At the heart of the Global Mesh Virtual Exchange (GMVE) model is the conceptualization of a wide variety of participating international partners as critical content-generating “nodes” in the pedagogical architecture of GMVE. This article will describe how an online global mesh framework was shaped and formed between three institutions and several departmental disciplines, leading to a stratified form of online Project Learning (PBL) education. According to existing literature, this construct of global-mesh learning affords a rich, diverse, critical, and multi-disciplinary framework for experiential learning, as exemplified by the reactions from students, faculty, and organizations involved in various projects.
Introduction
Project-based learning (PBL) has been recognized as a beneficial study component in all education system areas. Students gain insight into their studies through the application and real-world application of the materials they integrate using external projects. The existing literature points to several advantages PBL offers, especially in enriching student experience and learning capacities. Such enrichment is especially the case when considering cross-curricular learning, where several disciplines are integrated to enable participants to solve a common problem or achieve a common goal (Barnes, 2015; Ward-Penny, 2010) such as creating a product for an organization or emerging with a particular result-oriented project with a practical application (such that students get to see a meaningful application of their project work). Student enrichment is further enhanced in cross-curricular learning that integrates several disciplines.
Given the seminal point noted by (Macgilchrist et al., 2020) that PBL allows students to tackle “wicked problems” while also raising awareness about critical matters like social justice and civic engagement, we set out to implement PBL in a layered manner that afforded a variety of viewpoints from faculty, students, and the external project providers. We perceived project creation as a more holistic form of productive and task-oriented learning beyond merely acquiring knowledge or ideas. The goal then in enhancing the classroom was to incorporate not just different institutions from around the world but also different disciplines and diverse backgrounds, thereby leading to more diverse inputs in the PBL activities by the students and faculty that allowed for richer layers of understanding between the students from many different backgrounds, cultures, and disciplines, and more robust output of the projects being undertaken within the PBL framework. This form of collaboration assists PBL in leading to broader and richer projects with more significant practical and real-world applicability as there arises a need for more diverse skill sets and a host of different perspectives that demonstrate the importance of multimodality in datasets, disciplines, and the different approaches being undertaken within the projects (Thomas & Yamazaki, 2021) all of which need to be integrated into the course work and projects being undertaken.
Background
Stratified PBL
PBL can easily appeal to a wide range of disciplines, all within the same project, while also integrating a host of skill sets and activities that can meet the needs of different faculty from different disciplines. Consider, for example, the need for language skills when working on a project with a foreign provider and international students that might be focused on matters of law or human rights, where the desired output involves creating social media content like a podcast or website materials for a particular organization, agency, or social movement. In such a case, the project itself incorporates not just the need for understanding the content and output but also integrates critical project management skills and essential problem-solving techniques that need to be engaged by all involved students (and faculty!) just to be able to tackle the project at hand adequately. Further, this stratified form of PBL involves students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines while being more demanding in many respects. It also leads to more creative output and yields more profound results for the students during and after the project is completed. When accounting for the importance of PBL in a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary context, there arises a need for diverse skills to be applied by both faculty and students alike, as well as broad disciplinary knowledge of the students working on the projects (Beckett & Slater, 2019).
Coupled with a rich opportunity for cross-cultural exchanges between students, faculty, and others outside the university framework, we decided to push the boundaries and offer a stratified form of PBL for projects between students from different universities, regions, and disciplines. Further, there is an inherent benefit to expanding PBL beyond the field of study or department, as well as beyond the institution of learning, such as allowing for a less static context of project work. Engaging and integrating a variety of fields and context for the project work itself affords the students with an opportunity to enrich their understanding and deepen their perceptions of the materials they are engaging, as well as opens up new vistas of insight and understanding through the involvement of different disciplines, different institutions with a potentially different form of approach and method of teaching, thus affording broader perspectives from which the students can operate and hopefully integrate (Hammer, 2022).
