IDEAS INCUBATOR WEBINAR

#LaunchIDEASabroad

Thank you for joining today’s webinar. The session will start promptly at 2pm EST and will be recorded. USA Study Abroad

Mission: To advance U.S. foreign policy goals by increasing and diversifying U.S. study abroad through programs for both individuals and institutions and to support the next generation of diverse American leaders to gain Heidi Manley the knowledge and skills they Chief, USA Study Abroad need to succeed in a globalizing U.S. Department of State world. IDEAS

• Increase and Diversify Abroad for U.S. Students

• IDEAS Grant Competition • Annual grant competition awarding approximately 20 grants of up to $35,000 each to U.S. higher education institutions

• IDEAS Initiatives • Free workshops and webinars for the wider U.S. study abroad community to expand and diversify U.S. student mobility abroad. Virtually Abroad: Expanding our idea of what study abroad looks like Presenters

Hope Windle Taylor Woodman Christine Anderson Sharon Gusky Community Internationalization Academic Director, Biology Professor Development Lead Specialist Abroad Center Northwestern CT SUNY COIL Center University of Maryland University of Minnesota Community College Overview

Data Themes

• 93% improved their cross- • Virtual Exchange = cultural communication International Opportunity for All skills • Maintaining Virtual Exchange as an option for students of all • 89% improved their resource levels knowledge and/or interest • Measuring the impact of virtual in global events exchanges • 85% improved their critical • Best Practices and Advice thinking skills Source: SUNY COIL Hope Windle What is COIL? COIL is about connecting across difference. Professors and students work with their peers in an online learning environment to explore subjects, themes, issues, and ideas COIL extends significant international experiences to all students and faculty by facilitating online What is COIL? intercultural exchange. Faculty and students work with their peers in an online learning environment to explore important themes, issues, and ideas.

COIL has a definition Collaborative Online International Learning but when you have two classes coming together in the midst of a pandemic and a hurricane for Cancun and a community responding to police brutality in Rochester, N.Y… the students get committed to making it work. COIL Define learning outcomes Determine the length of interaction Design comparative and collaborative activities Select methodology and technology Monitor student work and learning Assess and evaluate student outcomes

*Develop an effective international team *Discuss issues, course content *Problem solve *Complete a project-based assignment as part of their coursework What is Virtual Exchange? • Dialogues and collaboration between people and classrooms sustained over a period of time online • Interactive social learning • Facilitated (by professors or trained facilitators) • Meaningful intercultural experiences • Intentional, goal-oriented activities • Often project-based, can involve service learning and/or community engagement What Virtual Exchange is Not: • Virtual mobility • Digital Penpals • International guest lectures • Distance learning courses • MOOCs • Informal social media interactions • “Study Abroad Lite” • Unplanned, unstructured SUNY COIL Partners and Global Network Examples of COIL Collaborations

SUNY Course Global Partner Course COIL Module University at Buffalo: Ethics of Durban University of Technology, Coverage of Controversies in the Journalism South Africa: Public Relations & Press Media

Geneseo: Introduction to Universidad La Salle, Mexico: Cross-cultural Definitions of Psychology Financial Engineering Personhood and How They May Influence Consumer Economic Behavior Delhi: World History 1850-present The American University in Cairo, Multicultural Contributions to the Egypt: International and Evolution of the Scientific Method Comparative Education

Monroe Community College: American University of Technology, Cultural Influences on Management Entrepreneurial Studies : Introduction to Style Management

Nassau Community College: Durban University of Technology, Constructing a Virtual Nursing Nursing South Africa: Home Construction Technology Institutional Benefits The Value Proposition for All

COIL can provide a global experience to more students

COIL can reach students as early as their first semester

COIL engages students more often

COIL can integrate into multiple subjects

COIL can sustain the global engagement

$ COIL offers a competitive cost per student when scaled COIL Personalized Internationalizing supports Learning the Curriculum broad institutional 21st Century COIL Skills High Impact goals Development Practice

Active Pedagogy Connecting to Your Institutional Learning Outcomes...

