Home

m

INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL ENGAGEMENT (IVE) AND COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING (COIL)

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) aligns well with the Durban University of Technology (DUT) ENVISION2030 strategy, which is centered around creating an engaged, innovative, and globally connected institution.

Developing globally competent graduates

COIL promotes global citizenship and intercultural understanding, empowering students and staff to engage meaningfully with diverse cultures. Further encouraging compassion, empathy and respect for diversity which aligns with DUT’s vision of developing responsible global citizens.

Driving innovation in teaching and learning

COIL drives innovative pedagogies and digital transformation which is in line with DUT’s focus on renovating teaching and learning approaches. Through the integration of technology into the curriculum, COIL enhances both digital literacy and online collaboration skills among students and staff.

Fostering global partnerships

COIL builds networks beyond the classroom fostering global-local partnerships that promote social innovation and development. Through COIL projects students are encouraged to work on international goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which often tackle real-world issues, encouraging community-driven solutions which resonate with DUT’s commitment to positive societal impact.

Advancing community engagement and sustainability

Through virtual global learning (COIL) the environmental impact of internationalization of travel is reduced while enjoying the benefits of global learning. This strengthens DUT’s global presence, building strategic international partnerships while enhancing the university’s sustainable global engagement footprint.

What is COIL?

COIL as an expression of IVE is an approach that brings students and academic staff together across cultures to learn, discuss and collaborate as part of their curriculum. Academic staff are partnered to design a project within a course that is aimed to address specific learning outcomes. Student’s partner and collaborate to complete the activities designed for the project to achieve the learning outcomes.

COIL  is a new teaching and learning paradigm that promotes the development of intercultural competence across shared multicultural learning environments. Through the use of Internet-based tools and innovative online pedagogies, COIL fosters meaningful exchanges between university-level teachers and students with peers in geographically distant locations and from different linguacultural backgrounds. Our method links a class at a U.S. institution with one at a college or university abroad. Courses are co-equal and team-taught by educators who collaborate to develop a shared syllabus that emphasizes experiential and collaborative student-cantered learning. In most cases students are enrolled, charged tuition, and awarded grades only at their home institution. While the international component of the course takes place solely online, the individual courses may be fully online or, more often, are offered in blended formats with traditional face-to-face sessions taking place at both schools.

As a form of virtual mobility, COIL can allow students to collaborate with and learn from peers from different cultures, with different realities, and with different ways of approaching an issue. 

Benefits of COIL for student learning:

  • Increase intercultural awareness
  • Enhance communicative skills for working with non-native English speakers
  • Develop digital literacy skills for working in virtual teams
  • Learn about their discipline from another perspective
  • Engage in global problem solving

 

IVE/COIL @ DUT

Our strategic partnerships with universities in countries from the global south facilitates these aims and objectives. Through these partnerships, increased perspectives is facilitated through structured COIL projects embedded within our modules offered as part of our degrees and diplomas. 

Furthermore, through COIL and IVE activities, the transfer of local knowledge to the international stage is facilitated. Indigenous knowledge systems are given a space on the international stage by students and staff adding their voices to the global expert fields that the activities occur in.

In addition, our partnerships in countries such as the USA, the UK and Europe have been strategically developed and maintained to allow for enhanced diversity in the classroom, thereby further increasing international perspectives within our classroom.  These partnerships are with institutions similar in ethos and values to that of our own, allowing for further facilitation of these objectives.

COIL Partners