The Impact of Virtual Exchange on Teachers’ Pedagogical Competences and Pedagogical Approach in Higher Education

The following report presents the outcomes of a study on the effect of implementing Virtual Exchange on the evolution of teachers’ pedagogical competences. In the report we use the term Virtual Exchange (VE) to refer to sustained online interaction between peers who are geographically distant and/or from different cultural backgrounds and affiliated to different Higher Education institutions, supported by their respective teachers and eventually facilitators1.
This pedagogical method, due to its high versatility, can be adapted to address various educational contexts, hence its growing popularity. While various aspects of students’ participation in VE projects have attracted numerous research studies, little is known about how VE design and delivery stimulate, if at all, teachers’ professional growth.
The study is part of a large-scale research conducted within the EU-funded Erasmus+ KA3 project EVOLVE (Evidence Validated Online Learning through Virtual Exchange, see section 1.3) into the impact of Virtual Exchange as an educational method in Higher Education contexts. The current report concentrates on how the process of designing, implementing and carrying out VE affects the teachers involved. In particular, it investigates how they view the evolution of their general teaching competence, their VE-related competences as well as their approach to nurturing student-centeredness and other active pedagogical approaches in the academic courses they teach. The study also casts light onto the motives behind VE implementation, the targeted learning objectives and teachers’ perceptions of VE-related challenges.