Partner: University of Marburg, Germany

Course: – Contemporary Economic Policy – Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023

School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences

UT Dallas and the University of Marburg in Germany already have an established dual degree master’s program in International Political Economy. Up to ten students are admitted each year both in Dallas and Marburg, where they study for one year before traveling abroad for their second year of study.

Now undergraduate students from the two institutions are embarking on a VE/COIL program that will enable them to learn about economic topics together without ever leaving home. Students enrolled in Dr. Irina Panovska’s undergraduate economics course on Contemporary Macroeconomic Policy at UT Dallas and students from Dr. Bernd Hayo’s Macroeconomics II in Marburg will work on a joint project that studies the behavior of unemployment and inflation in G7 countries.  

The project looks at these important macroeconomic aggregates both from a theoretical and from an empirical perspective. The students will craft a joint presentation of their analysis about how policy and political environments have affected the behavior of unemployment and inflation globally, and they will work on developing macroeconomic projections. They will also learn about each other’s cultures and countries along the way. 

Partners:

Universidad Nacional de Asunción, Paraguay 

Colegio Bayard, Argentina 

Course: NATS 4341 – Project-Based Instruction – Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021;

NATS 3343 – Classroom Interactions – Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022

School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

The UTeach Dallas program in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics prepares students for math and science teaching careers in the K-12 setting. Knowing that students will be working with diverse populations once they graduate, UT Dallas Master Teacher Dr. Kate York and her colleagues, UTeach Dallas Associate Director and Master Teacher, Katie Donaldon, and Master Teacher, Denise Gregory, have been incorporating collaborative online international learning into their curriculum for years. Their current partners are Universidad Nacional de Asunción in Paraguay and Colegio Bayard in Argentina.  

Through virtual teaching experiences and joint project activities centered on science, math, English language development, and education systems, students in all three countries gain valuable intercultural perspectives through the VE/COIL. Guided by their professors, students engaged in live teaching sessions, collaborated on projects, and shared reflections, fostering cross-cultural interactions and empathy.  

The collaborations aim to bring international experiences into the classroom, especially for those who may not have the opportunity to travel abroad. It also empowers these future teachers to embrace a variety of instructional pedagogies in their careers.  

Partner: Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México (Mexico)

Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science 

From identifying lost pets to revolutionizing medical diagnostics, the applications of computer vision powered by artificial intelligence are rapidly expanding. To explore these possibilities, Dr. Ben Porter, Assistant Dean of Effective Teaching in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), is facilitating a first-of-its-kind extracurricular VE/COIL project.  

This initiative connects ECS students from different majors with peers at Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México in Mexico. Using the Roboflow platform, they are collaborating to build a computer-vision application for pet identification. By inputting diverse dog and cat images, they are training AI models to distinguish between breeds and individual animals, demonstrating AI’s potential in real-world applications.  

Through this collaboration, students not only learn technical skills but also gain insight into how peers in another country approach problem-solving, communication, and teamwork.  

Partner: Institute-Mines Telecom Nord Europe, France 

Course: EE 4301 – Electromagnetic Engineering – Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 

Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science

Dr. Matthew Heins is an associate professor of instructor in electrical engineering at UT Dallas. IMT Nord Europe, a university in Lille, France, has an apprenticeship/master’s program for students studying engineering. Through collaborative online international learning, students from both institutions create interdisciplinary research posters related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Working in teams, students select a specific goal of interest, conduct research on that goal, and explore solutions that utilized their respective knowledge and skills. Topics are focused on global challenges, such as clean energy, gender equality, environmental preservation, and more.

Throughout the collaboration, students engage in discussions and share their ideas and insights related to these goals while receiving feedback from their respective professors.

Heins notes that the international collaboration highlights the potential for multidisciplinary approaches to address global challenges.