COIL@Western

COIL is a form of online virtual exchange embedded for several weeks into an existing face-to-face or online course, during which a Western professor and their students collaborate with an instructor and students in another country on a shared assignment(s) or project.  

Courses that contain a COIL component include a faculty partnership to create the joint curriculum, highly interactive student-centered learning in an intercultural environment, and a variety of choices regarding the use of synchronous and asynchronous online technology.  Students are enrolled at their home institution, and their work is assessed by their own professor.

COIL is part of a well-established global movement in higher education pedagogy and is one element in Western’s comprehensive internationalization effort. It is meant to supplement and enhance other educational opportunities for students, such as study abroad and faculty-led Global Learning Programs.

For Western students, COIL is a cost-effective way to deepen global engagement.  It does not require travel and yet provides meaningful opportunities for an interactive global learning experience built into their program of study.  

For faculty, COIL promotes the use of an innovative teaching pedagogy, adds or enhances an international component and comparative perspective to an existing syllabus and associated course learning outcomes, and can lead to or strengthen a longer-term teaching and/or research partnership with a faculty member at an institution abroad.