FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 13, 2016
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Glenville State College
Public Relations Department
(304) 462-4115
GLENVILLE, WV - Preparing today's students for living and working in a global community is an important aspect to the educational and social programs at Glenville State College. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a new way that students and faculty on the campus are doing just that. Courses with COIL modules use technology to connect international classrooms for unique learning experiences. Students in classes with COIL components get some of the benefits of studying abroad, without ever leaving their own campus.
Glenville State College student Wes Lane chats with students in Mexico as part of a COIL class
GSC held two pilot courses in the spring of 2014 with its international partners at the University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain. The pilot courses were team taught with two GSC professors and two professors from the University of Oviedo in order to explore the shared cultural and historical connections between the Appalachian and Asturian regions. That opportunity was enhanced by the local connection to West Virginia's Asturian communities that began in the early 1900s by immigrants who settled in Central West Virginia and maintained their language and traditions while simultaneously adjusting to life in Appalachia. During the pilot courses, the GSC students focused on topics like discrimination and resistance in addition to honing language skills relevant to teacher education by practicing with native speakers. All of the students expanded their cultural knowledge.
A COIL course this past semester connected GSC students with peers in Spain and Mexico. Students in GSC's Introduction to Hispanic Literature course worked with students in a translation course (English to Spanish and Spanish to English) at the University of Oviedo. The GSC class was taught by Dr. Megan Gibbons who serves as an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Director of International Programs.
In addition to swapping 'cultural photos' â pictures of themselves that suggest something about their culture â the students formed small groups in which they generated a list of assorted academic and cultural questions that the peers then answered. Although this was still an introductory activity, they learned about differences in higher education in different countries, cultural stereotypes, geography, language learning, and the challenges of translation.
Students at Anahuac University in Puebla, Mexico answer questions from Glenville State College student Emily Snyder about her web design project
In their small groups, the Oviedo students translated from the original Spanish into English the opening paragraph of one of the novels that the GSC students were reading. The Glenville State students proofread and revised the translations produced by their group partners, offering comments or asking questions as appropriate. Final drafts were re-posted for each group and the Glenville students then compared these versions to the authorized translation that they read. The students also worked with a passage from Pinnick Kinnick Hill, a memoir written by a West Virginian of Asturian descent and published by WVU Press. Once this was reviewed by the Glenville groups, video conferences were held to compare the student translations to the published English version as well as to discuss the cultural and historical ties between the two regions.
Students in another recent COIL course, a GSC web design class, also worked with students enrolled in a business course at the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Mexico. To get to know each other, the Glenville and BUAP students recorded and shared introductory videos of themselves as well as a cultural photo. Then, during scheduled video chats, GSC students interacted with the Mexican students and discussed business practices and etiquette in an international context. The collaboration culminated with a final project in which the web design students learned how to work with an international client to develop a website while the business students honed their English-speaking skills and learned about marketing to other cultures.
Taking international experiences seriously is essential for modern college students. Glenville State College's Dr. Gibbons has taken the lead in sharing information about what other colleges and universities in the Mountain State need to know. She is working closely with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commissionâs Director of International Programs, Dr. Clark Egnor, to help educate faculty throughout the state about the COIL method and to facilitate the development of COIL modules.
Two new COIL modules will be launched at Glenville State this semester and faculty at Bluefield State College, Concord University, Marshall University, and West Liberty University are all developing COIL modules for the 2016-2017 academic year.
