12-01, 14:30–15:30 (Europe/Berlin), Virtual Workshop 1
Virtual Exchange is a great opportunity for students to make contacts all over the world. For this to happen, however, the first step is to break the ice in the international student group. In this interactive workshop, you will explore icebreaking activities for Virtual Exchange. At the end, you will have the opportunity to share your own favorite icebreaking activities.
For Virtual Exchange to be truly an exchange, students must feel comfortable opening up to their peers abroad. Icebreaking activities are an important tool to establish such an atmosphere and to help students overcome initial shyness and hesitation.
There are many ways to design an icebreaking phase. In most cases, it is not enough to simply send students to breakout sessions and leave them to their own devices. Especially shy or insecure students benefit from icebreaking activities that provide a structure and topics in a protected setting and prepare the ground for later discussion and collaboration.
In this interactive workshop, you will therefore explore different icebreaking activities that you can use in Virtual Exchange to help students open up to each other and build meaningful relationships. At the end, you will have the opportunity to share your own favorite icebreaking methods with the other participants.
Maximilian Köster is a research assistant in the Digital Mobil project at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences. His work focuses on the facilitation of Virtual Exchange and digital peer learning. He previously taught German as a foreign language and worked at his university’s international office while pursuing his Master’s degree in Cultural Studies.