Coventry University College

Image: Picture taken on the trip to Malmo

Academic Year: 2020-21

Project Leaders: Anne McConway, Livia Ostafe, Deb Nye

Partner University(s)/Organisation(s): Malmo University (Sweden)

Project Overview:

One of our second year modules on the Early Childhood degree, Principles and practices across literacy and numeracy, requires our students to consider international perspectives. They need to explore other early education systems around the world. In the past, we have organised COIL projects with Denmark, hosted Danish students and organised field trips to other countries. Due to the COVId-19 pandemic, we needed to find a new way to incorporate a COIL project.

One of our previous international trips was to Malmo, Sweden in November 2019. We took a group of students there and visited a variety of early years settings, the trip was a huge success and we established links with some of the Swedish preschools. The staff we met there were incredible welcoming and friendly and they seemed interested in keeping in touch, so I contacted one of the people we met during that trip and asked if they would consider speaking with our students over Zoom. They very kindly agreed to do this.

We arranged a date and time to talk with our Swedish friends. Our students were given materials to read beforehand (such as the Swedish preschool curriculum and some interesting journal articles) and were then asked to formulate some questions.

We spent over an hour talking over Zoom with the Swedish practitioners and our students were able to gain insights into a different pedagogical approach. From this interaction, we were able to compare and contrast the English and Swedish early education systems. The feedback we received from our students about this COIL project was very positive and we felt fortunate to have been able to provide this opportunity despite the difficult circumstances.

Online Tools Used: Email, Zoom