The Jordan-led extended VCL (eVCL

JORDAN OPPORTUNITY FOR VIRTUAL INNOVATIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Within the evaluation of the iVCL, the majority of respondents came from the European participants, with much smaller proportion coming from Jordanian students. This might indicate that further work is needed to capture and represent the student voice within Jordan, particularly around giving constructive feedback to teaching and learning activity.

Overall, the iVCL was viewed in a positive light by participants and E-Tutors, particularly framed around international collaboration and co-operation. This again, was seen as being beneficial for the students’ careers and for their futures and appears to hold more importance for them than the subject-level teaching itself. Nonetheless, persistent issues around student engagement presented themselves again in the iVCL and questions around student voice was again highlighted.

Student Quotes from the iVCL

“I interacted with real people from different cultures and this really helped me to learn. I talked in English and communicated with so many new people”

“The activity was much more multicultural than I have in my university. It was really interesting”

“It was great as I felt I was free to share my ideas and I was not restrained to some specific ideas or a way of thinking.”

“The online tasks were different and needed a different kind of research and study. This challenged me and I feel good about it now”

JORDAN OPPORTUNITY FOR VIRTUAL INNOVATIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING

The Jordan-led extended VCL (eVCL)

The final VLE delivery, the eVCL was delivered in February and March 2021 and was delivered by the Jordanian partners. 46 students participated. Of particular note is that this eVCL included Zarqa University, along with learners from the Syrian refugee community in Jordan, who are not typically able to easily access teaching and learning. This VCL took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and face-to-face, in-class preparation was not possible.

The following universities took part:

Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), Jordan (9 students)

Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Jordan (1 student)

German Jordanian University (GJU), Jordan (13 students)

Al Hussein bin Talal University (AHU), Jordan (12 students)

Tafila Technical University (TTU), Jordan (5 students)

Zarqa University (ZU), Jordan (6 Syrian Refugees)

The eVCL delivery resulted in the following headline findings from the evaluation

• The Benefit of the VCL

• Impact of the pandemic

JORDAN OPPORTUNITY FOR VIRTUAL INNOVATIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING

The Benefit of the VCL

The evaluation of this VCL was overwhelmingly positive, with participating students noting that found the aims and objectives of the VCL to be clear, the content of the VCL to be clear and easy to understand and that they particularly appreciated being able to put soft skills into practice. Communication skills and working in an online space were particularly highlighted as being beneficial to the participants, who viewed the development of these skills as more important than the subject-level knowledge elements of the VCL activity. In addition, the collaborative element was seen as a positive, with students expressing that it was a nice change from the more individual teaching and learning tasks that they had been used to.

Impact of the pandemic

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pandemic’s impact had a bearing on the student experience of the eVCL. Many students fed back that operating in a virtual space for the entirety of the VCL, including the preparation phases, was challenging and students initially felt somewhat overwhelmed. That being said, the professors and support staff were very highly praised for their support throughout the activity and any initial challenges faced were overcome by the end of the eVCL. In addition, and linked to the previous headline, student were grateful for the ability to mix with other students during the pandemic, which had curtailed the ability to meet new people and to be social with others. Even though this activity took place in an online space, students appreciated the collaborative element due to the ability to communicate with and work with others.

JORDAN OPPORTUNITY FOR VIRTUAL INNOVATIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Student Engagement

As with previous VCLs, data suggests that there are highly engaged students and students who did not appear to participate as heavily. Indeed, from the statistical user data from the eVCL, a small number of participants appear to have been very heavily engaged, responding to all the activity questions and being present in the virtual environment on a very regular basis. Others did not demonstrate a large footprint, with a handful of group members registering very little engagement. Initial analysis indicates that the Syrian Refugee students had a lower engagement when compared to the students from JOVITAL consortium, which may suggest that access to technology was restricted or that more work was needed to prepare them for this VCL

Student Voice

This time around, a much higher proportion of students responded to the evaluation survey to make their views known and their voices heard, both pre and post activity. With a response rate of almost 70% of the respondents, almost all of the JOVITAL consortium student participants responded. That being said, it appears as if none of the refugee students were able to provide feedback to the evaluation, which indicates more work might need to be done around including the student voice from the underprivileged learners. It would appear that access to the technology to provide feedback through online surveys was difficult after the eVCL activity, which suggests that continuity of access requires further consideration.

Student quotes from the eVCL

“This was very different for me. I'm feeling happy to use VCL in my courses now.” “We gain new skills and knowledge, exchange the experience with another student from the other universities.” “This type of learning was more interactive. [the tutor] was really amazing and helpful to us” “The JOVITAL was kind of hard because I don't see the tutor physically, but this problem was easy to overcome and we did great things”