THE NON-FORMAL ACADEMY EXPERIENCE: AN EXPLORATORY MODEL TO DEVELOP STUDENTS’ COMPETENCES FOR WORKING IN INTERNATIONAL AND VIRTUAL TEAMS

This article describes the experience of developing, and piloting, a Non-Formal Academy, for developing student’s competences to work in international and virtual teams, that took place under the scope of the European Project CATCH-IT. The experience involved the collaboration of educators and students from Portugal, Denmark and Poland, and consisted on the development and piloting of a stepwise approach to engage students in international and collaborative teamwork, with the purpose of making them acquainted with the demands of such working contexts, that are both timely and relevant in today’s labor market. The motivation for the development of this research work stems from the research accounts, as well as the empirical observation that, the current generations of Higher Education students, to a great extent, be engaged in multicultural and internationalized working environments. This calls for the development of specific competences, such as cultural intelligence for effective international collaboration, as well as the ability to work in technology mediated contexts, that often support the work on internationally distributed project teams. The teaching and learning model developed for the NonFormal Academy involved, a preliminary phase devoted to the organization of students into diversified groups, and the development of thematic project proposals related with the development of international careers and international business, in each of the partner countries. Afterwards the students were engaged in a stepwise learning model to support the development of their projects in four steps that aimed to expose them to international and collaborative working contexts in a progressive manner. The steps included: i) a step 1, consisting of group fieldwork conducted in each of the partner countries; ii) a step 2, involving the collection of data and the interaction between the students and international experts, in each of the partner countries; iii) a step 3, involving work in virtual international teams, supported by computer mediated communication, and bringing together students from the three partner countries; and iv) a final step 4, where groups of students selected in a competitive manner from the work developed in the previous phases, were engaged in a small cross-exchange period across the partner countries, to finalize their projects in a face-to-face manner with their colleagues from three participating countries. The experience allowed for the development of the Non-Formal Academy model, and enables a rich teaching and learning experience that exposed students to the demands of work in international teams and contexts. Students involved in the process perceived important benefits from the experience, and provided key feedback information to further improve the proposed model, in order to make it replicable in the future.