We are currently planning a project to finish our evaluation of the learning outcomes of our online learning work.  We also requested funds for creating or revising learning templates, and creating a content-independent module faculty from different departments can easily implement in their courses. So far, it does seem like the learning templates work best in humanities and social sciences but we are making progress toward a truly generalizable framework for intercultural learning.

The approach we take entails collaborative online international learning (COIL), cross-cultural skill development, and reflective e-portfolio work. We especially focus on communication skills through online discussion forums to help faculty integrate this type of learning in their courses. We have been evaluating the learning outcomes of this work in Turkish 2241 Beyond Harems and Belly Dancers: Introduction to Turkish Culture and Turkish 3350 Contemporary Issues in Turkey, taught by Dr. Danielle Schoon.

We are busy finishing up our evaluation of learning outcomes from Dr. Schoon’s classes and will begin tweaking the learning activities with our insights this fall. Our next steps are to:

• implement our learning templates in more culture and language classes
• pilot a syllabus module

These steps are a part of the larger picture of the curriculum at Ohio State where we are busy teambuilding across education abroad, area studies, and language departments to foster intercultural learning and authentic cross-cultural experiences through online learning. We will scale up our learning activities to more courses by creating user-friendly, content-independent, learning templates faculty can integrate into their syllabi. Additionally, we intend to create a module utilizing several of the learning templates faculty from a variety of departments can use.

As you can see, we are working hard to evaluate the learning outcomes from last year and to create easy-to-implement templates of the most effective learning activities for faculty in any department. Soon we will share more results from our evaluation study, including a comprehensive assessment of student gains in intercultural awareness. We also hope to pilot a module Spring semester in Dr. Schoon’s course. We have many other exciting ideas percolating as well. Please follow this site for more updates.

Project Team: Dr. Cindy Jiang, Dr. Danielle Schoon, and Dr. Melinda McClimans.

Image of Istanbul beach by Melisa Akbulut. All Rights Reserved.