Abstract:

Internationalization is defined as one of strategic development goals oriented on building environments for gaining experiences of collaborating internationally for many educational institutions. This is among others, strongly influenced by recent global disruptions, sacrificing exchange opportunities, mostly due to uncertain scenarios in responding to mobility disruptions. International relations communities and related institutions found an answer to the challenges they faced, and made significant efforts to intensify short mobility programs, usually performed in a blended form, including technology support in running online and onsite sessions.

When organizing and implementing short intensive programs, efforts are made to create content of high quality, to select motivated participants, to involve relevant partners, adjusting timing and location, and many other open and important questions, in order to boost mobility increase. At the same time, less effort is delivered to design these educational programmes desirable – namely fun, exciting, inspiring and fulfilling.

In this paper, we present our insights into how to make blended intensive programmes (BIPs) an incredible, spectacular, distinctive and unforgettable experience for all involved, learners and teachers. The insights presented in this paper are gained from several BIPs, performed by authors jointly and separate. Approaches and techniques related to the onboarding process, online teaching, onsite tutoring, use of collaboration and communication tools, interactions, teamwork, challenges and how to overcome them, and even more, bring our evidence of what is important for BIPs to become a time and a learning experience to remember.

As concluding remarks, we will give an overview on how positive experiences in short trainings like BIPs can ensure sustainable partnerships and friendships, on institutional and personal level, and create ideas for new initiatives and projects.

Keywords:

Blended teaching environment, short educational programmes, sustainable partnerships.