NW 06: Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

Monday, 21 August, 15:30 - 17:00
Location: W2.06

Initiators: Estella Hebert and Jasmin Bastian

The workshop aims at engaging a discussion on possibilities of international exchange in relation to didactical strategies at university level for both students as well as tutors. Using the example of an online exchange platform currently being developed, where university tutors and students can collaborate and exchange ideas on various different topics, we will discuss questions on the internationalisation of university landscapes and the ways in which despite financial limits, we as researchers and academic staff, can engage in an international exchange and thereby improve our own teaching, research and career prospects.

Emerging researchers, trying to qualify in the contemporary research and university landscape are often faced with great pressure. Aside from writing a PhD thesis, many PhD students need to also work in order to support themselves financially. And aside from that national and international publications, presentations and networking is required in order to qualify for a future academic career perspective. The plurality of options which emerging researchers have, is sometimes limited by financial and time constraints which applies to those on scholarships, as well as those working both within and outside of universities alongside writing their PhD. Despite the variety of concepts on how to fund a PhD, financial and temporal aspects seem to be a common problem for emerging researchers to which the pressure of publications, presentations and internationalisation is added.  The same can also be said for Bachelor and Master students, who need to gain work experience, study, e.g. have exams and write essays, attend lectures, and preferably also collect experiences outside of universities and abroad to improve their language skills, personal development and cultural sensitivity as 64% of the employers consider foreign experience an important factor in the recruitment of employees (European Commission, 2014).

Considering all of this, we have started designing a programme which tries to take into account the arguments just mentioned and on these grounds offer university tutors as well as students the possibility of international exchange within a day-to-day university context and without added financial costs. The aims of this European Learning and Teaching tandem project are inter alia: comparing lessons and seminars, finding tutors in other countries who are interested in similar topics, bringing these tutors together for collaboration using online technologies, bringing students from seminars together by letting them compare lessons and exchange ideas on the course content as well as on how European education should look like. The workshop will introduce the concept and then initiate a discussion on a number of related topics such as:

• Online Technologies and open learning possibilities
• Internationalisation in changing university landscapes
• Low-threshold opportunities for international exchange
• Exchange on what it means to be an emerging researcher
• Peer-learning and didactical questions

The workshop is done in collaboration with network 6 and organised by one of the co-convenors of the network, which is the network for Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures. Network 6 is one of the few networks that has an emerging researcher on their co-convenor board thus opening participation opportunities for emerging researchers on a structural level. However, the focus of the workshop is not placed on topics which are only interesting for network 6, but rather aims at a number of broader topics, that might be interesting for participants from various theoretical backgrounds. We therefore invite participants from all networks to join the workshop. We also explicitly would like to invite participants from outside Europe, who are interested in exchange opportunities. The aim of the workshop is to offer an exchange platform for discussion on the above mentioned topics and create networking opportunities among emerging researchers.