2022-12-01 –, Stage 2, Einstein-Saal, BBAW
Drawing on examples from the Humanities, this paper highlights how Virtual Exchange and its sub-format COIL serve as flexible, productive, and fertile foundations for exploring the possibilities of internationalisation in the 21st century.
Reflecting on the future of Higher Education, it is evident that students must graduate equipped with skills to tackle global concerns. Crises challenge and encourage future leaders to consider, call for, and create sustainable solutions while relying on skills and competencies promoted and enhanced by their institutions. Identifying two categories of skills and competencies for the 21st century, Douglas Bourn cites cognitive skills, i. e. thinking critically, including a multi-perspective approach, and non-cognitive skills, which comprise of interacting with people of diverse backgrounds (6). This translates into digital literacy, local-global connections, international awareness, and intercultural competencies, among others. Virtual Exchange provides a low-threshold approach that allows educators to open spaces for exploring these criteria. While looking at the role of the Humanities in investigating issues and problem-solving strategies, this contribution argues that VE lends itself to analyses of climate change, migration, military conflict, and the effects of the pandemic. Extrapolating from the COIL-project “Our World in Crisis”, co-taught by the University of Mannheim and the Salem State University, Massachusetts in spring 2022, this paper illustrates the steps from the idea to the development, implementation, and evaluation of VE. Hurdles and challenges as well as outputs, outcomes, and impacts are equally investigated: This contribution discusses a tricky digital infrastructure, unequal assessment, and the difficulty of monitoring on the one hand, and highlights how students learn to integrate different perspectives, exchange their views in international settings and develop ideas to take on the world’s problems on the other hand. This paper will conclude by emphasising the strongest aspects of VE: its democratic and inclusive approach to internationalisation (although this paper recognises a digital divide), its potential to foster long-lasting international partnerships, and how learning in diverse groups can lead to student (and teacher) epiphanies.
Abir is a coordinator and lecturer at the University of Mannheim. Employed at the Dean’s Office of the School of Humanities, she is the academic advisor for incoming students and the coordinator of virtual mobility, a position that has been created to advance virtual collaborations and virtual exchange on an international scale. Since her employment, the School of Humanities has realised a virtual course catalogue to increase inclusivity, as well as COIL projects with the U.S. and Sweden.
She is also active as a teacher in International Cultural Studies, which she considers a profoundly productive extension of her background in Literary Studies, where she is working on a PhD on Contemporary British Drama.