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NaUKMA and University Paris-Est Créteil, France, COIL Initiative

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Published on Tuesday, 13 April 2021 07:56

In March-April 2021 Master’ Program in Management students at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) and International MBA students of the IAE Gustave Eiffel School of Management at University Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC, Paris, France), studying the course in International Management at each of their institutions, took part in the Collaborative International Learning (COIL) initiative. The core idea of COIL collaborations, firstly introduced by the State University of New York (USA) is “to connects faculty, students and classes at higher education institutions around the world for discussions, exploration and collaborative project work.  COIL is integrated into the curriculum of classes – in any subject area, at any level – and engages students and faculty in intercultural interactions through applied and project-based learning, thereby bringing international experiences and their attendant skills development.” 

Current COIL collaboration was based on joint participation of 30 graduate students from 2 universities and 10 countries (UPEC MBA attracts students around the world) in the “Leadership and Team Simulation: Everest” game, developed by the Harvard Business Publishing - Education. 

“Everest” business simulator was used to enable students’ experience of international teamwork in virtual environment: the students had to create international teams, decide on the team leader,  jointly coordinate the team’s activities, try different approaches to decision-making. Business simulator gave students good understanding and the first-hand experience of how time limits and psychological pressure can affect teamwork; how a team can solve problems and make effective decisions in a situation, when team members have access to different information, as well as have different personal interests.  

After participation in the “Everest” simulations blended French-Ukrainian student groups were invited to reflect on their joint participation in the game. The reflection session was followed by the UPEC and NAUKMA students’ discussion on their experiences of learning under the pandemic restrictions when students also developed a list of suggestions on possible improvements of the students (and teachers) performance in the situation of virtual studies. 

COIL collaboration was developed and coordinated by Prof. Eric Hertzler, Vice Dean for International Relations at the Faculty of Economics and Management of UPEC, and Prof. Yurii Dyachenko from the NaUKMA Department of Management and Business Administration. 

This project became a new step in the long-standing cooperation between the NaUKMA and UPEC. Both institutions have fruitful contacts in the research sphere, already for 2 years they are running joint Master’s Program in Economics / International Economics, currently are developing new joint track, which will be open for the NaUKMA Master’s students in Finance. Access to the “Everest” business simulator for the students of NaUKMA and UPEC became possible thanks to the generous support of the Embassy of France in Ukraine.