MiraCosta College is the recipient of the 2022 CCIE Institutional Grant. With their funding, they created a Co-curricular Virtual International Exchange: Umoja – ESCO-IGES Burkina Faso.
MiraCosta started the project early in 2022 when a connection was established with the Ecole Superieure de Commerce et d fInformatique de Gestion (ESCO-IGES), a private institute in Burkina Faso. We connected with Dr. Salifou Dabo, who is responsible for the International Languages Lab at the institution, via the COIL Connect platform. For MiraCosta College, Profs.
Don Love, Nathan Klein, and Andrea Petri were involved. From March to May we had regular meetings to plan our International Virtual Exchange. All decisions were agreed by both parts that had the same opportunity of input. Among other things, we discussed:
1) Modality of the exchange (a synchronous and asynchronous online collaboration)
2) Type of engagement and collaboration (it would be an student-to-student interaction)
3) Environment where the exchange would take place (a free Canvas shell was identified and tested to work between the two institutions)
4) first draft of the work students would be doing (with topic to be developed during the students interactions)
5) Length of the program (identified in 6 weeks for this first pilot program)
6) Possible time to deployment (October-December 2022)
In a second meeting, we re-discussed some ideas and reassessed the program. Also, we decided the dates the program will run. Another person at ESCO-IGES was Gills Alex Ouedraogo. At the September 1st meeting we were able to agree on the previous points:
1) ( modality of the exchange (a synchronous and asynchronous online collaboration)
2) type of engagement and collaboration (it would be an student-to-student interaction)
3) environment where the exchange will took place. We moved away from the idea of using
Canvas and choose WhatsApp instead. We checked it against the tasks students have to accomplish and it seemed a great way to simplify things for the two groups as WhatsApp is an extremely easy tool to learn to use, much easier than Canvas
4) refined the syllabus
5) program will be 6 weeks long for this first time
6) Prof. Don Love identified 10 Umoja students who participated while Dr. Salifou Dabo identified 10 students at ESCO-IGES. The students were paired by the two professors who monitored the exchange. The program run from October 17 to November 26
The program was advertised in the proper college settings like Umoja group, Black Student Union, Counseling classes, and Instagram accounts
Following the positive results of the exchange, Dr. Salifou Dabo requested a meeting with our International Office to discuss the possibility of a physical exchange between MCC students and ESCO-IGES students. Mia Scavone, director of the International Office was present to share all the information. In January 2023, Dr. Dabo requested if MiraCosta College could release certificates that ESCO-IGES students participated in the virtual exchange.
The group will reconvene in spring 2023 to discuss the opportunity of re-proposing the virtual international exchange.
Student Comments About the Exchange
At the beginning of the exchange, some students had difficulty connecting with their partners. During the first weeks, the students broke the ice, felt comfortable and really enjoyed the exchange; they even said that the time was too short and wanted to do it again. Student comments:
I appreciate it and feel like it was a great experience to connect and have conversations with students and peers in a different walk of life as well as a different space.
The exchanges were productive because they taught me new things and the joy of talking with a willing student.
It’s interesting to learn similarities between our countries.
I found the virtual exchange very interesting and dynamic.
For this project, Prof. Don Love and Prof. Andrea Petri were be paid $1,250 each.