Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) offers meaningful intercultural interactions and global learning experiences for undergraduate students at Ohio State. COIL-enhanced courses connect students with their peers at home and around the world, giving them opportunities to develop intercultural competence through international collaboration.
Since 2021, the Office of International Affairs (OIA) and the Michael V. Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning have forged a partnership to facilitate the COIL Learning Community. Over 40 participants have engaged in the community to learn how to develop a COIL project, create intercultural learning outcomes, develop collaborative and reflective assignments using Universal Design for Learning principles, and assess intercultural knowledge and global competence with valid and reliable tools.
The COIL Virtual Exchange initiative expands access to intentional and meaningful global engagement for our students. According to Cindy Xinquan Jiang, who leads the initiative at OIA, General Education courses enhanced with COIL virtual exchange, in particular, could potentially engage every student at Ohio State in intercultural dialogue and global experiences.
Through the COIL Learning Community, participating faculty and instructors can contribute to the growth of global learning experiences for students across Ohio State. If you would be interested in integrating COIL experiences in your courses, the call to apply to the 2025 COIL Learning Community will be announced in spring.
COIL Experiences Across Ohio State
The first COIL Learning Community was offered in 2021, and the number of COIL courses offered at Ohio State has increased dramatically since. Explore examples below.
French 3502 - French for International Studies
Adela Lechintan-Siefer, Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of French and Italian & Department of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, incorporated a COIL module in French 3502. The module offers students opportunities to interact virtually with French and International Francophone students from the University of Lorraine in France. Over eight weeks, the Ohio State students collaborate virtually with the students from France on assignments such as guided conversations and intercultural reflections. This COIL course component is culturally and interculturally enriching, enabling students to meet peers from France, improve French language skills, and work together on topics related to international studies and French and Francophone cultures.
POLITSCI 1300 - Global Politics
Ra'phael Davis, Department of Political Science, developed COIL partnerships with two instructors from universities in Brazil and Chile for his autumn semester section of POLITSCI 1300. In his asynchronous online course, over 100 students collaborate with international peers from Brazil and Chile to explore job market and employment practices from a comparative and global perspective. The Ohio State students and their project partners come from diverse cultural and academic backgrounds—through the COIL experience, they learn to navigate cultural differences and similarities and reflect on what it means to work on diverse teams in the global workforce.
TURK 3797 - Global Intercultural Citizenship in the Middle East: Turkey
This semester a new course in the Department of Near Eastern Studies is being taught for the first time. TURK 3797 Global Intercultural Citizenship in the Middle East: Turkey is a high-impact-practice (HIP) and global and intercultural learning course. It also fulfills the Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World theme in Ohio State’s GE program. Designed and taught by Professor Danielle Schoon, the course involves collaboration with students at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey. The COIL experience features key HIP elements including undergraduate research, engagement with diversity and global learning, and collaborative assignments and projects that result in comparative Story Maps of Istanbul and Columbus.
FRIT 3054 - The 21st-Century Skill : Intercultural Competence for Global Citizenship
The department of French and Italian is offering sections of FRIT 3054 The 21st-Century Skill on both the Columbus and Newark campuses this semester. The global citizenship course provides a vital platform for students to engage with diverse perspectives, build intercultural competence, and explore what it means to be a global citizen.
- April Weintritt, Assistant Professor of Teaching in Italian and Director of the Italian Language Program, has students collaborate weekly with peers at the University of Monterrey in Mexico (UDEM) to plan, implement, and reflect upon a cornerstone project. In the process, the students discover and explore cultural differences and practice communicating effectively across those differences.
- Lucille Toth, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, is teaching FRIT 3054 for the first time at The Ohio State University at Newark. Students meet online weekly with their peers in Mexico to complete collaborative projects. In doing so, they learn how to navigate cultural differences, work ethics, and time management, all while building teamwork skills.
Stephanie Brown, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, explains that she wanted to offer FRIT 3054 on the Newark campus because Newark students—like all Ohio State students—know intercultural competence is one of the most crucial skills they need to be successful in their lives and future careers. Because the Newark campus is the most diverse of all the Ohio State campuses , students also bring unique and valuable perspectives to their study of global citizenship.
As someone who has developed and led two study abroad programs specifically for Ohio State Newark, Brown can attest to the transformative effect of global learning. Global citizenship courses like FRIT 3054 help students step outside their comfort zones and begin to situate their perspectives in a wider context, and even to challenge them. To Brown, this is the essence of higher education.
“We are already exploring additional COIL opportunities. For some of our students, a virtual exchange program is the best option for global engagement. I’m thrilled that so many new programs exist and hope regional campus faculty will play a special role in creating more.”
What Students Have to Say
Developing COIL experiences for your course offers students new learning opportunities that open doors to the world around them. Comments from students in TURK 3797 and FRIT 3054 suggest they were highly engaged in the COIL projects, saw growth in their communication skills and intercultural competence, made meaningful connections with peers, and believed that their worldviews had broadened.
For example, students reported that collaborating with peers from Mexico and Turkey deepened their understanding and appreciation of diverse perspectives and values in teamwork. They gained meaningful experience practicing language skills, communicating across cultures and reflecting on their own cultural values and practices over the course of the COIL projects, as well. Despite initial worries about geographic distance and language barriers, one student mentioned that their group formed strong friendships while working together. Other students noted that although they couldn't fit a study abroad experience into their schedule, the COIL project allowed them to feel immersed in different cultures and form relationships with people who live across the world.
Learn more about COIL at Ohio State.