Reaching Higher
A Mixed Online-Study Abroad Model that Develops Students' Global Identity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Meg Milligan
Fall semester online student enrollment exceeded 6 million in 2015 (Allen & Seaman, 2017). In 2013, 66% of chief academic officers at 2,800 colleges and universities reiterated the critical importance of online offerings to their institutions’ long-term success (Allen & Seaman, 2014). In addition, there is growing pressure in U. S. higher education to include study abroad programs (Rhodes, Loberg, & Hubbard, 2014), and to stress intercultural competence and global thinking (Karlberg, 2008). However, while the American Council on Education found that 50% of high school seniors expressed interest in study abroad (ACE, 2008), only 2% participated as postsecondary students (IIE, 2012). Clearly, there is a need for innovative program designs. The purpose of our mixed design course for undergraduate and graduate students is to expand their global and cross-cultural awareness through experiential learning outside of the U. S. while enrolling in an online Global Identity course that furnishes a more traditional pedagogical component. This design includes an 8-week online course with a 10-day study abroad component (led by the online co-instructors) at each end. The pilot launched in 2018, and focused on Costa Rica and Uganda. All involved deemed it successful, and it will run in 2019 with modifications for different destinations. This study includes a detailed description of our advance planning, course design and objectives, program development from concept to fruition, timeline, faculty involvement, administrative support, bumps along the way, and outcome assessment. Our goal is to share our work and foster discussion with other conference participants.
Lights! Camera! Accion! Intercultural Films Created by STEM Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joseph Williams
Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) is comprised of four engineering programs, namely Chemical, Electrical, Mechanical, and Petroleum. The engineering students who opted to take Intercultural Communication (ICC) as a course elective during Summer Semester 2018 embarked on a journey that involved the analysis of intercultural miscommunication. Through the study of various student-created films, this ethnically diverse group of ICC students questioned and addressed their own communication strategies as they sought to improve intercollegiate communication in and out of the workplace. This paper shares findings based on ICC student feedback that reassert the importance of intercultural communication in a glocalized world.
Improving Curriculum Development in Conflict Resolution Programs to Foster International Scholarship of Engagement
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elena Bastidas, April Coan, Jennifer Lawer
The content of this study focuses on curriculum development in the area of Conflict Resolution (CR), with the goal of enhancing the International Scholarship of Engagement (ISOE) by introducing a field immersion component to online courses. The global courses are hybrid courses that in addition to the six-week online session, it includes an international field immersion component that takes place in a context where the institutional setting for these courses was developed under a partnering relationship among the university offering the course, and local organizations, academic institutions, government officials in the host country. In all cases, students traveled to the field/conflict settings for fifteen days, where they engaged in a variety of activities with local farmers, community groups, local organizations, and policy-makers. These courses combined experiential learning and scholarship of engagement within the context of CR. The course activities before, during, and after the courses were selected in order to facilitate transformational learning. This paper is based on the results of a qualitative research conducted with twenty students and alumni that participated in one or more global courses, with the objective of learning about the effectiveness of the courses from the participants’ perspectives. The global courses took place in the summers of 2011 in Suriname, 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2017 in Ecuador. The session will analyze ISOE implications of designing curriculum that embraces experiential learning and scholarship of engagement for CR.
