The Covid-19 pandemic presented higher education institutions with the challenge of having to switch from face-to-face to online and hybrid teaching, and of coping with the loss of physical mobility for students and teaching staff. In response to this new situation, the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme for education, youth and sport is supporting, through a special call for proposals, projects that better equip education and training systems for online and distance learning.
A joint project proposal from Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, the University of Derby (UK), Masaryk University (Czech Republic) and Tampere University of Applied Sciences (Finland), entitled ‘VERSATILE – Virtual Education Readiness Semester – Adaptive Toolbox for an International Learning Experience’, has now been approved.
VERSATILE addresses the new challenges in teaching by developing, testing and evaluating the necessary building blocks for a collaborative online semester abroad in the form of a guide to online teaching methods, a model curriculum comprising team-taught modules in the social sciences, and guidelines for an administrative infrastructure. At Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, the “International Business and Management” and “International Relations” degree programmes are involved. The building blocks developed can be used beyond the pandemic, offering students a viable alternative to physical mobility and thus creating long-term opportunities for internationalisation within their own country. The project facilitates in-depth collaboration between the project partners and provides other universities with guidelines for developing collaborative online learning and teaching environments.
Participants from Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences are: Prof. Dr Philipp Schorn (Professor of Business Administration at the Faculty of Society and Economics), Dr Anne Tempel (Research Associate at the Faculty of Society and Economics), Dr Joost Kleuters (International Centre) and Dr Maike Kaufmann (International Centre).
Contact
Prof. Dr Philipp Schorn
Faculty of Society and Economics
Professor of Business Administration
Telephone: 02821 80673 311
Email: philipp.schorn@hochschule-rhein-waal.de
