FRAMEWORKS FOR THE DEPLOYMENT OF VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS
Virtual Classrooms
About
Online classes provide a compelling pedagogical and learning opportunity, enhancing access to high-quality education without the barriers of physical location. In the context of internationalization, collaborative projects with peers from diverse countries create unique and enriching experiences. However, virtual classrooms come with certain limitations.
Types
Virtual Student Exchanges: Students can enroll in courses offered by a partner university from the comfort of their own homes. Both the home and host institutions aim to replicate many aspects of traditional exchange programs, including opportunities for cultural engagement. Depending on the scope of the virtual exchange, students may have access to a diverse range of academic offerings. However, the online format does have limitations in providing the full depth of intercultural immersion that comes with in-person exchanges.
Learning Approaches
For Student Exchanges: In a virtual inbound exchange, international students join a course designed for local students and adapt to its structure and requirements. Through this process, they can gain a meaningful learning experience—albeit from a distance. The quality of the course plays a central role in determining the value of the student’s virtual exchange experience.
Partner Involvement
For Student Exchanges: For both the home and host universities, no major additional tasks are necessary for operationalizing virtual student exchanges. However, it is important to measure its learning impacts including the quality of intercultural skill developments. It is widely believed that in-person student exchanges offer high quality learning opportunities for intercultural competency development.
Expectations
Flexibility: Topics that favour debate are potential candidates.
Time Zones: When time difference is a challenge, instructors require asynchronous and synchronous solutions.
Technology is required: Standard and reliable use of technology enable the provision of virtual classrooms.
No formal agreements: Universities don't require accords.
Between Two Classes: Institutions enable instructors to co-teach a course with a peer from another university. In this model, the two instructors agree to merge a portion of their respective classes to create a shared learning environment, giving students the opportunity to engage with peers from a different institution. This collaborative approach often leads to enriched learning outcomes, as students work through assignments in a more diverse and dynamic setting. Since instructors maintain autonomy over their curricula, this flexibility supports the implementation of such virtual classroom collaborations.
Between Two Classes: This learning innovation begins when two instructors co-teach a course, creating unique opportunities that arise only when two distinct groups of students come together to explore a shared topic. This collaborative teaching approach enables instructors across disciplines to internationalize their curriculum and enhance student engagement through diverse perspectives and cross-institutional interaction.
Between two classes: Instructors have the opportunity to teach virtual classrooms in this modality over a number of years; and it can deepen the pedagogical potentials that come emerge. It is the innovation of instructors that makes all of the difference in the quality of experience for students. As a result, this type of virtual classrooms are highly recommended and easy to deploy.
