Social Work Erasmus Exchange goes ahead in virtual forum

A brief item about a 'cancelled' Erasmus trip and 'on-line' learning in a short space of time.

Social Work Erasmus 'exchange' goes ahead in a virtual forum The University's Erasmus link with the University of Applied Social Sciences, Dortmund was 'cancelled' because of Covid-19. Despite this, the teaching programme went ahead using Dortmund's on-line portals.

Existing material was 're-worked' by the lecturers (Graeme Simpson & Katja Nowacki) in a very short timeframe, ensuring a focus upon German language teaching. Graeme Simpson added a German language audio track to Power poInt presentations and a revised case study materials were developed used. Graeme commented that "this was a challenging process without group discussions and not much time for German language preparation- but overall it worked'.

The material was completed in time and the student feedback was very positive. One student commented that 'it seems that we have missed the chance of some really exciting lectures and seminars'. With continued uncertainty over the UK's relationship with the EU, future exchange visits may be limited, however we hope to welcome Professor Nowacki in November (Covid-19 and 'Brexit' permitting).

This was the 21st exchange visit between the two Universities and the 5th year that this particular short course of study has run. It was especially unfortunate that the trip couldn't go ahead as a number of student's from Wolverhampton had planned to travel to Dortmund to have face to face meetings with their German counterparts. We hope that this will be able to go ahead at some point in the future.