ExperiencED

5.3 Stephanie Doscher, Director, Office of Collaborative Online International Learning, Florida International University

Episode Summary

Dr. Stephanie Doscher is the Director of the Office of Collaborative Online International Learning or COIL at Florida International University (FIU). She received her BA degree in History at Emory University, her Master’s degree in Education at Western Washington University, and her Doctorate of Education from FIU. COIL at FIU or anywhere it is practiced involves a partnership between two or more professors teaching courses in the same or different disciplines while located in different institutions and different countries. By being team-taught and project-based, the COIL structure creates a global learning experience for the students and the professors that does not require international travel. It does create an important opportunity for learning about global collaboration through relatively short-term deliverable projects and that provides important opportunities for student reflection and growth. Thus, COIL is a growing part of the increasing experiential education movement in higher education that also drives student interest in internships and other activities.

Episode Notes

Topics discussed in this Episode include:

• Dr. Doscher tells her development story of how she came to direct COIL at FIU and how global learning found her but she found COIL. She also has an interest in systems thinking, but that is for another podcast.
• A good discussion followed of the COIL methodology of teaching a project-based module in courses in two institutions where one is located outside the US and a project is executed between the two groups of students in separate classes led by two faculty.  The basic framework was developed by Jon Rubin, founder and former director of the SUNY COIL Center as its “godfather.” At FIU, COIL is seen as supporting their initiative to act to improve collective well-being globally while providing global growth benefits to the students and to faculty who teach the courses.
• While COIL allows students to get an international experience on campus in a class without the financial burden of travel, the main benefit is seen in peer collaboration with diverse populations around the world. That collaboration is transformational and leaves the students with important growth, skills, maturity, and inspiration.
• In some ways, a COIL experience can be more impactful than study abroad or even cooperative education (co-op) abroad where the student may not have to work closely with peers and likely does not have to navigate online co-working tools.
• The success of a COIL experience leaves students more mature, able, and experienced and that can turn into motivation as well as lead to employment. Some students seek more language training and often they say they learned not only about others but about themselves. This applies to students who may have a language at home other than English but have not yet applied it to working in that language with other native speakers who are the same basic age.
• In some ways the collaboration part of COIL can exceed the experience of co-op even though that typically involves being at a workplace. Or it could support co-op and even be combined successively with it.
• The podcast ended with a discussion of a “mission to help create a world of globally connected learners” at FIU, and how Dr. Doscher’s office works with their own faculty and students and those from other institutions domestically and around the world.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• https://www.fiu.edu/
• https://global.fiu.edu/coil//
• The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange 
• Making Global Learning Universal: Promoting Inclusion and Success for All Students
• Making Global Learning Universal podcast
• AshokaU Changemaker Campus

Music Credits: C’est La Vie by Derek Clegg