Danielle V. Schoon, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC) and Melinda McClimans, Middle East Studies Center (MESC), were awarded grants from the University Institute of Teaching and Learning (UITL) for the 2019-2020 academic year. UITL awarded Dr. Schoon the Scholarly Teaching Grant in the amount of $750, and awarded Dr. Schoon and Dr. McClimans as Principle Investigators for the Research Implementation Grant in the amount of $2000.  The goal for the study is to make the intercultural learning experience more impactful for students, while also contributing to the fields of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), and ePortfolio Pedagogies and Practices.

The scholars' complimentary backgrounds in anthropology (Schoon) and education (McClimans) allow them to effectively promote substantive gains in intercultural awareness amongst students in culture courses focused on Turkey. Dr. Schoon conducted fieldwork in Turkey with her $750 grant, to provide the most current on-the-ground accounts and documentation to her students, including virtual reality video.  The implementation grant of $2000 will provide the most effective assessment tools for evaluating student cultural learning as they interact with their peers in Turkey online.  These online conversations are the continuation of an ongoing collaborative project that joins OSU students with peers at Turkish universities (details at https://u.osu.edu/globaleportfolio/pilot). Schoon and McClimans will also refine the ePortfolio template so that it may be reproduced in other NELC courses, and perhaps other area studies programs at OSU.  Intercultural Development Inventories (IDI) will be conducted by Dr. Cindy Jiang, co-PI for the project, Senior Research Associate of the Office of International Affairs specializing in evaluation, and certified IDI evaluator. The IDI, the most validated method for assessing cultural awareness, will allow us to accurately measure student growth and development from the online conversations and e-portfolio assignments.