Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)
FGCU supports an initiative for collaborative online international learning, more commonly referred to as COIL, to integrate an intercultural curriculum into existing FGCU courses on a cross-disciplinary scale. The initiative focuses on Globally Networked Learning (GNL); a teaching and learning methodology which provides innovative, cost-effective internationalization strategies. Such programs foster faculty and student interaction with peers abroad through co-taught online and blended learning environments emphasizing experiential student collaboration.
FGCU faculty partner with another instructor in a different region of the world to integrate student collaboration into syllabi and their respective courses. Faculty may locate partner instructors on their own, request assistance from FGCU’s Global Engagement Office, or utilize other networks, such as the SUNY COIL Global Partner Network. The amount of collaboration, the frequency of collaboration, and the forms of collaboration with the global counterpart are flexible and determined by the partnered faculty. For example, although curricula will overlap in some way and most courses will be focused on similar topics, the two courses could potentially be located within different disciplines. Faculty may decide that, to achieve learning outcomes, several simultaneous sessions should be scheduled throughout the term. Or, it may be that students never meet in a simultaneous setting and, instead, collaborate on certain activities or assignments. Whatever the collaboration, it involves technology, in some form, and it is incorporated into the curricula and supports course objectives. Ideal courses for the COIL initiative may have objectives that can be enriched by international connections, perspectives, and solutions.
In our current strategic plan, Innovating for Student Success, FGCU’s Journey to Excellence, Florida Gulf Coast University commits to comprehensive internationalization of the university. The COIL teaching and learning paradigm promotes the development of intercultural competence across shared mutual learning environments. A COIL virtual exchange is a module within a university course offering designed to link students who have different cultural, linguistic, and geographical perspectives and experiences. Through COIL, students engage in learning both through their own cultural lens and by encountering the cultural lenses of their international peers as they move through the course content and assignments together. Students interact, problem solve and reflect with each other, thereby facilitating intercultural dialogue that brings a global dimension to the course content and learning process. COIL contributes to internationalization in that it purposefully integrates international and intercultural dimensions into the formal curriculum. It is an inclusive internationalization strategy, which contributes to realizing this important strategic goal.
COIL Faculty Fellows Program
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COIL Fellow Program: COIL faculty profiles and projects
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COIL Events & Application
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COIL-Related Scholarship at FGCU
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COIL-Related Grants, Awards, and Recognitions
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Finding COIL partners
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Resources
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GEO Faculty Fellow
GEO Faculty Fellow
