Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The International Conference on Transnational Education: Beyond Borders in Higher Education, Ankara, Türkiye, 28 - 29 Kasım 2025, ss.19, (Özet Bildiri)
This study explores a virtual exchange (VE) project organized with two different institutions in Türkiye and Germany. As innovative practices in transnational higher education and global education, the VE projects prepare future teachers to being globally competent professionals. To this end, this study analyzes a VE project involving pre-service language teachers from Türkiye and Germany. The participants in the VE project submitted a final reflection paper which included guiding questions about the experiences they had throughout the project. These reflection papers, written by participants based in Turkiye, were designed in a way that they incorporated literature-based, open-ended questions related to SDGs, global citizenship and VE experiences. Adopting an exploratory qualitative approach, all these responses were then manually coded and subjected to do thematic analysis. The analysis demonstrated that VE projects helped the pre-service language teachers develop their global competence in which they (i.) explored the local and international topics, (ii.) conceptualized others’ views and angles, (iii.) engaged in multicultural communication, and (iv.) took action for development and innovation. These findings position VE as a pedagogical innovation in transnational education, offering a scalable model of “internationalisation at home” that transcends physical mobility barriers. The results are also important in that digital partnerships afforded by VE might contribute to global education ecosystems, preparing future teachers to address global and critical challenges within local classrooms while sustaining intercultural dialogue across borders.