This paper reports on a current COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) programme, which is part of an international online cooperation between two universities: the University of Education Karlsruhe (Germany) and Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia). The COIL programme’s aim is to connect pre-service teachers enrolled in Bachelor (Karlsruhe) and Master of Teaching (Deakin) courses through collaborative online learning activities facilitated via a third space digital whiteboard platform. Delivered over a period of four consecutive weeks, the COIL phase engages students in asynchronous collaborative learning activities that have been designed to support their developing pedagogy in diverse multilingual contexts. Specifically, the COIL phase seeks to engage pre-service teachers in critical reflection regarding their pedagogical beliefs about culture, language and CLIL teaching, and possibilities for curriculum change that supports culturally and linguistically inclusive language classrooms.

In this paper, we discuss the theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological considerations for the development and design of our COIL programme. In particular, we provide an overview and detailed description of the different learning activities included in our COIL phase, including select visual snapshots illustrating the collaborative online learning experience in these graphic spaces. From our respective perspectives as teacher educators and digital learning designer, we also reflect on our experiences with the development and design process of the COIL programme, including cross-institutional curriculum alignment, student engagement, and teaching innovation in higher education. As we are keen to expand our currently bilateral cooperation into a wider network, we encourage the participation of new international cooperation partners in our COIL programme.

Keywords: COIL, digital third spaces, language and culture, internationalisation, higher education, teacher education.