As the projects themselves are group-oriented, given that students work in teams with each other on a specific project, the stratified PBL affords for more diverse groups and more significant cross-cultural thinking, as well as a more critical consideration of problems and issues that they will be tackling in the project and in the future as well when they enter the real world. Students are then forced to contemplate issues beyond their comfort zone, leading to a rich strata of project engagement through their work with individuals with different epistemological contexts and approaches. Even more so, stratified PBL allows for greater realistic reflection of real-world project engagement as students will work with a diverse and wide variety of people with different interests, goals, and mindsets, a framework more akin to what occurs in the private and public sectors. Additionally, students begin to see how they might apply the knowledge they have been learning beyond just the sphere of comprehension of a subject or specific context. Thus, their studies are inherently enriched by applying the acquired knowledge in places or realms they might not have imagined, while at the same time, students are embarking on an incredibly diverse form of cultural and social interaction and exchange with their peers and external project providers.
Notably, we felt that by creating multi-layered or stratified projects with diverse student groups through the advent of global-mesh programming, we would begin to address some of the ambiguities associated with PBL (Ellis, 2009) by looking toward more specific issues in the human rights and environmental sectors, incorporating as well external guest lecturers and non-governmental organizations who further assist to define and shape the projects (and contribute to the different layers of disciplines and approaches within the projects themselves). This stratified form of PBL afforded more diversity, greater cross-cultural thinking, and more critical consideration of projects at hand in what has been called a performative manner of education, whereby students perceived their projects in a practical everyday setting and manner of application, leading to more meaningful and enduring educational outputs. (Zembylas & Keet, 2019, pp. 105–106).
Aside from students’ enjoying the work on real-world projects that allow them to apply their knowledge, stratified PBL allows for deeper insights into other worlds, other people, and other cultures that students might not acquire when working on an internal project with their peers at the same institution or same department. We quickly realized that adding on new nodes to incorporate other institutions and project providers was relatively easy and pretty seamless once the approach of joint lecturing was understood, such that a global-mesh framework for PBL is readily achievable (even without external grant funding) as the desire to engage in such forms of course structures and interaction by all involved parties is quite stark, including faculty (given the ensuing upgrade to the classroom) and project providers (given the benefits that accrue to them through the projects).
The Global Mesh Project Design
The framework for implementing stratified PBL is a global mesh framework of educational and project exchange, whereby each node represents either an institution, a departmental field of study, an external organization, or a project provider operating within a complex structure of virtual exchange. Content-wise, GMVE is similar to the transnational model of virtual exchange, prioritizing tasks focusing on global issues, with participants collaborating across cultural and geopolitical lines to collectively solve a complex issue (rather than focusing on cultural practices or perspectives) (O’Dowd, 2020).
In GMVE, students work together to offer concrete solutions to critical social and cultural problems while considering local, regional, national, and global perceptions (Godwin-Jones, 2019), capitalizing on shared “lingua franca” to foster mutual understanding of multiple other perspectives and apply collective critical thinking skills (critical telecollaboration) (Helm, 2017). Unlike traditional bilingual-bicultural class-to-class virtual exchanges, which typically involve two classes studying each other’s linguacultures (O’Down, 2021), GMVE involves multiple agents or “nodes” and builds upon rigorous virtual transnational project teamwork, producing a single “product.” Groups draw on language skills and disciplinary and intercultural competencies and acquire new knowledge and an in-depth understanding of a critical problem from lectures and interactions with global and local experts (stratified PBL). The complex structure of such virtual exchanges thus constitutes a necessary pedagogical component of the VE content, as do group and individual tasks and lectures. In GMVE, a node1 serves either as a connection or redistribution point between different participants (such as between departments, guest lecturers, institutions, or NGOs) or as a communication endpoint (the project provider).
Operationalizing this concept for the model of virtual exchange brings to the forefront the importance of understanding what project work actors bring to the proverbial table, viewing them not only as participants but also as contributors of critical educational content and materialistic learning curriculum components. Nodes are essential pillars of GMVE-based group project work, infusing it with diverse cultural meanings, mindsets, and contexts. As such, each node represents either an institution that houses the students, a departmental field of study within the institution, or an external organization or project provider with whom various students from different intuitions will work. The nodes are connected by shared lecturing (between institutions, project providers, and guest lecturers) and project work (between institutions and project providers). GMVE allows participating departments to track activities, have faculty exchange ideas and lecture, maintain departmental autonomy (some departments stress different activities, like social policy or language), and affords a broader picture by which students understand the developed relationships and the various roles within their groups, depending on the field of study or institution. In GMVE, the course instructor is primarily a facilitator and liaison between students and the other nodes.
