9 Step 2: Develop course framework & timeline
Once you have some clarity on roles for your Virtual Exchange team, the next step will be to firm up your shared course activities, framework, and timeline. These may include:
1. Learning outcomes specific to the collaboration.
2. Core activities (e.g., icebreaker, team building, group work).
3. Assessments (e.g., assignments, projects) and how they will be evaluated.
4. Resources (and perhaps sessions) that provide students with a framework about what intercultural competency entails.
5. Language in which the Virtual Exchange will be conducted.
6. Privacy and confidentiality of each institution and how these may impact information sharing (including student work) between partners.
7. Timeframe for when student activities will occur and when the instructional team will meet (much of this will depend on the overall length of your collaboration in addition to the scope of the students’ project).
8. Grading of assessments (if the assignments are done collaboratively with students from both institutions, it would be important to discuss how you will grade these assessments collaboratively)
Throughout the considerations above, it is crucially important to consider ways in which you might encourage students to reflect on their intercultural awareness and
competency. These may include activities and assessments that specifically target these skills. You might, for example, include pre- and post-Virtual Exchange reflections or scales, such as the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) by Chen et al. (2000) or you might include a joint synchronous session between both institutions that asks students to think about, reflect on, and discuss their cultural norms and idioms. For example activities, refer to this resource. Although the Virtual Exchange project is focused on the students, it is equally important for the instructional team to model for students shared decision-making, respect, and accountability between the two institutions.
It is important to consider how you will frame the Virtual Exchange experience in your course outline. It would be important to include an explanation of what a Virtual Exchange entails, how it fits within the context of the curriculum/course, and what specific learning benefits it has for students.
To assist with this process, we have provided a sample, student-facing Virtual Exchange statement that instructors can personalize and use in their course outline. Keep in mind that the language is intentionally general, and faculty/instructors are expected to adapt the work to fit their specific course and collaborative activity.
This course encourages global learning through a Virtual Exchange that invites students to actively engage with peers from a different country. It provides a unique opportunity for students to collaborate with peers from different linguacultural backgrounds and develop their intercultural competency skills. By opening themselves to different beliefs and perspectives, students can engage in meaningful discussions and apply their newly acquired knowledge to the ideas they explore. In doing so, students will benefit from this experience by [specify tangible benefit, such as gaining workplace skills/experience].
This project will challenge students to think creatively and to apply the concepts they learned in their respective courses in solving global problems [adapt and expand on this sentence to speak to your project goal(s) and curriculum/course learning outcomes]. We will be working with [major, level, number of] students at [institution] in [country]. Interactions will be both synchronous (e.g., video conference or chat) and asynchronous (e.g., discussion boards, collaboration on a shared product). We will utilize technology that is accessible to students from both institutions. For this collaboration, the learning management system will be [insert LMS] and we will be hosting synchronous meetings and classes with our partner institution on [insert teleconference software, e.g., Zoom].
Note: If there are details or concerns related to assignment submissions, it will be important to specify the details in this blurb. For example, your institution may have policies that indicate only the instructor at the respective institution can have access to student assignments. If this is the case, it would be important to mention where and how students from each institution will be submitting their assignments.