Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

by | Sep 12, 2023 | Collaboration, DEI (Diversity/Equity Inclusion), Engagement, Global Learning, Home

The Institute for Global Engagement launched the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) initiative for the 2023-2024 academic year with information sessions and a program to award grants to its first cohort of Western faculty fellows.

What is COIL?

COIL, Collaborative Online International Learning, is a form of online virtual exchange embedded for several weeks into an existing face-to-face or online course, during which a Western professor and their students collaborate with an instructor and students in another country on a shared assignment(s) or project. Courses that contain a COIL component include a faculty partnership to create the joint curriculum, highly interactive student learning in an intercultural environment, and a variety of choices regarding the use of synchronous and asynchronous online technology. Students are enrolled at their home institution, and their work is assessed by their own professor.

Benefits for Students

  • For Western students, COIL is a cost-effective way to deepen global engagement.
  • COIL does not require travel and yet provides meaningful opportunities for an interactive global learning experience built into their program of study.

Benefits for Faculty

  • COIL promotes the use of an innovative teaching pedagogy.
  • COIL adds or enhances an international component and comparative perspective to an existing syllabus and associated course learning outcomes.
  • COIL can lead to or strengthen a longer-term teaching and/or research partnership with a faculty member at an institution abroad.

COIL is one element in Western’s comprehensive internationalization effort and is meant to supplement other educational opportunities, such as study abroad and faculty-led Global Learning Programs.

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