Global Perspectives Demonstrate an awareness and understanding of various perspectives of people in local and global contexts. Perspectives

COIL is an invitation from the future.

Administrator, Portland State University

“An experience that causes participants to forget they are virtual” University of Maryland Taylor Woodman • Virtual - Utilizes digital technologies to deliver course content • Project-Based - Course deliverables ● 2014 - Global Classrooms Initiative Grant address real-life global or local Program needs ● 2017 - Fellows Program • Cross-Cultural - Offered in ● Early 2020 - Mini Grants ● June 2020 - Design Sprint/CARES conjunction with an international Act/Model Expansion institution ● August 2020 - Study Abroad Special Sessions ● Today - Reassignment of EA Team; Financial Model; Ongoing support and delivery models Advancing Comprehensive Internationalization

● Advances institutional internationalization goals ● Creates connections between research, teaching and service ● Increasing student exposure to global research, networks and alternatives to dominant U.S. policy, practice and ideas ● Provides access to global opportunities ● Maintains and strengthens research partnerships/linkages in times of uncertainty (political, financially, crisis, etc.) Measuring Impact

• Limited Scholarly Research • Emerging as we speak • Capturing Data • Balancing Admin vs. Faculty • Evaluations • Partnering with faculty • Developing program outcomes • Scaling • Integration/Sustainability of GC model Engaging Study Abroad Advocates • Reframe from Study Abroad • Connect to location or new sites in traditional locations • Leverage International Networks • Cultural institutions and embassies • Communicate needs explicitly • Understand power dynamics • Testing & backup plans are essential • Connect across campus • IT; Teaching Center, etc. • Understand your technology/infrastructure • Articulate institutional commitment • Invest in training Additional Resources

Stevens Initiative - 2020 Annotated Bibliography on Virtual Exchange Research

IVEC

Virtual Exchange Coalition

Journal of Virtual Exchange

Global Classrooms Initiative University of Minnesota: Learning Abroad Center Christine Anderson Virtual International Internship Basics

• 16 Different cities • Multiple industries • 15-weeks • 4-credits • Instructors from LAC Centers • French & Spanish sections • Country coordinators • Orientations • Cost of tuition, approximately $2,049 Academics

● Course designed to guide experience ● 4 credits ● Global Perspectives LE ● Focus on comparative national response to COVID-19 ● Multicultural groups ● Global industry ● Market useful skills ● Safe space Cultural Considerations

• Realize your own professional identity • Values • Flexibility and awareness • Perspective-frame shift • Professional culture • Language • On-site staff will provide culture- specific information

What did you find most valuable about the experience?

● Cross-cultural communication and learning how ● I also gained valuable skills in working to push myself to create work I am proud of in a school setting and with students

● Establishing connections with a company and ● The personal connection I made with professionals abroad as well as obtaining my first my supervisor. This more personal professional experience and skills. experience made learning and discussing things like Spanish culture ● Learning about new cultures and the people I got and current event so easy. to meet. ● The experience of getting to conduct ● I learned a lot about cross-cultural psychology medical research abroad which was great because it is pretty hard to learn about it in an academic setting ● The weekly meetings with my supervisor and the three classes with ● Meeting the other UMN interns Waly, all of which were in French. What did you find most challenging?

● Time difference, being virtual, staying ● Conducting all verbal and written ambiguous throughout such a new communication in Spanish program ● Out of the experience I found it ● The language barrier –– this was one of challenging to work as independently as I the most rewarding parts in the end, did, however, I gained more confidence in though my abilities by doing so.

● The most challenging aspects relate to the ● Time management - balancing life and most valuable aspects. Being able to take work weekly to make sure everything is the project in your own direction requires done on time but still have some time for you to have a detailed, fleshed-out plan for other work outside of the internship. yourself, which can be difficult

How did the host country impact your internship?

