VITALS | Part I: How to deal with student challenges in virtual international teaching environments

VITALS: A didactical and methodical introduction in Virtual International Teaching in Higher Education for lecturers and scholars of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies!

The internationalization of courses at universities is increasingly in demand. Through (virtual) international seminars, lecturers as well as students can expand their intercultural but also professional competencies, build international networks and jointly design innovative teaching. In comparison to physical mobility, digital internationalization is considerably less expensive. Moreover, it is more inclusive, flexible and sustainable, while promoting digital competencies of participants.  However, these innovative teaching formats also entail numerous challenges such as technical and organizational requirements, special didactical and methodological demands, as well as performance assessment and certification issues.  This cycle of workshops addresses different possibilities for the internationalization of virtual courses, their potential and associated challenges. It will also present and test (partially) didactical and methodological approaches.  The aim of the workshops is threefold. Firstly, they give participants insights into various possibilities of internationalizing courses. Secondly, they support attendees with theoretical background knowledge as well as didactical and methodological input. Finally, they offer practical suggestions for the virtual internationalization of their own courses.   

Topic

The virtual internationalization of courses is not only demanding for lecturers, requiring numerous skills from them. This new way of teaching also poses a number of challenges to both domestic and international students. Considering that student diversity goes far beyond the linguistic dimension, cultural and socialization differences in diverse educational systems give rise to a great heterogeneity of students. This must be adequately addressed in a didactical and methodical way so that all of them can participate equally in the course and achieve success in learning.

This workshop focuses not only on the special challenges of national and international students, but also on didactical and methodical approaches. Accordingly, it offers opportunities to use and test them.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• know the special challenges that virtual international courses pose for (national and international) students;
• get familiar with didactic solutions to counteract the special problems of virtual international courses for (national and international) students;
• use a variety of methods and tools with which they can support national and international students in overcoming the challenges of virtual international courses.