GMVE also equalizes the roles of instructors and students through shared learning experiences as they interact with local and global experts. Instructors incorporate creative insights, student wisdom, opportunities for learning to encourage collaborative creation, and guidance throughout project development while helping students build connections to the work, promoting student independence, open-ended inquiry, team spirit, and attention to quality (PBL Works, 2019).
Setting
The cross-institutional involvement that we established at a USA University (“USA”) entailed a joint-form course and eventual project work involving students from the USA, the University in Central Asia (“AUCA) located in Kyrgyzstan, and a University located in Saint Petersburg, Russia (“St. Petersburg”). The students from the USA were from the Human Rights Practice (H Rts) graduate program and the undergraduate Russian and Slavic Studies (RSSS) program. AUCA and St. Petersburg students were from law, human rights, political science, communications, and international relations.
For the USA, inter-departmental coursework arose due to the distinct advantages of the relationship, including leveraged contacts leading to richer student projects and the fact that each department desired a form of cross-cultural engagement. Further, given the work of the H Rts program in Russia and Central Asia and the capacity of RSSS students to not only use the lingua franca of the area but also intermesh socially and culturally, the desire to work together was quite stark. Indeed, both departments envision creating a future form of joint degree and joint classes in other areas.
It is also worth noting that both USA departments already have the framework for externalizing PBL in the online format. RSSS already instituted language instruction through cultural virtual exchanges and community-based project work, working on projects with organizations in Kazakhstan and Russia, and they desired to enhance their advanced language courses with a cross-continental PBL component in a virtual setting (thus establishing broader avenues for student engagement). The H Rts program already relied on external guest lectures throughout all its courses, as they strive to incorporate voices and views from around the world, offering support where feasible to NGOs and community groups through guest lecturing fees and facilitating project work. Thus, the H Rts program already maintained 5–6 video guest lectures in every class offered (with over 350 such guest lectures in the past 4 years from over 60 countries), and there is a PBL component in every class along with group work (usually cohorts of 3–4 students) whereby students work with the instructor and community members on real-world issues from around the globe. Thus, each department realized they were already engaged in this stratified form of PBL, given past experiences in project creation with external project providers that involved students from other universities. For H Rts, the global-mesh structure began on a smaller scale through joint courses with AUCA, running, for example, a summer Strategic Litigation course with students from Central Asia that included lectures from faculty and regional NGOs. As a precursor to the course with RSSS, H Rts moved the global mesh model further forward by creating a Housing Rights course that was more interactive, given the integration of PBL group projects.
The global mesh course included NGOs involved in the environment, gender issues, housing rights, and governance in Central Asia, and it was decided, after a suggestion from one of the NGOs, that student-created podcasts would be an effective tool for disseminating information to the public, a strong desire by all the involved NGOs. Thus, the lecturing structure and materials included NGOs as well as organizations that focused on narrative creation (such as the New Media Advocacy Project), lecturers with media experts (such as the USA Film and Journalism Departments), and Central Asian NGOs who could offer insights into the region and expand upon the project issues. We also had former H Rts graduate students lecture on their podcasting capstone projects, as that greatly assisted the students in recognizing that the projects were feasible. Additional workshops were offered on team building and intercultural training.
Students established groups by choosing NGOs according to their interests, career goals, or individual skills (such as language capacity). Group roles also ensured proper scheduling and meeting deadlines, technical aspects of project creation, language issues, narrative writing, and communication between project providers and the group, as well as with the faculty from all institutions.
