Abstract:

Inter-cultural competences are widely accepted as essential for the future professional and personal development of graduate and post-graduate students. While mobility programs have been increasingly embraced by Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and students worldwide, these are limited in number and thus most students are not able to integrate them. In such context, Internationalization at home (I@H) offers additional and more versatile opportunities for developing intercultural skills and competences, with the ability to include all students enrolled in a course. Despite its relevance among the most innovative teaching strategies, I@H is still disregarded by teachers and unknown by students. Thus, the debate and sharing of experiences is essential to both fostering its adoption and finding ways to more effectively design future initiatives.

In this paper we focus on a specific I@H strategy in the form of virtual student mobility for developing a joint project in international teams. We describe and present results of a 4-week initiative held in the Fall semester of 2016 through the Columbus Hub Academy, comprising 33 students from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and the University of Colima, Mexico. The project was assessed with a combination of online survey and focus groups, complemented by the views and evaluation of the two teachers that implemented this initiative.

The results include students’ unanimous recognition of the relevance of the initiative, and its positive impact on the learning process. The aspects most valued by students include working in international teams and learning about other cultures. Among the developed competences students emphasized integration, self-control, time management, team work, autonomy, and language skills. In the focus groups, students agreed that this collaboration made the class assignment more challenging and motivating. Overall, this project was marked by the enthusiasm of the participants, and by the fully achieved learning objectives.

Keywords:

International cooperation, Internationalization at home, Columbus Hub Academy.