Teachers’ workshop 2025: Strengthening Teaching Practices in UniPID Virtual Studies Programme

This May, the Coordination Unit hosted the annual teachers’ workshop, bringing together both current and new teachers from the UniPID Virtual Studies Programme. The workshop provided a space for reflection on past experiences and collaborative discussion on how to further develop the program for the upcoming year. The session fostered open dialogue, allowing teachers to exchange ideas, voice concerns, and explore new ways to strengthen virtual teaching practices.

Every year, the Coordination Unit holds annual meetings with teachers as part of the ongoing development of the UniPID Virtual Studies. This year’s workshop, held under the theme “Strengthening Teaching Practices in UniPID Virtual Studies”, was also organized as a pivotal contribution for shaping UniPID’s Strategy Plan 2026-2030.

Recognizing the need for deeper internal reflection, the Coordination Unit considered it especially important to provide more space to focus on teaching practices and shared challenges in virtual teaching. To support this, the workshop program was structured in two moments: the first one offered prompts to guide discussion, while the second one was led by the participating teachers.

During the first part of the workshop, the Virtual Studies Coordinator, Ana Tarazona offered a presentation highlighting the Conclusions and Recommendations chapters from the Student Feedback Report. Additionally, some virtual studies records from previous years were shared, in order to identify trends in the virtual programme. The findings provided a shared point of reference and framed the discussions that followed.

Following that, the participating teachers were assigned into three small-group discussions to engage in in-depth discussion on topics such as student engagement in online courses, student–teacher and peer interaction, and collaboration with Global South partners. The group discussions, facilitated by Kaisa Kurki, Tatia Vashadze, and Ana Tarazona, encouraged self-reflection and the exchange of diverse viewpoints and experiences.

Several common values emerged across all discussion groups: the importance of clear communication, the sharing of expectations both from teachers and students, inclusive and flexible course design, and the significance of ongoing cooperation, not just between teachers and students, but also with partners in the Global South to foster more meaningful learning experiences. In order to enhance connection and engagement, teachers emphasized the benefits of co-creation, interactive tools, and early planning.

Shared commitments and suggestions for future enhancements marked the end of the session. Moving forward, we hope that these ideas and concerns expressed can contribute to the further development of the virtual studies program.

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A heartfelt thank you to all the teachers participating in the workshop. Your time, transparency, and considerate contributions are much valued and crucial to the ongoing development of UniPID's Virtual Studies Programme.

What is Next?
New online courses have been recently announced, and the revised UniPID course catalogue will be released in late spring. Stay tuned!

Photo Credits: Jan Piatkowski, 2020 on UnSplash