VIRTUAL MODULE OF EMEU HEALTHCARE TEAM

The first two meetings of Virtual Module of EMEU Health Care team was carried out on September 2020, and there will be one more meeting on February 2021. There were involved altogether six students and four teachers; 4 students and 2 teachers from Horizon College and 2 students and 2 teachers from Gradia. All students have signed up for EMEU student exchange when it will be possible again.

The main goal of the Module was to offer the students an opportunity to be in contact and get acquainted with peers from another country. In addition, the objective was to introduce oneself to one another and to have an opportunity to communicate and carry out a conversation in English.

The aim of the first meeting was to get to know each other using Teams. The students were given a list of questions and guided to prepare a presentation based on those. Part of the questions was related to hobbies and studies, the other one to the Corona situation and how it affects studies and daily living. We also asked feedback from the students about the questions and means of presentation. During the second virtual meeting both parties gave their presentation and there was also time for questions and discussion. The presentations were informative and illustrated with pictures from the students’ own surroundings.

As a conclusion the Virtual Module was successful and there was communication in English between all participants. The students described it as an interesting task and a new learning experience. According to the feedback the students found the subjects of the questions interesting because the perspective was student oriented and closely connected to their daily living and studies.

In the next virtual meeting, the cultural touch will be emphasized. The students were guided to include in their presentations cultural features connected to national season festivities. The timing gives also a change to introduce the seasonal differences such as nature, weather, clothing, leisure time activities in both countries. The students have already met twice and are familiar to each other. This helps the dialogue amongst the group of participants. In addition, the students are familiar with each other already before the actual student exchange.

According to our experience we encourage in all Virtual Modules to use pictures and videos in students’ presentations. We noticed that the pictures created more impulsive conversation than the written information. All in all, we found the Virtual Module successful and will definitely continue with it in the future.