Like any form of group work with students, it was essential to establish clarity within the group regarding their work and the timeframes involved, ensure student involvement across the board by all members of the group, maintain ongoing oversight over group members through assignment work and tracking group work as it emerged, and to ensure that effective communication was taking place between the students and project providers. This also involved maintaining viable group dynamics between students to ensure functioning teams, using ongoing student meetings and class reports. Scheduled time frames were implemented to allow for a graduated final public product to emerge in an achievable and possible way for the students. According to Larmer and Mergendoller (2015), a public product adds to the project design’s motivating power, encouraging high-quality work and ‘raising the stakes’ as students must abide by an established timeline and produce a tangible outcome or propose a solution to a real-life problem. Setting the performance bar high for students enhances the social dimension of learning and offers an opportunity to discuss product design elements with potential stakeholders, audiences, and experts.
Investigation and Practice
What we have found is that students enjoy working on real-world projects with real-world impacts as it provides a meaningful experience for the students that allows them to apply what they have been learning and see it come to fruition (as well as allows them to add real-world project work into their resumes). The stratified PBL experience further affords students deep insights into other worlds, people, and cultures that they might not acquire when working on an internal project with their peers at the same institution, department, or major. Further, most faculty and project providers desire this form of interaction with students and indeed seek out projects given the benefits that accrue to them as an organization and the ensuing upgrade to the classroom and lectures offered by faculty. While it helps to have departmental chairs support endeavors in this regard, we have found that even with such direct support, the global mesh framework is achievable with external grant funding, given the desire to engage in such forms of course structures and interaction by all involved parties.
The vital lesson derived from each department was that faculty members are by no means experts on specific issues but rather stand to gain a great deal from the engagement of project providers who maintain knowledge about real-world issues in their region. Indeed, the role of a teacher as a facilitator in the PBL framework (and not as an “expert” per se) is an essential notion of integrating as it allows for one to not only enable learning but also allows for questioning and integrating problems into the learning framework (Bax, 2011), thereby leading to richer project work. Recognizing the importance of the contribution of other experts, especially when striving for a stratified form of PBL that allows for all participants to maintain and utilize their voices and ideas, facilitates creative thinking, greater collaboration, and broader and deeper solutions to a problem or issue that is the focus of the project. When engaging in a global mesh framework, the classroom itself is altered as the mode of student experience becomes noisier. The direction of the classroom is externalized towards outcomes and performance or results of a project (Thomas, 2017), hence the turn as well to external providers and guest lecturers who vastly enriched the materials and capacitated the students to achieve viable and practical results with their projects. Further, we quickly realized that adding new nodes to incorporate other institutions and project providers was relatively easy and seamless once the approach of joint lecturing was understood. This task was even more manageable in this instance, given the existing relationships nurtured by RSSS and the Human Rights Departments.
For the course, we started with a focus on housing rights. However, we quickly pivoted to incorporate a variety of human rights issues relevant to the students and their interests, thus including environmental issues, gender issues, and governance in the region. The projects themselves were with NGOs. After a suggestion from one of the NGOs in Kyrgyzstan, it was decided that podcasts would be an effective tool for disseminating information to the public, an ardent desire by all the NGOs involved in the project work.
When we came to the lecturing structure and deciding on what materials to incorporate, we included guest lecturers from a variety of NGOs, some of whom focused on narrative creation (such as the New Media Advocacy project), some of whom dealt with media and output (such as the USA Film and Journalism Departments), some who are from Central Asia who could offer insights into the region and the specific issues that were making up the projects (such as faculty from the AUCA as well as other NGO operating in the region). We also had graduate students lecture on their podcasting capstone projects, which assisted the students in recognizing that the projects were feasible.
Given that group creation across different institutional nodes was an essential step in the process, we also offered a workshop on team building and cultural training and materials on different human rights issues in Central Asia.
All students knew the required result—a podcast for the Project Provider. The reasoning behind the request was explained to allow students to shape and form the content meaningfully and efficiently. Timeframes were firmly established, as were regular weekly meetings between the groups, with faculty, and with other groups to elaborate on potential pitfalls and assist each other in solving problems.
As we operated within a truncated 8-week time frame, we divided the weeks as follows:
Week 1: Group creation, project focus and project choosing, meeting with all students and groups, creating an operable outline, research, and discussions on the project issues to ensure foundational knowledge.
