The Real Work Begins! (4/60)

If you read last month's post and walked away wishing for more actual Ph.D. content, you're in for a treat. This month, I wrote up my research topic in a 1000-word paper and read more academic papers than I thought possible. In this post, you'll get it all!

​The Paper

If you're not familiar with the Ph.D. program at CHEI, the most important thing to know is that it is carefully structured to help you succeed. This isn't a smug, "silver tower" program that presents you with obstacles at every turn. The staff and faculty are there to offer support and encouragement while challenging students to refine ideas thoughtfully. As such, there is a series of papers that I'll be writing to move my research from a collection of somewhat-related ingredients into a real piece of academic contribution. Other than a couple short (~300 word) summaries, the paper this month represents the first major step toward honing my ideas into a research proposal.

I've been bouncing back and forth between two potential topics, but after some good conversations with some old and new connections, I've firmly landed on looking at power dynamics and stakeholder asymmetries in virtual exchange/COIL. Before I go any further, you can read the full paper using the link below:

freed_research_essay.pdf
File Size:	104 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---

It has been interesting to feel myself learn how to better articulate my research ideas over the past few months. I think many of us would say that we're usually able to explain our ideas, but even thought I thought that I was doing that well in March, I realize now that I really had no idea how to talk about what I want to study. I suppose that's the point of these papers. Good on you, CHEI. Well played. Here's how I'm explaining it at the 30,000-foot level in my paper:

"If the field of international education is to adopt virtual exchange methodologies long-term, it must move beyond structural design and development to examine the underlying variables which impact the success or failure of these programs. My research will explore two notable and under-examined variables: power dynamics and asymmetry among institutions, faculty members, and students engaged in virtual exchange."​

Now, I realize that "power dynamics" and "asymmetry" are extremely vague terms in relation to my research thus far - we'll get there eventually, just not for a while. From my reading and personal experience, there are myriad obstacles to successfully developing and implementing virtual exchange, but most of the research thus far focuses on obstacles like time zone, cultural differences, etc. I'm proposing to study imbalances present in the process by asking questions such as:

• Are all the students in this course earning credit?
• How familiar are students with online learning and this LMS in particular?
• Which institution initiated this partnership? Is there a leader-follower relationship which impacts student outcomes in unexpected ways?

​There is some solid research out there that touches on some of these issues, but I'm hoping to swing the ship broadside and fire all my brain-cannons toward the questions over the next five years. Please note that the term "brain-cannons" will likely not feature in my dissertation - that one's just for you folks :D

The Reading

As I mentioned earlier, I wound up reading a metric tonne of papers in writing these 1000 words. Some of what I read was valuable, some was not. But, for those of you who are interested in some "light" reading in the evenings, these are the papers that I read over the past month that I ended up referencing in my paper. Enjoy the list!

• Roy, B., 2021. Cultural Identity and Third Space: An Exploration of their Connection in a Title I School. [ebook] Arizona State University. Available at: <https://repository.asu.edu/attachments/191105/content/Roy_asu_0010E_17220.pdf> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
• Bhabha, H., 1988. The Commitment to Theory. New Formations, [online] 5(Summer). Available at: <http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/newformations/05_05.pdf> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
• Brighton, C., 2020. Training for Virtual Exchange. Journal of Virtual Exchange, 3 (SI-IVEC2019), pp.69-79.
• Chang, S. and Gomes, C., 2021. Digital experiences of international students. 1st ed. Routledge, pp.3-24.
• Fairclough, N., 1989. Language and Power. Longman. Cited in Jørgensen, M., Mason, A., Pedersen, R. and Harrison, R., 2020. The Transformative Learning Potential in the Hybrid Space Between Technology and Intercultural Encounters. Journal of Studies in International Education, pp.3, 5.
• Guth, S. and Rubin, J., 2015. Globally networked teaching in the humanities. Routledge, pp.15-28.
• Jørgensen, M., Mason, A., Pedersen, R. and Harrison, R., 2020. The Transformative Learning Potential in the Hybrid Space Between Technology and Intercultural Encounters. Journal of Studies in International Education, pp.3, 5.
• King Ramírez, C., 2020. Influences of academic culture in Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): Differences in Mexican and U.S. students' reported experiences. Foreign Language Annals, 53(3), pp.438-457.
• Koseoglu, S. and Bozkurt, A., 2018. #DigPed Narratives in Education: Critical Perspectives on Power and Pedagogy. Online Learning, 22(3).
• Marcillo-Gómez, M. and Desilus, B., 2016. Collaborative Online International Learning Experience in Practice Opportunities and Challenges. Journal of technology management & innovation, 11(1), pp.30-35.
• Stevensinitiative.org. 2021. 2020 Annotated Bibliography on Virtual Exchange Research. [online] Available at: <https://www.stevensinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2020-Annotated-Bibliography-on-Virtual-Exchange-Research.pdf> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
• Tjulin, Å., MacEachen, E., Vinberg, S., Selander, J., Bigelow, P. and Larsson, R., 2021. Virtual Internationalization – we did it our way. Högre utbildning, 11(2).
  

Did you make it through? Congrats! 

Outside of Ph.D. Work

"Other than working on this paper, I've been plugging away at work, where I'm neck-deep in supporting development of a dozen faculty-led programs (which is awesome!) and thinking about our first batch of COIL courses which will launch in the fall. Exciting times!

Today, I'm also publishing the summer "State of the Server" video for the International Educators Discord Server, which has a few exciting announcements, including revealing our first two organization partners! Check that video out on my LinkedIn page if you're interested. There are some more things in that video that I'm excited for, but I don't want to spoil it all here :)

My fun project this month was fancying up a used scooter from Facebook Marketplace. I'm not a mechanically-minded person, but it turns out that you don't need to be to fix something simple like an old scooter from 2002. A few new parts, some fixed cracks, and a swanky new paint job means that my wife and I now have a retro-inspired beach cruiser to ride around on. 

Here are a few pictures to show the progress and then a glamor shot for Instagram!

Thanks for reading - see you all next month!