May, Come and Gone (3/60)

I'll be completely honest from the beginning of this post - I haven't done much in the realm of Ph.D. work this month other than just a little bit of reading.  But, various other things have come up that might make for interesting reading, or at least what passes for interesting reading here on the blog. Let's get into it.

The Move

Most of May was taken up with our move. Even though it was a relatively short distance, it still felt like any other move. Weeks of packing up boxes, realizing that we didn't have enough boxes (and too much stuff), finding things that we thought we'd lost, etc. As I mentioned in my last post, this was my 21st move, give or take, and at this point, I don't find the process to be overly stressful. That said, juggling a move with everything else - even a short move, still complicates life a fair bit.

But, I'm sitting in the new office as I type this, so we're all still alive and kicking. The downside is that we moved into a house about half the size of the previous place. The upside is that I now live 110 steps from the lake (of course I counted - those fish aren't going to catch themselves!). All's well that ends well, they say. So it is.​

The Reading

Though I didn't read as much as I'd have liked, the few articles that I found time for were great. I spent a good deal of time with a paper titled Influences of academic culture in Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): Differences in Mexican and U.S. students' reported experiences (Ramirez, 2020). As I continue the process of zeroing in on my Ph.D. topic, I'm finding that I'm energized by research which highlights the rockiness that come with virtual exchanges. in this paper, the author found that student preparedness and course format were hugely impactful on the lived experience of participants in the course. In fact, while the U.S. students primarily reported satisfaction with the course, the Mexican students were on the other side of the spectrum. Overall, it was a good read that helped me think through issues centered on power imbalance, student preparedness, and pedagogical bias which will all feature in my research.

I also enjoyed an article recently published in the Journal of Studies in International Education (JSIE) called The Transformative Learning Potential in the Hybrid Space Between Technology and Intercultural Encounters (Jorgensen et al, 2020). This paper highlights other limitations in the virtual space: skills and attitudes of lecturers and asymmetries in project goals. I won't go into the reason that I love this paper. That said, if you can get your hands on it, I'd recommend it. Especially if you're currently working or planning to work on COIL projects, this paper has some important points to make that you'd be well-served in considering.

Lastly, since I spent so much time packing, I took the opportunity to get through an audiobook. I LOVED listening to Customs of the World: Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherever You Are, a Great Courses audiobook by Dr. David Livermore. If you're active in the intercultural learning space, you've likely already heard of Cultural Intelligence, or CQ. It's something that I've been familiar with for a few years, but this audiobook in particular made the concepts come to life for me. As I think through new ways to prepare and equip faculty for COIL development, I see CQ and the research behind it as a fabulous way to bake the intercultural learning into disciplinary courses. Maybe more on that in a future post.

The International Educators Discord Community

If you've been following the International Educators Discord Community journey, you might know this already, but we're turning six months old in June!

It's exciting enough that the whole thing didn't crash and burn right away, but to make it to six months and showing good signs of continues growth is fabulous. I'll be putting out the second "State of the Server" video in the next week or so to update everyone and lay out the next six month roadmap, so stay tuned! Exciting things to come.

That's all for now - apologies if this one was a bit short. I'm happy to say that I've got a paper due at the end of June, so for those of you eager to have tasty Ph.D. content to read, you'll get a whole feast in the next post. Until then, let's all start practicing our handshakes again.