“Introduction to multiculturalism”: an intercollegiate distance learning course - the Druze Arab case

ABSTRACT This case study aims to explore the experience of a group of religious Druze students in an advanced distance learning intercollegiate course on multiculturalism, that involved a distant learning platform and a virtual world (VW). Though 96 students from four different colleges and backgrounds took part in this intercollegiate course, this study focuses only on one group of twenty religious Druze students from one college. This group is of particular interest and significance since it is culturally detached from the Arab and Jewish communities in Israel. The qualitative data was collected by examining students’ reflections on the experiences they had in the VW during the distance learning course, their responses to the forum assignments as well as their reflections (video/open-ended questions) at the end of the course. The findings revealed three main themes that reflect the students’ self-exploration journey throughout the course. These themes relate to the students’ experiential, techno-emotional, and cognitive aspects of the learning experience throughout the course.