Weeks 2 and 3: Providing the basis for engaging their projects. Weekly meetings with Project Providers, follow-up meetings with Instructors to maintain direction, ongoing contact with Project Providers and Instructors to monitor progress, and groups to submit the first outline for projects.
Weeks 4 and 5: We will continue as above (Lectures and meetings) but provide a first draft of the podcast—focus, questions, framework/outline of discussion to take place, keeping items within time limits, and ensuring infrastructure for suitable and viable recording.
Weeks 6 and 7: Project Providers are podcasting and editing the same penultimate version of the product (reviewed by instructors). We also had assistance from lecturers, who provided their expertise and knowledge.
Week 8: Finishing edits on podcasts and ensuring receipt (and feedback) from Project Providers.
Analysis
Group tracking and project production can be addressed through clear learning objectives set by each partner in the global mesh structure. For example, given the focus on applying Russian language skills to real-world tasks, the RSSS objectives included specific goals associated with professional careers involving intercultural communication in the workplace. The learning outcomes included:
At the end of this project, students will acquire the skills necessary to collaborate with others in a professional setting where Russian skills are required to accomplish a professional, meaningful task;
understand the operations of NGOs and their efforts to raise civic awareness and mobilize the public for a meaningful social cause;
act as translators and interpreters for NGO representatives and USA students who do not speak Russian;
prepare short communications and reports in Russian after attending guest lectures organized by the USA Human Rights Program;
apply language skills and knowledge of the Russian-speaking world in planning and producing podcasts, social video ads, and other forms of communication tools for a ‘real’ client;
effectively coordinate activities with foreign language students and NGOs to actualize social media projects.
Along with these professional tasks involving foreign language skills, students also learned to establish realistic timelines and effectively coordinate activities with transnational team members from various cultural backgrounds and NGO representatives. We witnessed the students achieving these outcomes through continuous meetings with them throughout the semester and the finished “product” that was immediately utilized by the Project Provider.
While some groups had difficulty meeting deadlines, partially due to the volume of work involved, the time factor, and communication issues with the Project Provider, the overall objectives were met. Indeed, all students achieved broad-form goals of learning how to interact within a diverse group outside their comfort zone. Students maintained the course and emerged with highly polished podcasts while continuing to meet course requirements (weekly reports, engaging guest lecturers, and ensuring ongoing group activity).
In PBL, assessment practices and continuous reflection and reevaluation help ensure that all students are supported in the learning process. We utilized various assessment tools for data collection and feedback from students and project providers via video, learning analytics, observation, and attending meetings between students and project providers (Zheng et al., 2012) and basic one-to-one or faculty-or-group meetings to ensure project output. Weekly checkpoints and meetings with the teams create a culture of high productivity and ensure deeper personal engagement with a project task. Traditional student assessment methods may not be appropriate when student PBL teams work for an actual “client.” Sufficient flexibility in meeting intermediary goals then allows for a learning environment where students learn to manage professional life situations. In the global mesh program design, it was important to establish mutual accountability across culturally diverse educational systems and provide tools for continuous assessment. Weekly reflections allowed the students to keep track of their team’s progress and contributions to the project as the course moved forward. Examples of weekly reflections include:
Describe what your international team did this past week and your contribution to the group activity.
Describe what added information, skills, and knowledge you learned during this week’s activities. Did you have any discoveries or “aha” moments?
Describe any problems and challenges you encountered this week regarding interpersonal communication, understanding culture, and project logistics. How did you resolve these problems?
Describe what you particularly enjoyed doing this week and state how (if) you applied your language and culture skills to a concrete task or situation.
At the end of the project, all participants submitted a longer reflective essay summarizing what they learned from the experience. The post-project reflection targeted individual learning gains and allowed us to understand better the impact of the global-mesh project design on students’ learning outcomes. Reflecting on their involvement in the project allowed the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses and consider their experience as a step towards professionalization and a possible professional career pathway. Examples of post-project summative prompts were:
Describe a formal profile of your group’s international NGO partner, including how the organization is structured, what types of activities it supports, how it manages funds, etc.
