49 SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals – Kenyatta University, Kenya
Mary Ragui
This is the second Collaboration Online International Learning (COIL) project that Kenyatta University from Kenya, Africa has participated in. Inclusion of Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University in Saudi Arabia and Koya University in Iraq added more ‘culture juice’ as the time differences between the teams extended to more than 8 hours for some participants. This intercultural and time difference understanding and flexibility facilitated the global collaboration without leaving our countries.
The second COIL project enabled students to deep-dive into different themes of United Nations global Sustainable Development Goals following weekly questions on documented stories on AIM2Flourish platform. Different teams worked on different themes and later concentrated on one theme to enable cross-team enrichment. A critical reflection essay was written by the teams in addition to new posters in the virtual room.
Innovative pedagogy of the COIL project helped inter-twin theoretical and real-life practices enabling forge inspirations and skills needed by all in the future. It also helped to promote active learning, self-management on delivery and flexible engagement of the team members. Challenging the preconceived role of businesses in SDGs achievement was also an added advantage as team members use their cultural perspectives to solve some of these challenges.
The pedagogy exposed advisors and students to new sets of tools like better use of Google Classroom and its online environment, presenting in virtual exhibition room in the Metaverse, uncovering sustainable innovative practices on the conducted inquiry interviews, analyzing and critiquing literature and methodology of case studies using deep reflection methodology of informative posters, and deep digital engagement for socio-technical development.
As a faculty member, COIL project enabled me to connect with others and gained more from sharing and learning how to handle learners in global set-up. It was an eye opener and mindset changer to delivery and transfer of knowledge in the modern time and the future where the pedagogy will be more embraced for real-world practices. This has prepared me as one of the few pioneers for the new education curriculum being implemented in Kenya – the Competency Based Education Curricula.
I applaud the coaches, Ruben and Mehnaz, who did an awesome job to put all this together and respond to students’ queries. Additionally, I applaud all the faculty members from the participating universities for making this happen even in different time zones. This shows dedication towards our role as mentors to the next generations. Facilitation of the project was seamless and within the time limit. The output of colourful posters and critical reflections essays with best practices documentation was mind-blowing.
In conclusion, the COIL project has increased my appetite on SDGs achievement using businesses. New pedagogy will help increase learners-engagement. I will also share the knowledge with my colleagues in the university and disseminate the outputs of the project.
