Student designed online international conference

HRADILOVÁ, Alena. Student designed online international conference. In XVII CercleS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2022 The Future of Language Education in an Increasingly Digital World: Embracing Change. 2022.

Basic information

• Original name: Student designed online international conference
• Authors: HRADILOVÁ, Alena.
• Edition: XVII CercleS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2022 The Future of Language Education in an Increasingly Digital World: Embracing Change, 2022.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Organization unit: Language Centre
• Keywords in English: Experiential learning; Videoconferencing; Student delivered content; Autonomy; Community building

Abstract

The talk is based on experience with an international online communication skills course for law students from Masaryk University and the University of Helsinki. There are times when a natural classroom environment has to be exchanged for an almost anonymous collection of individuals on cameras, or just voices, with students reluctant to turn their cameras on or speak publicly without being specifically addressed. The talk presents how we took the opportunity of being online and made our courses international while further experimenting with experiential learning, promoting student autonomy, and inviting students to co-create the content. It will be shown how the course activities led to active community building. XVII CercleS International Conference 2022, 15 - 17 September 2022, Porto - Portugal 134 Based on experiential learning theory, the talk will introduce the development of a manageable authentic task (designing and running an online international conference) that allowed the students to experience academic communication skills naturally, observe their peers actively, and discuss and reflect with each other on their observations and experience (thus completing the Learning cycle), even though they could not meet physically. Along with the international aspect of the course which, according to the students, led to their better home preparation and classroom performance, student evaluations identified the new community-building component, i.e. being able to talk in international groups synchronously and without the teachers' presence, as essential to the learning outcomes. Based on individual qualitative interviews with 32 students, the talk will report on how students reflected on the improvement of fluency, soft skills and their general communication skills, not only from the public presentations, but also from working independently in teams in breakout rooms. It will also discuss how and why students valued their time together, and the possibility to choose their role as well as the level of commitment to the task in the safe environment of the rooms.