On Thursday, August 13, 2020, Dickinson College presented Global Teaching and Learning in the Time of COVID-19: Open Access, Virtual Collaborations and New Global Learning Pathways. View the slides here.

Facilitators included Samantha Brandauer – Associate Provost and Executive Director, Center for Global Study and Engagement; Julia Carnine –  Resident Director, Dickinson in France and Contributing Faculty; Bruno Grazioli –  Resident Director, Dickinson in Italy: Italian Studies and Contributing Faculty; Lindsey Lyons – Assistant Director, Center for Sustainability Education, all of Dickinson College.

In the spring of 2020, the Center for Global Study and Engagement (CGSE) at Dickinson College suspended spring study abroad programs and brought students home, canceled summer study abroad, and pondered the unlikelihood of resuming fall 2020 study abroad and lingering questions about the future of international education. Then the CGSE started to seek out future-forward and innovative opportunities and collaborations for continued global learning. This webinar highlighted one successful collaboration that helped us reimagine our commitment to building equitable, inclusive and sustainable communities. Throughout the spring and summer of 2020, Dickinson faculty and staff in the US, Spain, Italy and France: 

• Contributed to a multi-institutional initiative coordinated through the Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative to develop open-access, online teaching materials – A Critical Introduction to Global Thinking, Interdependence, and Skill-Building for Social Action, Locally and Internationally – A Toolkit 
• Developed and team-taught an online summer course using several toolkit modules- One Earth, Multiple Worlds: Engaging Student Action for Global Solidarity and Sustainability

This webinar focused on the benefits of and lessons learned from contributing to and using the toolkit, new external and internal collaborations (particularly between Dickinson staff in Carlisle and staff/faculty abroad), team-teaching and teaching online across 5 countries and 3 time zones, and new global learning pathways at Dickinson as a result of these experiences. Participants gained insights in respect to how to leverage this open-access toolkit in their own contexts, including especially across international education networks and collaborations. Finally, participants learned more about how they can contribute to the toolkit moving forward. 

• 00:00 – Welcome, tech overview
• 02:42 – Bruno Grazioli introduces the Dickinson presenters
• 04:38 – Bruno Grazioli goes over the goals of the webinar
• 05:32 – Eric Hartman introduces the Interdependence: Global Solidarity and Local Actions toolkit that will be referenced in the webinar.
• 11:31 – Samantha Brandauer discusses how the Dickinson team arrived at this moment of sharing about their experience.
• 15:15 Bruno Grazioli discusses the development of the online course.
• 28:35 – Lindsey Lyons and Julia Carnine review the lessons that the team learned from this pilot experience.
• 38:51 – What’s next? Looking forward to short-term and long-term plans for the online course.
• 42:27 – How to contribute to the Toolkit and Q&A discussion

The webinar was co-sponsored by The Community-based Global Learning Collaborative, the Pennsylvania Council for International Education, and the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development.