Introduction
Maximizing the potential of virtual exchanges to decolonize virtual mobility through the intercultural co-construction of knowledge is a compelling idea. Virtual exchanges can be powerful learning experiences that enable learners to collaborate across geographical boundaries and approach a task or project by leveraging students’ diverse identities, disciplinary knowledge, and worldviews. The literature on virtual exchanges has expanded in recent years, highlighting the learning benefits for students and the challenges of implementing collaborative projects mediated by technology across cultures (Mittelmeier, Rienties, Gunter, & Raghuram, 2021; Gutiérrez, Gilmäng, Sauro & O’Dowd, 2022, Huang & Landford, 2024; Hamada & Iwasaki, 2024). A clear gap in the literature, however, is understanding the conditions and dispositions that best support educators in designing virtual exchange projects that yield robust and equitable learning benefits.
With this aim, researchers from Monash University and The Pennsylvania State University have been collaborating since mid-2023 to co-create and collate a suite of resources to support educators in designing and implementing equitable and mutually beneficial virtual exchange projects. After a critical review of existing virtual exchange toolkits and websites, we identified current gaps in available faculty support from project inception through research and dissemination of results. Further, our multidisciplinary team of global educators have reflected on our experiences in virtual mobility, as administrators, instructional designers, and educators to map out the major milestones that would support other educators in designing virtual exchange programs (i.e., forming partnerships, designing projects and activities, preparing students, implementing COIL projects and activities, assessing outcomes, and conducting research). To achieve this, an iterative process incorporating peer feedback and collective decision-making has been implemented, aligning with the core principles of online collaboration in education. Our negotiations and collaborations have highlighted the need for clear foundational principles that support and guide educators in designing and implementing inclusive, equitable, and pedagogically sound virtual exchange programs within their institutions.
Based on this work, we propose three macro-level guiding principles that can guide educators in developing meaningful and equitable virtual exchange projects: (1) pedagogical intentionality, (2) criticality, and (3) plurality. These macro-level principles prompt educators to reflexively consider how virtual mobility initiatives can be developed and positioned so that they result in a meaningful co-construction of knowledge(s).
Pedagogical intentionality
Pedagogical intentionality involves deliberate planning and execution of teaching practices to achieve specific educational outcomes. This concept emphasizes decision-making processes where educators thoughtfully consider the purpose of introducing virtual exchanges at classroom, institutional, and cross-institutional levels. It involves blending pedagogy and subject content, understanding what is to be taught, learned, and assessed, how learners learn, ways to facilitate effective learning, and scaffolding learning through content and pedagogy (Jones & Moreland, 2015). By emphasizing pedagogical intentionality as a macro-principle, we highlight the agency of educators in purposefully designing learning exchanges; this stands in contrast to creating virtual exchange projects that fall into the “let’s just see what happens” approach. Pedagogical intentionality underscores the need for reasoned and structured approaches to fostering intercultural learning instead of assuming that intercultural learning will occur as a natural by-product of virtual exchange (Deardorff & Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017).
Criticality
For virtual exchanges to foster intercultural co-construction of knowledge(s) across geographical boundaries, criticality is fundamental. Criticality encompasses being attuned to wider socio-historical dimensions that shape physical and virtual mobilities (of ideas and practices) and grounding virtual exchange practices in continuous self-reflection. Decoloniality can support educators in actualizing criticality. Decoloniality can be understood as “first and foremost liberation of knowledge, [...] of understanding and affirming subjectivities that have been devalued by narratives of modernity that are constitutive of the control matrix of power” (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018, p. 146). Adopting a decolonial approach in virtual exchanges means embracing difference as constitutive of educational relationships and designing projects that challenge dominant global narratives perpetuated by modernity.
Another important corollary of criticality is ensuring both equality of opportunities and outcomes in virtual exchange. Equity and inclusion help educators consider all stakeholders, design projects to address disadvantages, and foster a sense of belonging. Equity focuses on achieving equality of outcomes, not just opportunities. This means, for example, designing projects that can leverage learners' multilingual repertoires instead of framing knowledge of languages other than English as a “deficit” that needs to be compensated for (Robbins, 2023; Pineda & Bosso, 2023).
Plurality
Virtual exchange offers a third space, described as an interruptive and interrogative space, where multiple discourses can be woven together without sacrificing or dismissing the importance of their speakers’ experiences and ways of knowing the world (Bhabha, 1994; Wimpenny et al., 2022). This plurality of third spaces can act as a powerful counterbalance to scenarios where virtual exchange is implemented expressly for some groups of students, usually from the Global North, to become more interculturally competent through interactions with “other” groups, usually from the Global South. Challenging and breaking down these North-South power dynamics is imperative for engendering non-hegemonic approaches to virtual exchange pedagogies (Breaden et al., 2023).
Intercultural plurality, then, is especially important in virtual exchange as it “suggests a permanent and active process of negotiation and interrelation in which difference does not disappear. Sociocultural, ancestral, political, epistemic, linguistic, and existence-based difference is affirmed in collective and community-based terms and understood as contributive to the creation of new comprehensions, coexistences, solidarities, and collaborations” (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018, p. 59). Plurality supports a true shift in knowledge production and uptake, recognizing and incorporating multiple languages, perspectives, and knowledge in virtual exchange projects.
Conclusion
These three macro-level principles—pedagogical intentionality, criticality, and plurality—work together to establish a dispositional space that can guide educators in designing and implementing effective and equitable virtual exchange projects. By embracing these guiding principles, educators can harness the full potential of virtual exchanges to create inclusive, decolonial, and sustainable educational experiences that prepare students for an increasingly interconnected world. Future research should focus on evaluating the impact of these principles on virtual exchange outcomes and student learning.
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