● My host country and its culture/behaviors ● I think that having an internship that as contributed to my growth and appreciation based in writing and was with a country that doesn’t speak English was really interesting and rewarding. It made it really ● I had studied abroad in the previous interesting to be able to show the semester in Toledo, Spain so I was ecstatic difference between how articles are to be "back". written in America versus Spain.

● The host country impacted my internship ● I learned about COVID and Italian culture experience because I was able to work with an organization and with people that operate ● There were opportunities to learn about a in French. It was a great learning opportunity different professional culture from to learn about the differences in Western vs the professional culture of the US West African work culture.

Student Quote

Madeline Deninger, a senior studying strategic communication, intern with El Independiente, an online publication in Spain “This internship wasn’t something I ever thought I’d have a chance to do,” Madeline said. “If COVID had never happened and it had been in person, I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity.” “They were excited that an international audience was still interested in the [Black Lives Matter] movement,” Madeline said.

Local news coverage in Spanish publication El Indipendiente Next Steps

• Open nationally • Customized • Virtual International Research • Retaking virtual internship • Blended with onsite experience • Arabic section FY18 IDEAS Grantee: Northwestern Connecticut Community College Sharon Gusky NWCC’s FY18 IDEAS Grant Activities

Destination: and Spain Foreign Policy Goals: Energy & Natural Resources

NCCC will develop a study abroad capacity building program that would introduce both students and faculty to the opportunities and benefits of studying abroad and also develop a Study Abroad Coordinator position. This project will also develop Virtual International Experiences (VIEs) for faculty and students which will be course modules that faculty in any discipline can use in their courses. Faculty from Northwestern will be paired with faculty from institutions in France and Spain. Together they will use interactive lessons that students from both countries can participate in both formally and informally to learn about each other’s culture. Virtual Study Abroad Program

Goals • Provide an opportunity for students who don’t have an opportunity to study abroad to interact with students from another culture • Increase interest in study abroad programs • Help students see themselves as a part of a global community and see issues covered in STEM classes as global issues VIE STEM Projects

• Statistics Class with the University of Lorraine- Nancy, France- Quality Control Data Analysis

• General Biology Class-Tiny Earth- with the University of Complutense, Madrid, Spain-Searching for New Antibiotics

• Microbiology Class- PARE Project- with the University of Lorraine- Nancy, France-Mapping Antibiotic Resistant Organisms Best Practices

• Instructors worked together

• Students were paired up in groups/Provided Peer Feedback

• Answered weekly guided prompts

• Interactions were primarily asynchronous with optional synchronous interactions

• Participation counted as part of their lab grade Impact- Student Perspective

“Working with the students from France has been a great experience because it has pushed me out of my shell. I am now comfortably talking to people outside of Provide an opportunity the country that I've never even met in person!” for students who don’t have an opportunity to “It was really interesting to see how the French students study abroad to lives differed from ours - like their majors and their hobbies. I also enjoyed seeing pictures of the French interact with students students and their school. Normally we wouldn't get to from another culture connect with other students learning the same things from across the world, so I really enjoyed the PARE project!” Impact- Student Perspective

Students checked in on each other more frequently during the pandemic shut down in March 2020 and Help students see even met via Zoom a few times. themselves as a “While communicating with the French students was part of a global fun, this project also brought to light how important it is community and see for projects, like this one, to be shared across multiple issues covered countries. The threat of antibiotic resistance is a global in STEM classes as problem, so it makes sense that the PARE project is global issues shared internationally, gaining data from multiple different locations.” Impact on Study Abroad Interest

• One year prior to this project another CC offered our students seats in their study abroad trip to France- only three students attended the information session

• After doing VIEs for a year- we held another study abroad information session and 40 students attended

• We had three students apply for Gilman Scholarships and one was awarded one

• We went from one VIE class to four (Statistics, 2 Bio , Business) Questions?

Please enter your questions in the chat box. SUNY COIL [email protected] [email protected]

UMD Global Classrooms [email protected]

UMN Learning Abroad Center [email protected]

NWCC [email protected] StudyAbroadCapacityBuilding.org

[email protected] #LaunchIDEASabroad