Stage 1: Profiling
Task: Who are you, Where are you based and Why are you here?
Deadline: October 20, 2014, 11:59 pm EST
In today's digital world, the first impression people often have of us may come from one of many of our online profiles, e.g. on an institutional website, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, etc.The information you provide in these profiles may very well influence the impression a possible COIL partner may have of you at first glance. Therefore, we will begin our work together by asking you to take a thoughtful approach to completing a profile for this course.
We have created a Google Document for you to complete this task. The Document can be edited by you and only viewed by people who have a link. For those of you unfamiliar with this free online tool, this will also give you an opportunity to explore how it can be used.
To access your Document, click on your name below.
Barrie Levine
Claudia Sofia Beebe
Linda Rae Markert
16 comments:
This is my second attempt at this. I initially typed a lengthy response to Natalia's profile, and received an error message. Let's try again. Linda Rae Markert
October 23, 2014
Okay, I will try again to send a comment to Natalia de Cuba in our group.
Hi Natalia! After reading your profile, I am very humbled. Your extensive array of professional interests and ability to speak several languages are impressive. It's exciting to think about linking your ESOL students at Nassau CC with other English Language Learners in other parts of the world. Linda Rae Markert
This post is for Barrie Levine. Hi Barrie! It was good to "meet" you briefly during yesterday's video-conference. I am pleased to see in your profile that you acknowledge that not all students can afford to study abroad, and that COIL provides a good alternative for those who want to explore other cultures more deeply. Also of note, I have a SKYPE meeting set up for next week with Alison Nimmo regarding a potential COIL partnership between SUNY Oswego and GCU. Linda Rae Markert
This comment is for Barrie posted by Natalia. I really like that you included links on your post about yourself! What a terrific idea. Wish I had thought of that and I may go back and do it. Your program sounds very interesting. I would be curious to know what kinds of institutions you work with and what type of international experiences you provide for your students. Your post made me want to know more, particularly whether your students are planning for careers at home or abroad. I am also delighted to have a good reason to use the word "Glaswegian". Such a great word!
This comment is for Linda Rae Markert posted by Natalia. Thanks for the kind words! I was similarly impressed with all you have done at Oswego (my brother is a graduate of Oswego, '91, I believe). I know the NCATE work is very involved! I am intrigued by the leadership training you do now. Do you find that there are structural/hierarchical differences when working with international partners that create challenges for collaboration?
This comment is for Claudia Sofia Beebe, posted by Natalia. Saludos! I found your background to be very interesting! I am curious about Cropscience (I have a great interest in food and agricultural issues) and how you got from there to logistics at an upstate community college! My other question is about the ESOL courses at Broome. Do you have many international/immigrant students requiring English language support? Do you work with those populations?
Natalia, I work at NCC as well, overseeing Distance Education. Although we have not met in person yet, I would like to work to support an online collaboration... Becoming fully bilingual has always been a dream of mine especially coming from a multilingual speaking family so I give you kudos for achieving that.
Deborah (have I spelled that right?), I hope we get a chance to meet soon!I would love to talk about distance education and how it can help potential LINCC/NCC students. We have talked about it a bit in International Ed. Committee...you can email me directly at natalia.decuba@ncc.edu!
Thanks for reaching out!
Dear all, my apologies for not blogging or replying sooner! It was good to 'meet' some of you last week on the video-conference and my apologies for the initial technical problem! To Linda Rae, thanks for the comments and for the kind words. Cayuga Lake looks rather lovely! As does the Volvo! I am interested in your profile and how you get on with the plan to develop a partnership between SUNY Oswego and GCU. I know Alison Nimmo here well, so please pass her my regards! And In hope we can discuss this further.
To Natalia, thanks also and your institution Nassau College sounds really interesting - one thing that comes across strongly in your profile and others' is being multi-lingual - really impressed! Scotland lags way behind in this respect and few if any of our students speak more than English - and sometimes that not very well ;) Seriously though, I think the COIL approach opens up real potential for greater cultural awareness and for instance, I was very interested in the presentation you had for Hispanic Heritage month and the focus of the community rights activist - would love to hear more. I am interested in anti-racist social work, community activism and essentially, a more political form of social work - so this is interesting indeed. I also note your literacy in international soccer - happy to discuss the state of Scottish football!! I look forward to further communication with you all, best wishes, Barrie
Hello everyone
It seems we have trouble to make comments in our work site and I need to check.
I'm so happy to join this group and learn about all your experiences.
Natalia, thanks for your question I will try to answer soon. Saludos a todos
This is Natalia responding to Task 2.
As someone who teaches a sheltered language immersion class, these questions were kind of a stumper. We do not teach content or a “discipline” so much as we teach language acquisition, using different themes as prescribed by Pearson’s North Star textbooks as vehicles to deliver language skills and vocabulary. They provide the themes and about two hours or so of useful material per week. The other 18 hours of class is made of our own original material and methodology designed to work holistically, with different language skills layered and practiced together, rather than separate them into discrete skills/modules like Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing.
Our students do not share a set of career interests or goals apart from wanting to enter the mainstream campus and start earning credits. So as such, we don’t have one single discipline to bring to an interdisciplinary relationship.
My colleague, Maryanne Kildare, who is in Group 4 in this cohort, and I got together to discuss this quandary. It was a very instructive and valuable activity that really made us look at our program as it might look to someone on the outside and helped us consider not only what a COIL component could do for our students, but also what we bring to the table.
So I actually want to start with the three possible geographic locations and address the type of group might be a good fit for us before attacking the question of three interdisciplinary variants.
