Teaching Business With Internationally Built Teams

ABSTRACT This paper describes a collaborative model of international learning where students from classes in universities across countries collaborate to jointly work on a common project. The paper follows the partnership formed by a course taught in the US and one in Mexico under the COIL model, where participating students are paired up with counterparts in a related business course in a university in another country. By joining these two classes in a team-taught effort, participating professors form international teams with half the students from each institution. The teams are then responsible for developing an international company’s business plan, of import/export companies or expansions into a Latin American market, with realistic resulting documents that are presented in meetings on the campuses of both participating universities. The international student groups from both universities negotiate and collaborate on their projects online, sealing their hypothetical deals when they present them jointly in Mexico and the USA. The classes have been made possible by partnerships of professors at an American University and two Universities in Mexico. These collaborations have happened in ten semesters, from the spring of 2003 until the fall of 2019, with more than one professor participating from each institution. Because these joint classes were taught by different professors, we claim that the benefits of the pedagogical model can be replicated and institutionalized. The paper discusses issues facing those interested in developing a similar course pairing, and describes choices to be made in the process of giving birth to such a collaboration.