Crisis, Rupture and Structural Change: Re-Imagining Global Learning and Engagement While Staying in Place During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The global nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and other ongoing crises (from humanitarian emergencies that spill across borders to the global impacts of climate change) underscores the need to prepare students for a future where both cross-border crises and the need for international collaboration and education will be heightened. These developments have also highlighted the need for a variety of meaningful virtual alternatives for students to acquire the critical skills and knowledge needed to succeed in global and cross-cultural environments. With these needs in mind, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic we turned our focus to developing a course to turn the crisis itself into a virtual international learning opportunity. We aimed to utilize the shared experience of living through a global crisis as a starting point for the exploration of global perspectives and responses to crisis. Isolated in our homes with our own public and domestic lives collapsing and colliding, we aimed to create global connections by creating a space where we and our students could connect the ruptures created by the current crisis to the ruptures and reshaping of perspectives, world views, and personal trajectories that is the hallmark of a transformative global or intercultural encounter. Our goal was to deepen students’ empathetic, contemplative, and communication skills—critical components of global experiential education—while drawing upon literature and pedagogy in these areas and employing experiential learning techniques. This reflective essay interrogates and records our goals, methods and experiences in creating this classroom space and pedagogical experience during a period of emergency. Ultimately, it also memorializes how the experience of developing and teaching this course, and our attempts to catalyze change and global engagement for our students, were transformative for our own professional and personal trajectories.

Keywords: Global learning, global education, international education, global engagement, international and comparative law, cultural competence, experiential learning, virtual learning, cross-border, cross-cultural, crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, study abroad, global engagement, pedagogy

JEL Classification: I20, K10