Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

Enliven your classroom through global virtual exchange!

COIL is a virtual exchange pedagogy that fosters global competence through development of a multicultural learning environment, linking university classes in different countries. Using both synchronous and asynchronous technologies, students from different countries complete shared assignments and projects, with instructors from each country co-teaching and managing coursework. 

Critical digital literacy and virtual collaboration skills are more important than ever in tackling global challenges such as ideological divides, the impositions that borders place on the movement of peoples, media misinformation, and the disruption of ChatGPT and other emerging technologies. This local form of global engagement is an innovative way to traverse boundaries and make the “classroom learning” experience globally connected.

Since 2014, the Bothell and Tacoma campuses – and in recent years the Seattle campus – have supported faculty at the University of Washington in developing and implementing COIL collaborations in their courses with structured training, a community of practice and a stipend.