Three Possible Locations
Since our groups are international and immigrant students from 40 odd countries, cross cultural interaction is embedded in what we do. We have a heightened awareness of what it means to adapt, assimilate and aspire to enter a new culture. My thought is that our students would have the most to share with other English Language Learners around the world who are hoping either to come to the United States or another English-speaking country in pursuit of higher education OR are already in an English-speaking country and are transitioning into that new life. Refugee or asylum seekers would fit that profile as well.
1. Mexico – while we have many Spanish speakers in our program, they mostly come from the Caribbean or Central American countries other than Mexico. Our college already has students from Mexico through the Mexican Ministry of Education. The similar time zone would make real-time collaboration easy and they are fairly well wired so that we could exploit more of the direct video contact and chat to increase true interaction.
2. Europe – while English language instruction is so good in European countries (particularly in the north) that we rarely have students from that region in our program, there are technical colleges in places like Germany where students who are not pursuing academic degrees might yet want to improve their English would welcome a chance to speak to English language learners in America. There also may be students who aspire to come to the United States or other English-speaking countries and would benefit from learning about our students’ experiences as they adapt to the new culture.
3. British Isles – an intriguing idea would be to match similar students in English-speaking countries to ours. We could look at colleges where there are a number of immigrant, refugee, or international students developing their English language skills in a similar program and match them.
Three Interdisciplinary Variants
1. With students from Mexico and other regions where the college is developing exchanges and relationships, our students could do distance orientation prior to coming to New York to our institution. They could develop a series of questions about things they need to know before arriving and our students could find the answers. This lends itself to wikis, video conferencing and online chats that could be conducted in real-time. Students could make formal presentations in a group and then break out into pairs to deepen the dialogue and information exchange. Because the exchange students have a real need to know, this puts positive motivational pressure on both parties.
2. A “Question of the Week” format in which students on both sides consider a topical question and present their knowledge, research and opinion could be informative and help with academic language. Health care, educational policy and immigration policy are just some of the topics that could be addressed. This could be framed as a comparative exercise where students have to research the norms where they live and present it to partner students. Wikis, blogs, and other not-in-real time formats could be used for students to respond to one another in the case of different time zones.
3. “Where I Live” Students would create and present travelogues of their current hometown depending on the interests of their partners. If they are interested in the school, they can do a tour of the campus, using words and pictures (and video for the truly ambitious). I like the idea of presentation and introducing students to other worlds, but I don’t have this one clear yet.
4. I am sticking in a fourth, which is to do a week or two module in which the partner classrooms consider the same theme (preferably issue-based) over that time and exchange knowledge etc. Gender, Nutrition/Food, Technology. The instructors would collaborate to match lessons and themes.
Look forward to seeing what other folks are thinking! Natalia
Linda Rae Markert
Task # 2
A. The Course Selected:
• The “capstone” course Oswego is seeking to link with a similar higher education experience at an international location is titled Organizational Change for School Building & School District Leaders. This course is the last one taken during the Certificate of Advanced Study in Educational Leadership; it is designed to allow leadership candidates to pull together all of the learning activities they have encountered during their previously completed coursework and administrative internship.
• For example, they learn about and practice the essential elements of the strategic planning process as used to bring about desired change(s) in educational institutions, organizations and districts. They are expected to include multiple perspectives, use/apply various change structures, and discuss the cultural relevancy embedded in organizational change that is equitable and fruitful for all stakeholders.
• In its current format, candidates work in teams to conduct a series of interviews with practicing administrators who have developed (or are currently developing) a long-range strategic plan. The team is required to analyze why change was necessary, the stakeholders involved, the time frame, and the parameters considered.
• Candidates review the planning process through political, cultural, ethical, financial, global, and instructional perspectives. They create partnerships to create the framework for a district-wide strategic plan using local existing data documents. A few of these could include: school report cards, enrollment trends, changing demographics in the region, and school building floor plans. They also prepare an executive report to accompany this strategic plan framework.
• I am trying to think about how the COIL approach might transform these assigned strategic plan investigations in the Organizational Change capstone course, and allow partnerships to form between SUNY Oswego’s CAS students and those enrolled in a parallel leadership program abroad.
B. Partners Selected:
• Our education majors typically read (or hear) about how the United States’ P-12 students perform, when compared to primary and secondary students in other nations, on measures like the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), the PIRLS (Progress in International Reading & Literacy Study) or on the International PISA Test (Programme for International Student Assessment). However, they do not normally have an opportunity to engage in detailed conversations with their leadership counterparts abroad about how the data are used, and the reasons students perform the way they do on these internationally standardized measures.
• During the months of July and August 2014, I wrote to faculty members at universities in several nations including: South Africa, Singapore, Australia, Scotland, Finland and Great Britain. Several of these professors engaged in dialogue over a period, and then conversations waned. It now appears that SUNY Oswego will forge an agreement to move forward with a COIL experience with Glasgow-Caledonian University in Scotland.
• Faculty members will develop a mutually agreed upon project to link learning activities allowing graduate students in both countries to examine how they are sensitized to the global arena of education by deepening understanding of themselves and their culture.
• Further, this jointly completed project should give candidates a vastly different glimpse of how they are perceived as aspiring leaders, and how they perceive others in the international profession of educational administration.
• Faculty members may ask their students to work together for several weeks during the term on an authentic problem-solving exercise that will be mutually valuable to everyone.
This message is for Natalia from Linda Rae. I especially like your "Question of the Week" idea for a learning activity. It provides for timely and relevant conversations among your English Language Learners. Thank you for sharing it!
Linda Rae, your proposed project sounds very interesting and rewarding. I think learning more about the international tests and what the scores mean is very important and could lead to much better interpretation of the results.
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