Great Ideas for Teaching (G.I.F.T.) is an occasional series featuring Stetson faculty. To submit your G.I.F.T., contact the center staff.
by Patrick Guibaud
Thinking about an innovative way to foster greater cross-cultural experience in your classroom? Please allow me to suggest an International Virtual Student Exchange.
Picture the following scenario. Three students are intensely engaged in a group chat session on the new immigration Executive Order (EO) recently announced by President Obama on November 20. The group chat session is part of the students’ homework assignment. The students are to work together outside of class and prepare a joint presentation on the immigration on the EO decision in two weeks. As the students are living miles apart and in three different time zones, they found it very convenient to communicate with each other via Skype chat to work on the assignment.
During the chat session, Joe Ellis, a political science junior from a small Liberal Arts college in Florida, offers that the presentation should touch on the Constitutional aspects of the EO decision. He said that based on discussions with friends at his school, the Constitutionality of the EO decision by President Obama should be explored further. Boateng Anderson, an Economics junior at a Polytechnic University in Ghana says that although he agrees with Joe, however, the most salient aspect of the President’s action for him is the impact that the EO will have on remittances that are sent back home by Ghanaians. Boateng added that he heard similar reactions from friends in Ghana who are citizens of other African countries. Jennifer Mulay, an International Studies senior at a private university in Kenya says that the presentation should definitely highlight the Amnesty point of EO. She says that given the fact that the current President of the US is the son of a Kenyan immigrant, her friends see that it is ironic there is still strong resistance in many parts of the US to fully welcome new immigrants.
As their 45-minute chat session nears its end, Boateng has the task to summarize the main points of the discussion thread in a word document and forward it to the rest of the team. Following receipt of the summary document, Jennifer is to complete a draft of the presentation while Joe will conduct more research on the constitutional point that was raised during the chat session.
The scenario that I have just described represents the current thinking regarding International Virtual Exchanges (IVE). In the past, the focus of IVE was more often placed on bringing students from a US and an international institution in Africa, South America, Europe or Asia, together via videoconference for a joint group discussion on a topic. In such an IVE set-up, a few students would pose questions during the class. However, because of class size and the technical challenges it would be very difficult for the students in the joint class session to engage each other directly in any meaningful way. As a result, the professors would serve as facilitators and at times translators for the joint session of the class.
The current and newer approach to doing IVE puts greater emphasis on student-student collaborations. Given the widespread availability and common use of Social Networking chat tools such as Skype, Google Plus and Facebook, group work can be done fairly easily by students who live miles away and far apart from each other. In the EO scenario that I presented, the students were placed in a triad by their professors and asked to work together and develop a collaborative presentation on a US policy decision with global implications. The trio chose the recent immigration EO decision by Obama as their presentation topic. While they have learned from each other, the students will have an additional opportunity to hear more and varied perspectives on the President’s EO decision when the team makes their presentation at the upcoming joint session of their class.
Here at Stetson University, we have quite a few faculty members experimenting with IVE. Given that all students will not travel overseas during tenure here, an IVE can be leveraged to provide a fairly relevant cross-cultural experience as part of normal classroom learning activities. The effective use of technology along with sound pedagogy can make an International Virtual Exchange very rewarding for students.
To learn more about IVE or technology-enhanced learning, contact [email protected].
About the Author
Patrick Guilbaud served as the Brown Teacher-Scholar Fellow in Learning Technologies at Stetson University 2014-2015. During his fellowship year, Guilbuad completed a comprehensive institution-wide online learning-hybrid model self-study to assess and create a model for online and hybrid learning. This study culminated in the 2016 launch of Stetson’s Office of Online Learning and Educational Technology.
Guilbaud’s scholarship of teaching and learning research focuses on the integration of technology in support of online education and self-directed learning. Dr. Guilbaud served as Sr. Research Faculty and Program Director in Information Technology and International Education at Virginia Tech where he secured and led grant-funded global education and international projects including a $28M USAID-funded project in Senegal.
Dr. Guilbaud is currently director of Adult Programs and associate professor at Winthrop University. He earned his Ph.D. in Instructional Technology, Masters in Systems Engineering and MBA all from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Florida. He enjoys reading, cooking, traveling and playing tennis.