Ms. Anika Saxena (Lecturer at the ECE Department) and Dr. Gia Renaud (Associate Professor of Elementary and Early Childhood Education at Bridgewater State University, BSU), gave their students from Hong Kong and the USA a taste of collaborating on a mini project in the second Semester of the 2021/2022 school year.
The two faculty members designed a creative video making assignment, where students would meet over a Zoom meeting to introduce themselves and share about education in their cities. Then, they were asked to create a short video or PowerPoint presentation together, based on one of the following themes: Pedagogy, Beliefs, Systems, Policies or School Day. This unique collaboration saw Bridgewater and Hong Kong students bridged the 12/13-hour time difference to meet synchronously on 25 February and 22 March 2022.
Ms. Saxena sought an overseas teaching partner with the intention of putting her teaching into context and helping her student teachers develop international mindedness. Skilled in using educational technologies, Ms. Saxena used an online folder to organize shared documents for the collaboration and a customized online platform, Padlet, for icebreakers and consolidation of the presentations.
The 10 Hong Kong and 23 USA participants were divided into five groups. Within their groups, they interacted and learned about each other’s culture and school environment and met over three weeks to complete a video or slideshow, which they shared with the rest of the group at a subsequent meeting.
For Ms. Saxena, the most meaningful part of the collaboration was “giving her students a chance to network, collaborate, and share experiences with BSU staff and students during their presentation development and implementation.” Similarly, Dr. Renaud expressed delight collaborating with Ms. Saxena, “I enjoy working with Anika. We have a similar teaching philosophy. We both wanted students to be able to express themselves and show their creativity.”
Students appreciated meeting new friends from another culture and learning about different educational practices in different contexts. For example, a Hong Kong student shared, “I am inspired by the US preschool practice of morning and closing circles to build relationships with students and know them better. I hope to adopt this practice in my classrooms in Hong Kong.”
A student from the USA reflected, “One thing I found interesting was that in Hong Kong, children begin kindergarten as young as three years old. In the US, children cannot start kindergarten until they are five years old. I enjoyed this experience, as it gave me an insight into the many similarities and differences in education between Hong Kong and the US.”
Jenna, a student from Hong Kong, reflected on this international online experience, “At first, I thought that we couldn’t go for exchange due to Covid. However, we were able to have somewhat of an exchange experience through this online exchange activity. I enjoyed it very much, and I hope that I can visit a US school in person in the future.”
Written by Sofie Chua (schua@eduhk.hk), COIL Facilitator