Describe the social issue or problem your group’s work supported in this project and your personal contribution to this work: your role in the group, your responsibilities, and so forth.
Summarize the contents of your group’s product. Your summary should include the key information included in your podcast as well as details about the speakers and experts your group interviewed;
Reflect on what you have learned from this project:
○ the region and city where the NGO is based (e.g., the city of Osh);
○ the people who live in that region;
○ the social issue or problem your NGO intends to solve in that region.
○ the personal skills and expertise needed to work in an NGO based in the post-Soviet space (from what you know about this organization);
Students were also encouraged to share additional thoughts about the value of this project for their learning needs and future career goals.
Recommendation
There is an inherent benefit to expanding PBL beyond the field of study, department, or institution as it provides a less static context of PBL. Integrating a variety of fields and mindsets for project work enriches students’ understanding, deepens perceptions of learned materials, and opens new vistas of insight through the involvement of diverse disciplines and institutions with a potentially different form of teaching methods and approaches.
GMVE provides a framework for teaching courses across geopolitical borders and disciplinary boundaries. Students enjoy working on real projects with real-world impacts as it provides a meaningful experience that allows applying knowledge and seeing it come to fruition (as well as adding the project work to their resumes). Stratified PBL further affords students deep insights into other worlds, people, and cultures that they might not acquire when working on an internal project with their peers at the same institution or department. It is a more realistic view of what they will do after completing their studies.
Faculty and Project Providers desire a GMVE framework given the benefits it accrues to them as an organization and the ensuing upgrade to the classroom and lectures, even without direct support from Departmental chairs or external funding.
Some problems of note include the need to constantly monitor groups and ensure proper and ongoing communication (especially in a multilingual and multicultural setting), the need for additional time given project demands, the importance of communicative Project Providers with realistic requests, and the desire to eventually witness the use of the product (difficult to accomplish as students move on to other courses).
We recommend to:
Engage (virtual!) guest lectures to initiate Project Providers.
Use the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)2 Method to establish contacts with other institutions (use existing contacts that can be leveraged for guest lecturing, project work, course creation, on-campus colleagues you desire to work with or have as a guest lecturer, and other departments who might assist your objectives to create an enriched stratified PBL experience. Seek out colleagues or organizations that desire student work, especially real-world projects for independent study or capstones). Who are your existing contacts that can be leveraged for guest lecturing, project work, or course creation? Who do you want to work with or have as a guest lecturer on campus? What other departments would assist your PBL objectives to create a more enriched student experience? Do you know colleagues or organizations that seek out student work? Are there real-world projects your students can work on as independent studies or capstones?
Consider how partnerships and components of the project nodes integrate and interact. What pieces need to be fleshed out? How do components interact in your project? A project sheet (above) will also flesh out your participants, audiences, products, experts, and guest lectures and contribute to GMVE.
Stratified PBL affords more diversity, more significant cross-cultural thinking, and more critical consideration in a more performative manner of education, where students perceive projects in a practical everyday setting, leading to meaningful, applicable, and enduring educational outputs (Zembylas & Keet, 2019, pp. 105–106).
Students enjoy working on real-world projects that allow applying knowledge. Stratified PBL allows for deeper insights into other worlds, people, and cultures beyond the confines of the institution. GMVE is readily achievable as the desire to engage in such forms of course structures and interaction by all involved parties is quite stark, including faculty (given the upgrade to the classroom) and Project Providers (given the benefits accruing them).
