Course Aims to Help Students Unpack Study Abroad Experiences

College Course 21, “What’s in Your Shoebox?” — a new course being offered next term — will allow international students and those who have completed a foreign study program to reflect on their experiences abroad and increase their intercultural sensitivity.

The course...is designed to allow students to “come together and spend 10 weeks [in the spring term] unpacking and reflecting upon their study aboard experiences,” said Francine A’Ness, associate director and assistant research professor at the Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education, who is one of the course’s two teachers...A’Ness designed COCO 21 this past fall with co-instructor Prudence Merton, associate director for faculty programs and assessment at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning.

According to the course’s syllabus, the class is structured as a seminar. One of the course’s goals is to encourage students to reflect upon and learn from their recent study abroad experiences.

Students will engage in a variety of activities, including keeping a daily reflection journal, writing letters to themselves, drafting reflection papers, applying for fellowships and creating a documentary about their international experiences that will be screened at the Loew Auditorium in the Black Family Visual Arts Center, among other activities.

Merton sees herself engaging heavily with helping develop these reflective activities.

“One of my research areas is metacognition, so I see my role is to support that aspect of the course, to come up with new ideas asking all of us to reflect on our experience,” Merton said.

Read the full article from The Dartmouth.