Embedding Critical Thinking in Global Virtual Exchange—Teaching Sociology Across National Borders in Virtual Classrooms

Global virtual exchange is a mode of teaching that can reach classrooms beyond national borders and across disciplines. This paper utilizes students’ online conversations and learning projects as primary data to demonstrate experiential learning and critical thinking processes in a global virtual classroom between students in the U.S. and China. Findings reveal that guided weekly online conversations between American and Chinese students provided experiential learning about personal and familial experiences as well as deep insights into healthcare and pension policies affecting individuals and societies. Furthermore, collaborative learning projects on healthcare and pension systems among international students embedded critical thinking in the learning process. These learning projects are comparative and thought-provoking, offering students a chance to apply a critical and global lens to the understanding of social policies and services in different social and cultural contexts. The expansion of global virtual exchange may be a byproduct of COVID-19 distant learning; it may have opened new channels for breaking geographic boundaries of learning sociology in global and critical perspectives.