Faculty Development Through Collaborative Online International Learning

Abstract

Professional development through collaborative online international learning (COIL) is not reserved for students. Instructors are also positively influenced through the exchange with colleagues from diverse institutions, backgrounds, pedagogies, and practices. Instructors gain global understanding, which they can impart on their students and use to help facilitate intercultural curricula at their institutions. Engaging their students in virtual teamwork means intense collaboration and agreement on assignments, deadlines, assessment, and learning outcomes, which in turn enables instructors to reevaluate their own values and methods of work. The chapter describes how instructors from four universities in the USA and Europe faced the challenges of creating a common team culture while engaging their students in COIL projects. During the process of overcoming technological, institutional, and cultural differences, these instructors developed both personally and professionally.