Report on the Students’ Evaluation of C5
According to the data elicited from the evaluation questionnaire for the students who participated in the virtual mobility C5 organised by the Italian partner school in Matera from April 19 to 23, 2021, this was an unexpectedly successful meeting despite the fact that it had had to be converted from face to-face into a virtual one.
As for the meeting objectives, it can be claimed that they were met to a fairly satisfactory extent. Specifically, the macro goals of the project related to strengthening the European identity of the students and to boosting their awareness of our common European cultural heritage, it was established that about three quarters of the respondents felt that the meeting contributed to their sense of being Europeans and about half of them answered that this meeting had contributed to their realisation of the shared cultural heritage with their peers from the partner schools. In spite of their frustration that they could not physically visit Matera, most students (about 90%) answered that the meeting (even being virtual) had enabled them to gain a high degree of familiarity with the local culture of their hosts.
Concerning the meeting goal of better understanding the issues dealt with, those of Sustainable Urban Planning and Art, a significant number of respondents felt that they had been helped to grasp the meaning of Urban Planning as well as to identify and appreciate sustainable urban practices. Interestingly, a great percentage of the participants (over 80%) responded that this meeting had enabled them to explore and appreciate their own cultural heritage; probably by working on their presentations of their national Art.
As far as the macro skills of our project are concerned, it seems that the cooperation and foreign language skills were felt to have been further developed by more respondents than their digital skills and creativity as well as critical thinking and evaluation skills. This finding indicates that the teacher’s digital knowledge needs enhancement in order to meet the students’ expectations and to promote learning.
As regards the meeting activities, the data confirmed that making a presentation was felt by most students to have contributed to their foreign language competence and cooperation skills as well as to understand the meeting concepts better and appreciate their own cultural heritage of Art. The other teams' presentations have been reported to have helped a great number of the respondents realise the differences between the cultures of their peers and to have inspired them with ideas for future presentations. The ice-breaking activity of guessing the meaning of Italian gestures has been highly appreciated as really successful in encouraging the cooperation in international teams and the interactive activities (preparing the common presentations, interacting on the Padlet and the Quizzes) were felt to be ‘great fun’ and ‘an asset to the meeting’ since they contributed to their understanding of the concepts of Urban Planning and Sustainability.
Last, the very nature of this activity being the first experience of a virtual international meeting for the students (especially after a long period of distant education) was negatively assessed by the majority of the participants.
Evaluation C5 by students