IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION B

Abstract

This presentation focuses on how students can participate in interdisciplinary literacy practices while engaged in international learning. Short (2016) reminds us that “the lack of existing curriculum around global issues and cultures provides a potential space for innovation. The challenge is how to locate and use that space within mandates and schedule overload” (p. 4). Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) projects promote what Freire believed was our vocation as human beings “as engaging actively in creating the world… because humans alone can consciously understand their relationship with the world…[and] the way in which they can transform reality” (Lankshear, 2011, p. 17). Specifically, our role as human beings is to make sense of and transform the world. Presenter one will share a social justice focused COIL project with a partner at Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya in Lima, Peru. Through 11 weeks of synchronous dialogues about justice-oriented topics and the creation of a final project, students built relationships and grew in their global awareness while exploring global issues and how they impact countries differently. Presenter two will share a Social Studies Methods course where a COIL project was created in conjunction with an architecture course from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. The focus of the initiative was to create an ideal digital landscape of an outdoor learning space for teaching elementary students in a sustainable environment. Students from both universities developed global awareness of education systems and were able to challenge their own cultural competencies by collaborating with international partners.