The Product Square and Global-Mesh Project Design Elements
| Disciplines (Students in what disciplines will participate in this Multimodal project?) | Corresponding disciplinary objectives (What is ONE most important teaching objective/learning outcome in each discipline listed in the right column?) |
| Discipline 1 Discipline 2 Discipline 3 | Learning Objective 1 Learning Objective 2 Learning Objective 3 |
| Combined Teaching Objective(s) (Given the disciplinary objectives outlined above, what will be the overarching purpose of this global mesh project?) | |
| Given our combined disciplinary objectives, the meaningful purpose of this investigation will be to engage students in… | |
| Problem, question, challenge (What real-life problem or question will motivate students to engage in this global mesh project? Formulate a concrete question your students will be asked to answer through sustained inquiry and collaboration with team members.) | Authentic, real-world purpose (What is the authentic purpose of this global mesh project for the community? |
| In this project, students will address the real-life problem of… | In this project, students will help… |
| International student teams (What countries or programs will be represented in the international teams? What will be the working language of this global-mesh collaboration? What will each group of students contribute to the project? ( the knowledge of the region, language skills, etc.) | Organization partners (community, businesses, experts, etc.) (What community partners, businesses, and professional networks will serve as consultants, trainers/experts, goal-setters, and ‘clients’ in this global mesh project?) |
| This project will engage students and instructors from… The working language of the project will be …. | The partners for this project will be… |
| Tangible or intangible “real-life” product (What product will students produce that demonstrates this global-mesh project’s target skills and knowledge?) | The public audience for the product (What real-life public audiences will use the product your students will produce?) |
| Students will create/design/develop a plan for… | The product of the teamwork will be ‘used’ by… |
| Why would your students and partners care? (In what ways is your project impactful? Why would your students and partners want to do it?) | |
| For the students, this project will help… For the target audience, this project will help… For the community partners, this project will help… | |
| Disciplines | Corresponding disciplinary objectives |
| Discipline 1 | Learning Objective 1 |
| Combined Teaching Objective(s) | |
| Given our combined disciplinary objectives, the meaningful purpose of this investigation will be to engage students in… | |
| Problem, question, challenge | Authentic, real-world purpose |
| In this project, students will address the real-life problem of… | In this project, students will help… |
| International student teams | Organization partners (community, businesses, experts, etc.) |
| This project will engage students and instructors from… | The partners for this project will be… |
| Tangible or intangible “real-life” product | The public audience for the product |
| Students will create/design/develop a plan for… | The product of the teamwork will be ‘used’ by… |
| Why would your students and partners care? | |
| For the students, this project will help… | |
Selected Student Testimonies
Evidence of Transformative Learning:
As someone who had a limited understanding of the importance of sustainability, especially in ecotourism, it was a treat to be able to learn about such topics not only through my own research into the subject, but also from experts on the topic such as the hosts of the podcast and the expert we had invited on for the interview. {...}I learned about the delicate role played by NGOs in Central Asia, in a system that, while not outwardly hostile, is most definitely not friendly to such endeavors (participant, Team “Advocacy for Environmental Protection”)
Evidence of Impactful Learning:
Before this project I had never considered non-governmental organizations as a viable career choice, but learning about the good deeds that get accomplished as a result of the work helped me to start considering such work as a possible career post-graduation.{...}Overall, to work in an NGO in this area, it seems that you need to be a social, driven individual. I think people who work in NGOs get paid, but you must care about the work, since the whole point of a nonprofit is that most of the money goes back into the cause. As for being social, you need to be able to maintain connections and call on them when necessary (participant, Team “Housing Rights and Homelessness.”)
Evidence of Intercultural Learning:
The social issue that [our NGO] primarily deals with is the problems that women face in Kyrgyzstan and the social climate they must navigate. One of the organization’s main goals is to spread awareness to give visibility to Kyrgyz women and the challenges they face. Our group supported this goal by helping to reach a wider audience.{...}Before this project, I knew nothing about Kyrgyzstan, but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with women who live there. Our NGO would like to help shape a new, more accepting, and open generation, and I’m glad I could contribute to this important cause. (participant, Team “Women and Gender Rights.”)
References
1 A Node is a basic unit of a data structure that links to other nodes in a tree data structure. In telecommunication, a network node can be defined as the connection point among network devices, such as routers or switches, that can receive and send data from one endpoint to the other. In the GMVE, this concept is used metaphorically to describe how components are connected to a single VE network.
2 COIL is a model of intercultural virtual exchange developed by the SUNY Center for Collaborative Online International Learning and adopted by the Stevens Initiative in the United States and other organizations and educational institutions.
