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.
Victoria Chai
Kathleen McKenna
Sheila Aird
Margaret Mc Veigh
Joan Buckley
11 comments:
Good Afternoon,
I am Victoria Chai from Nassau Community College (NCC). NCC is located in Garden City, NY (about 45 minutes by train from NYC).
Currently, I am filling a number of positions.
I am teaching faculty in the Communications Department. I specialize in Interpersonal Communication, Public Speaking, ESL and Linguistics. I teach both face-to-face and fully online courses. However, even my face-to-face courses are online enhanced.
I am also working in the Office for International Student Affairs. I am the study abroad advisor for students and I work with faculty who are teaching abroad or want to develop a study abroad class.
My duties include special programs, as well. Currently at NCC we are hosting 20 students from Mexico who are here on the BECALOS scholarship. We are also working with a college in China on an exchange program, and they would also like to work on COIL with us. NCC has a relationship with Al-Kafaat University in Lebanaon, where I work on that project, which is funded by the BMENA grant. We have two courses which piloted last semester to COIL with classes there.
Because we have several partners who are interested in working with us to COIL courses, I am here to learn how to do this effectively. Currently, our partners are interested in working with professors in ESL, Economics, Finance and Communications
Greetings All,
Greetings,
I am a faculty member at Empire State College. I teach for the Center for Distance Learning where we offer online courses. I am the area coordinator for Global Studies and teach a variety of courses such as African History, Caribbean History, Digital Storytelling and Food, Drink and Culture. I also teach for our International Programs as well. My background is situated in culture, history and anthropology.
I am interested in partnering with others in COIL to work with and develop courses for a collaborative course offering.
Sheila Marie Aird
Hi Everyone,
I'm Kathleen McKenna. I've been on the faculty at SUNY Broome CC for 21 years. I'm currently teaching Criminal Law, American Government, and Effective Speaking. My most recent international collaborations have been in Mexico (in person). We are just beginning to bring COIL to our campus.
Kathleen
I'm struck by the many and varied responsibilities everyone has.
I enjoyed looking at Joan's photo of Florence Nightingale. It's interesting to think about the fact that she is still an important figure in the field of Nursing. I remember reading about her as a child. It would be interesting to learn about trailblazers in Nursing in other countries too. That might be a nice icebreaker for COIL classes in Nursing.
It's also interesting to see that Joan would like to collaborate internationally because her area is so diverse. I'd like to collaborate internationally in part because our area is not as diverse as larger metropolitan areas.
I'm realizing that readers of my profile might welcome more information about our area, and more specific ideas from me about how we might collaborate.
I just went back to look at the images posted in my group and later will look at other groups. I think that Kathleen had a point about looking at the history of nursing in another area and I would very much be interested in learning more about the area and students that she teaches.
I think that connecting with another nursing faculty would seem the most natural match but you never know what will happen when conversation starts.
Nursing is entwined in so many areas that I think we fit in in many areas and am curious to see if anyone else...not in Nursing...sees it that way. Environmentally we sort of balance people that are unbalanced because of their environment. I may look at my profile again to see if I have portrayed my role in nursing broadly enough.
Some quick thoughts on these topics. I'll return to these questions after reviewing the recommended links as well.
why and how two (or more) professors and their students can benefit from working with those coming at related ideas from another culture, another discipline and with, at times, differing objectives
-- My experience bringing together students from different cultures (mostly in person, but also through teleconferences) is that people benefit from sharing our common humanity. Interacting together helps us begin to break through cultural stereotypes that exist in all cultures.
As our relationship grows, we also learn about subtle and not-so-subtle differences in our cultures.
why the work process must include give and take across cultures, followed by reflection that brings forth exploration, comparison and sensitivity to difference
--Without that back and forth, the interaction can end up reinforcing existing views about who/what is dominant or preferred in our global community, with US students in particular at risk of reinforcing the US sense of being the world's leader.
how each partner’s institutional culture and type (e.g. 2-year vocational, 4-year liberal arts, research institute) influence the choices we make as educators and the options we have at our disposal when innovating
-For example, SUNY Broome is a 2-year campus. We cannot offer graduate level help with research. We are an open-admissions institution with a broad range of students. If we were to partner with a selective research university, both institutions would need to be aware of what we and our students are well positioned to bring to the interaction. We have some students with tremendous life experience, but who are new to college, and others who are quite comfortable with rigorous academic work. Our collaborations would need to be thoughtfully planned to meet the needs of students at both institutions.
Why the work process must include give and take across cultures, followed by reflection that brings forth exploration, comparison and sensitivity to difference?
Helloo Kathleen, I posted a response to the first question yesterday but must not have done a final step as I do not see it. I am moving on for now as to respond to this piece. I agree that give and take in all situations is key to learning. I often discover that when I give information to the studnets I get so much more information back..almost naturally. Some students of course...may be use to being takers but for the most part in nursing there is this need to always clarify and verify so it may go with this discipline but I am thinking that it most likely goes across all areas.
I agree with Joan that we and the students benefit from real give and take.
I thought the movie created by the Oswego and RMIT students in Australia really reinforced the need to seek clarication in cross-cultural communication. In that film, the US robot is prepared to put some Sheilas (girls/women) on the barbie. It was a light-hearted way of making that point. I'm sure they had lots of fun collaborating too.
•propose 3 interdisciplinary variants and reflect on how each of these three choices would create different opportunities for student engagement
--I'd like to collaborate internationally in my Effective Speaking class. That class lends itself to a mix of conversation topics, ranging from topics such as lessons given to children, to superstitions, to cake icing, to organ donation, to studying foreign languages (all topics addressed by my in-class students this semester, a class that includes half international students, and half US students, in person.
In Criminal Law, I'd like to give my students the opportunity to learn about other legal systems, about the definitions of crimes such as murder and rape, about the types of representation afforded to defendants, about the process used to reach verdicts, and about sentencing options.
In American Government, I'm especially interested in voting systems, funding for campaigns, and foreign policy.
•propose 3 possible geographic locations for a partner class and suggest how this choice could influence the outcomes of the COIL course.
--I'd like to collaborate with a university in Mexico to discuss topics of mutual interest, such as immigration, trade, and drug policies. These would be particularly interesting for students in Government and Criminal Law in both countries. Given my own limited Spanish, we would want to seek partners who speak English.
--I'd enjoy collaborating with a German institution as well, because I lived in Germany and because I have studied quite a bit of German. Perhaps matching our Effective Speaking class with German students working on fine-tuning their English would be a good fit.
--Finally, it might be interesting to collaborate with French Canadians on topics of mutual interest, such as trade, environmental regulations, and health care policy. This would be of interest in my American Government class.
In each of the above situations, I think we would want to be sure that the students and faculty at the two institutions were capable of communicating across language barriers and that they were at roughly the same place in their academic careers (year one or two post high school).
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