the associated assignments. But we need to consider students satisfaction (the MEQ won’t be enough in my case) and their learning/development (in terms of digital skills and inter-cultural competencies). For the we probably need to tackle both real and perceived. This may mean some kind of pre and post collaboration survey. But given that they start this week we need to sort that out ASAP!
In listening to my colleagues last week I’ve realised that the students are likely to need a lot more support that I was initially going to provide. I was (almost, but not quite) just going to give them the articles and assignment and ask them to contact one another to discuss it. In reality I’ve always know that I needed to provide some guidance. So in the last couple of days I’ve developed some guide questions and provided example responses as well as providing more guidance on meeting etiquette and note taking to support them in the project and therefore end of semester assignment. I suspect that I will still need to be flexible in this and provide more/less guidance and feedback as time goes on. I’m concerned though as I don’t want to be too prescriptive. I want to encourage self learning…..but…….I also want this to be a positive experience for both groups of students (and their teachers!) and one that we can develop further in the long run. So making sure it doesn’t go horribly in from week 2 onwards is important.
I’ll keep you posted….
dremmah 