Under the Stevens Initiative, TIEC implemented virtual exchange for undergraduate nursing in Texas, Egypt, and Jordan. It was an eight-week virtual exchange capacity-building program for 40 undergraduate nursing faculty from 22 colleges among the locations. Together, faculty learned effective virtual exchange models and jointly designed virtual exchange modules to integrate into existing Bachelor of Science in Nursing courses that encouraged students to research and investigate global health challenges shared across borders.
Virtual exchange training workshops were led by TIEC partners. The TIEC team provided training on three different models of virtual exchange to prepare them to conduct exchanges for their classes during the upcoming academic year. SUNY COIL presented different forms of virtual exchange and introduced their model of collaborative online interactions as a course-embedded option for virtual exchange. Soliya showed participants how facilitate dialogue online so that facilitators are neutral, process leaders who ensure safe space and promote reflection. The Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering, Innovation, and Design set up a sample design challenge that found root causes, created an innovation target and iterated on solutions.
TIEC paired faculty and institutions
During the pandemic, schools and institutions began using virtual exchange to help young people develop cross-cultural relationships and vital skills. While traditional in-person education and exchange programs were cancelled for the summer, virtual exchange programs continued to be a sustainable and accessible global learning tool.