Abstract:

Cross-cultural communication is increasingly important in our globalized world. The workplace is increasingly multicultural requiring individuals to possess tolerance and negotiation skills to communicate and solve problems. Instructors from many disciplines can make multicultural experiences important in their classes by implementing a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project.

COIL is a pedagogical path where students can gain intercultural interaction through online and virtual engagements. By design, COIL promotes inclusivity and intercultural competence and can help to reduce inequalities in higher education. One way that COIL approaches the issues of inequality is a focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The three we focused on in our projects were SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities, and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

This project investigated cultural intelligence development through a COIL assignment where teams of students designed advertisements to introduce a new McDonald’s product in each other’s country based on their local food culture. The students were required to work as “consultants” for each other as they developed the ad to make Malaysian flavors compelling to an American audience and American tastes of interest in Malaysia.

The study of student interplay finds that cultural intelligence contributes a lot to interaction in multicultural settings. Having a high cultural intelligence is important for an individual during any social interaction, especially when it involves an interaction with diverse races.

Keywords:

Communication, perceived inclusions, behavioral, SDG, Cross-cultural, Collaborative Online International Learning.