EcoTypes COIL Instructor Overview

INTRO | Features | Instructor role | Module summary

Introduction

We now have an EcoTypes COIL running on this site! A COIL, or Collaborative Online International Learning resource, is an interactive e-learning enhancement to EcoTypes designed for college students, as well as those who purchase the upcoming EcoTypes book.

EcoTypes COIL overview presentation

The EcoTypes COIL builds on our increasing list of U.S. and cross-national collaborators, and offers online participants the opportunity to learn more deeply about the differing ways we approach environmental issues while exchanging across regional and cultural difference, and to develop tools for thinking about environmental issues—more properly, tools for thinking about thinking about environmental issues.

The COIL initially includes two LearnDash modules, summarized below. Would you like to see them? Just send us a request and we will send more information.

Features

Here are the features of each module:

• Each takes about 2-5 hours to complete.
• Each consists of 3-6 self-guided lessons.
  • Each lesson includes text of about 1000-1500 words per lesson. The participant advances through these lessons in sequence.
  • Each lesson concludes with a brief multiple-choice quiz of 5 questions. The participant must get 4 our of 5 correct to advance. The quiz, and quiz retakes, are automatically assessed and recorded.
• Following the lesson sequence is a review lesson.
  • The review lesson may optionally include a written assignment upload; assignment specifications are up to the instructor. Assignments can be manually scored or automatically accepted.
  • There is a link from the review lesson to an optional bbPress-based EcoTypes forum, in which the participant can exchange thoughts with others, typically for cross-institutional dialogue. We will try to coordinate these discussions among our cross-national collaborators.
• Following the review lesson is a final quiz, consisting of randomly selected questions from the lessons. Again, the participant must receive a minimum 80 percent correct, and will be prompted to retake until they pass.
• Once all above are completed, the participant receives a completion certificate! Here is a sample: the module name, participant name, and date of completion are dynamically updated for each certificate.
• The participant may optionally submit anonymous feedback toward improvement of the modules.

Instructor role

Interested instructors would do the following:

• Register their students as participants. We will upload an enrollment sheet, and provide instructions on how you’ll prepare the sheet.
• Assign participants to their course group, and optionally edit group page. Instructors will bulk manage students, assessment, etc. as a group, and have the ability to edit the default group page including introduction and assigned modules. For this and below functions, instructors will have special access to the back-end of the EcoTypes COIL, a simple WordPress dashboard interface.
• Introduce participants to module process/expectations. Instructors will handle all communications directly with students, and specify any related assignments. We recommend all instructors complete each module themselves, so that they can help students as needed.
• Manage cross-institutional forum discussions. If instructors wish for their students to participate in cross-institutional forum discussions, they will work with us to coordinate expectations and content; see here for our initial pilot study.
• Manage assessment of students and COIL module(s). Instructors have a variety of options to grade student COIL work. One easy option is to award fixed credit to all students who complete each module, which they can do on their own. The optional written assignment upload, and forum participation, allow for credit differentiation. We also appreciate instructor [and anonymous student] input on the student COIL experience, toward improvement of the COIL.

A more detailed document is available, spelling out preliminary steps, how you and your students would register for the COIL, how you would set up your COIL group, and how you would monitor group activities.

Just send us a request for the document, available to all instructors planning to use the COIL in their 2022-23 courses.

Progress on COIL development, and opportunities from cross-institutional COIL interaction, will be shared via the EcoTypes Google Group; please join to keep in touch, or submit a question form.

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Module summary