Abstract:

Exclusive classroom learning is no longer applicable to current youth demands. Online education has become a new norm and plays a vital role in the training of the next generation of professionals. Hence, it is undeniable that online education provides ample benefits to young learners.

Furthermore, there is a need to promote collaborative learning at the virtual level in order to expose students to different cultures and prepare them for the demands of nowadays collaborative multicultural work environments and remote work.

This study examines the benefits of pilot online collaborative learning presented between February and May 2023 where students experienced interaction with peers and lecturers from different cultural backgrounds while enrolled in a curricular module at their respective universities.

Students from Veterinary Science at the Universidad Católica de Valencia- San Vicente Mártir and Universidad CES were selected to participate on the collaborative module. Information regarding module participation satisfaction has been collected among the participants through reflective discussion and surveys which were analysed using Microsoft Forms. The supervising professors belong to the aforementioned universities and also to the University of Pretoria, which gives the project a greater multicultural approach.

The analysis of the data found that the experience has been positive among students of both universities and this has led to an improvement in grades and quality of the final work presented by the combined groups. Participation in this pilot study has allowed students to improve their soft skills such as teamwork in a multicultural environment and presentation of content in a poster and oral presentation.

Issues identified such as challenges to harmonise the time of presentation of the lectures and give more details in the instructions to complete the task are being used for further improvement of the collaborative module which will be implemented in the next presentation of the module.

Keywords:

Online education, multicultural, soft skills, veterinary sciences.