Abstract
In 2017, the University of Groningen (UG) in The Netherlands and DePaul University in the USA (DePaul) connected undergraduate students in geography courses using an Online International Exchange (OIE) assignment involving videoconferencing. Whereas many international OIE projects are designed on joint alignment principles connecting similar courses and developing similar aims and assignments, this project had a cross-course setup with diverging learning outcomes. In the UG course, OIE was a pretravel activity primarily aimed at developing disciplinary skills. DePaul implemented OIE as an intercultural awareness assignment. Through reflection on the design process and thematic analysis of student reflections, we conclude that the OIE introduced students in the DePaul course to international perceptions and encouraged self-reflection, whilethe OIE stimulated disciplinary skills and introduced intercultural awareness to the UG course. Moreover, OIE stimulated cross-cultural project management skills, increasing awareness of differing educational and urban contexts and thereby training the students in global citizenship. Therefore, this cross-course OIE shows that adapting OIE design to local curricular needs using pre-existing courses can enhance and deepen disciplinaryspecific learning outcomes through cross fertilization, and may create unexpected new learning outcomes. This expands the potential application and benefits of OIE for the internationalization of higher education.
Highlights
In 2017, University of Groningen (UG) and DePaul implemented an Online International Exchange (OIE), based on a cross-course model that connected students from two separate undergraduate geography courses through videoconferencing
UG has promoted OIE since 2017 as a cross-disciplinary educational practice (University of Groningen, n.d.), and a key point of departure for UG in the Fieldwork Abroad course described here was to identify how learning disciplinary skills can be enhanced by engaging students online in collaborative tasks with peers from universities in other countries
At DePaul, the OIE was embedded in its University-wide Global Learning Experience (GLE) program that had been initiated in 2015, aiming to offer international experiences to as many students as possible (DePaul University, n.d.a)
Summary
In 2017, UG and DePaul implemented an OIE, based on a cross-course model that connected students from two separate undergraduate geography courses through videoconferencing. Drawing from each program’s different learning outcomes, the OIE assignment introduced students in the DePaul course to international perceptions and encouraged self-reflection, while the UG course assignment stimulated disciplinary skills and introduced intercultural awareness. The specific OIE assignment unexpectedly stimulated the cross-cultural project management skills of the students, showing how OIE can contribute to developing ‘global citizens’ (De Wit, 2016). This innovative cross-course design shows how OIE can be implemented flexibly within existing courses, supporting the development of discipline-specific skills. This potentially expands the application and benefits of OIE for the internationalization of higher education
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