THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF A GLOBAL CLASSROOM IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Objectives: This presentation explores technology-enhanced learning in the context of a global classroom in higher education. The Global Classroom is succinctly defined as distance education courses from any discipline that incorporate a global dimension into their content and delivery so that students from different world locations complete a project, or find solutions to problems by working together and building on each other's ideas. The author argues that setting up and preparing a global classroom requires a transformative approach in order that participants have meaningful experiences while benefits outweigh difficulties. The author builds on Bransford, Brown, and Cocking’s (2000) framework How People Learn (HPL) and offers an interpretation of this framework along with a model for developing an effective learning environment.

The presentation includes:
• Overview of the literature related to technology-enhanced learning in higher education, global classroom, learning theories of transformation.
• Main perspective or theoretical/conceptual framework: Constructivism v. Constructionism (Cotty, M., 1998), M. Newman’s criticism of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory; Bransford, Brown, and Cocking’s (eds.) (2000) framework How People Learn (HPL).
• Analytical methods, research design, or modes of inquiry: Qualitative inquiry—the global classroom phenomenon is studied in detail.
• Data sources or evidence: Data is collected over a period of 3 months of co-planning with the partner institution and after the author has participated in a workshop titled “How to Run a Global Classroom.” Additional data comes from surveying instructors and students who have had a global classroom experience, and from the literature review.
• Results and/or conclusions: The author anticipates the technological and cultural challenges in conducting a global classroom and reflects on the learning goals, ways of motivating students, best practices for teaching, and how to evaluate student work. The advice given in this presentation comes from real world implementers of global classrooms.
• Significance of the study: This presentation fills a gap in the literature where one can easily find studies about global partnerships at the lower levels of instruction but not at the level of higher education.

The author connects the global classroom phenomenon to the MOOC phenomenon and concludes that these phenomena are created with the hope of offering an “Aha” moment to both students and instructors, and for gathering creative energies in the hope of working collectively to find solutions to humanity’s problems.