Sustainable Higher Education via Telecollaboration: Improving Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competence

Introduction. Due to globalisation, the modern workforce is significantly diversified. Therefore, there is a need to modernise and embrace innovation in 21st-century education to prepare international professionals to work in cross-cultural teams via digital platforms. While research in the recent past has primarily focused on the refinement of future expert competences in tertiary education, only a handful of studies have been done to establish how plurilingual and pluricultural competence can be digitally developed at the inter-university level. In this light, this study sought to bridge this gap in the research on the sustainable cooperation model. Materials and Methods. The design for the methodological plan of integrating plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in university teaching was premised on the need to promote networking among students from different universities and countries. Its major stages based on the Collaborative Online International Learning approach included three stages: find a partner, prepare the project and carry out the project. A virtual exchange experiment across two institutions of higher learning in Spain and Finland helped analyse plurilingual and pluricultural competence achievement by means of questionnaires. Results. A special Collaborative Online International Learning approach used to explore plurilingual and pluricultural competence and the effectiveness of online-assisted language interaction, teamwork or intercultural cooperation. The study’s findings confirmed that plurilingual and pluricultural competence among students could also be developed using virtual cooperation, thus supporting cost-effective options of sustainable university training. Discussion and Conclusion. The project had a positive impact on reaching sustainable education goals by highlighting intercultural interaction prospects. Besides, it displays real challenges such as different schedules, grading systems, timing, motivation or virtual interaction among learners and ways of overcoming them. Regardless of the fundamental idea of formative exploration, our study presents some findings that lecturers, language training practitioners and policymakers willing to apply telecollaboration will be deserving of thought.

Fostering Distance Education: Lessons From a United States-England Partnered Collaborative Online International Learning Approach

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a teaching and learning approach whereby entire courses or modules are co-developed and team taught by instructors from different institutions for students of both institutions. Since 2006, the approach has been gaining in mass appeal; however, considering our present-day global coronavirus pandemic, COILs have a renewed relevance in academia. Faculty from the University of South Carolina (United States) and Coventry University (England) embarked on a COIL partnership yielding a valuable experience that can serve as a model for other institutions that are interested in developing innovative and cross-cultural distance learning opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the institutional partnership emerged, describe the course content, and provide lessons that our team learned through the COIL development and implementation process. Our experience as a first-time COIL partnership is a model for others to consider as the landscape for the academic enterprise expands the confines of brick-and-mortar institutions.

How a Challenge is also a Chance: Shaping Teacher Education through Collaborative Online International Learning.

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a well-known concept for virtual exchange. For the partnership of the PH Ludwigsburg and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte it served as the theoretical framework for continuing our collaboration even under pandemic conditions. Students from both universities improved their intercultural communication, media, and global learning competencies while working in groups to research global challenges. Findings suggest COIL is a beneficial pedagogical method to impact students’ awareness of their own and others’ diverse cultural perspectives. While there were implementation challenges, out of them emerged many opportunities.

Comparing Cars With Apples? Identifying the Appropriate Benchmark Countries for Relative Ecological Pollution Rankings and International Learning

One of the most difficult tasks that economies face is how to generate economic growth without causing environmental damage. Research in economic complexity has provided new methods to reveal structural constraints and opportunities for green economic diversification and sophistication, as well as the effects of economic complexity on environmental pollution indicators. However, no research so far has compared the ecological efficiency of countries with similar productive structures and levels of economic complexity, and used this information to identify the best learning partners. This matters, because there are substantial differences in the environmental damage caused by the same product in different countries, and green diversification needs to be complemented by substantial efficiency improvements of existing products. In this article, we use data on 774 different types of exports, CO2 emissions, and the ecological footprint of 99 countries to create first a relative ecological pollution ranking (REPR). Then, we use methods from network science to reveal a benchmark network of the best learning partners based on country pairs with a large extent of export similarity, yet significant differences in pollution values. This is important because it helps to reveal adequate benchmark countries for efficiency improvements and sustainable production, considering that countries may specialize in substantially different types of economic activities. Finally, the article i) illustrates large efficiency improvements within current global output levels, ii) helps to identify countries that can best learn from each other, and iii) improves the information base in international negotiations for the sake of a cleaner global production system.

Intellectual Roots of the Welfare State

This chapter considers the intellectual roots of the welfare state in changing views about states and their competences from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth centuries. This happens in particular national contexts, with differing patterns of both democratization and bureaucratization. From the beginning, we can observe patterns of international learning and policy transfer. This process is traced through a number of national cases: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the English-speaking nations, Sweden and the United States. Although the welfare state has come to be identified with social citizenship and ‘social justice’, its ideational and normative roots are much more diverse and contested than this. And although the welfare state came to be identified with social democrats, especially after 1945, its origins more usually lie with liberal, or even conservative, forces and ideas.

Collaborative Online International Learning: Language and Cross-Cultural Experiences of University Students

This qualitative study reports on a collaborative online project between the University of Washington at Tacoma (USA) and the Universidad Veracruzana at Veracruz City (México). The project was implemented as part of the internationalization of higher education policies of the participating universities, which include pedagogical practices oriented toward foreign language learning, the internationalization of the curriculum, and virtual exchange. The study documents cross-cultural learning experiences between two groups of students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in a Collaborative Online International Learning approach (COIL); and how those experiences related to the development of cross-cultural competence. The language of instruction was English and the students interacted through an online platform and a social network. The methodological design was qualitative-interpretive. Data was generated using interviews, linguistic samples (writing samples), and the interactions of the participants prompted by the use of an online platform and a social media network. Data analysis was realized through a content approach, which led to the formulation of assertions based on themes that emerged. Results indicate that the pedagogical approach implemented (COIL) prompted reflexion on issues related to language learning, cultural understanding, and common life experiences, and that it was conducive to the development of aspects of cross-cultural competence.

When Different Language Groups Meet Online: Covert and Overt Focus on Form in Text-Based Chats

Focus on form has been extensively studied in text-based online dyadic chats but much less has been explored in group chats with interlocutors from different language backgrounds. Additionally, there are very few studies investigating covert focus on form. This study investigated the effects of interlocutor types on errors and focus on form episodes, both covert and overt, in text-based online group chats. We collected chat logs from two collaborative online international learning projects. One project was developed for the collaboration between an English course at a Chinese university and an art history course at a U.S. university; the other between another cohort of the same English course and a cultural studies course at a Mexican university. We compared errors, feedback, and other characteristics of focus on form episodes between the two projects. Analyses revealed significant differences in characteristics such as overtness (overt, covert), linguistic focus (mechanical, lexical, and grammatical), and source (code, message). However, no significant differences were found for the type of focus on form (preemptive, reactive), presence of uptake, uptake quality (successful, unsuccessful), and repair provider (self, other). Students showed a preference for self-repair over other-repair and for lexical focus over mechanical and grammatical foci in both projects. Overall, only a small proportion of errors were followed by feedback. Therefore, a small amount of uptake and successful uptake occurred in both projects. The results can shed light on how instructors could provide effective scaffolding and tasks to make virtual exchange projects more rewarding.