EXC2EL Stories - June 2024
Professors shape global and academic competencies using collaborative online international learning (COIL)
How do students at Texas State connect with peers from Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Mexico without leaving campus? It’s happening for Bobcats who take classes where instructors use collaborative online international learning (COIL). Through this innovative teaching method, students are developing international relationships, examining academic content through new cultural lenses, and gaining unique experiences in virtual format. Teaching with COIL opens new perspectives and helps illuminate and energize student learning.
Dr. Cosette Joyner Martinez has used COIL in fashion merchandising courses in her previous teaching and will be offering a new COIL opportunity this fall in her upcoming course titled Fashion in Society (FM 2338). This course will allow Texas State students to collaborate with students in Saudi Arabia and the Ukraine with the goal of critical reflection about dress habits and clothing consumption practices. Students will explore a range of cultural issues and examine the use of sustainability practices.
Dr. Joyner Martinez explains that students gain a great deal through COIL. She states that students consistently find the experience generally raises their level of comfort in talking with others who are perceived to be unlike them. She says they learn how to communicate with others when English is not their first language, which many Texas State students already appreciate and are compassionate about. “Students also discover just how globally connected the world is, and they are delighted to find that they share musical interests, fashion brands (even under an abaya – a long, robe-like dress worn by some Muslim women), and other aspects of popular culture in common,” she says.
In another example of COIL teaching, Dr. Maria Luisa Illescas-Glascock of Curriculum and Instruction collaborates with Mexican faculty and students at the University of Guadalajara and the Autonomous University of Guerrero. Her COIL is interdisciplinary and involves the Texas State course Languages of Children (Early Childhood Education 4300) together with Mexican courses in molecular biology and intercultural learning.
Dr. Illescas-Glascock calls COIL an enhancement to the curriculum and way for students to make international connections. She says, “students do not have to bear financial expenses traveling abroad, and they benefit from the online interactions with students in countries beyond the U.S. and gather a perspective that goes beyond the local background.”
Including COIL has its challenges which both professors say all participants must be prepared to encounter such as time zone differences and learning cross-cultural communication. Nevertheless, they find profound benefits when adding COIL to their courses. Dr. Joyner Martinez states, “This exchange is critical to continuing to internationalize the curriculum at Texas State University. Particularly, in our Fashion Merchandising program, textiles and apparel is a global industry, and though not all future professionals may travel abroad as part of their career, they will assuredly be required to communicate with many different types of people in distant places and will likely conduct that communication asynchronously. This makes these COIL exchanges one of the most impactful aspects of their professional development that directly supports their career success.”
For full interviews with Dr. Joyner Martinez and Dr. Illescas-Glascock, please email exccelcenter@txstate.edu