ROCKET Outreach Conference #3

Inter/Faces: Experiences with Interculturality and Diversity around Critical Virtual Exchange

How can we account for diversity in higher education and promote equal opportunities? How can we adapt to a teaching context which not only becomes increasingly intercultural, but has also moved from the analog into the digital realm in recent years? And how can we navigate the conflicts that arise, learn about ourselves, and foster the wellbeing of students, lecturers, and administrative staff alike?

Important Links

Click on this link to view an overview of all shared presentation slides (password-protected):

https://rocket-erasmus.eu/presentations-outreach-conference-3/

Outreach Event Programme

Keynotes

Prof. Dr. Carolyn Blume (PH Heidelberg) – “The Capability to Launch: Power, Identity, and Inclusion in Digital Spaces”

Prof. Dr. Mathilde Niehaus (Cologne University) – “From Invisible to Influential: Empowering Staff and Students with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities in Universities”

Prof. Dr. Debbie Ging (Dublin City University) – “Game Changers?: Reflections on designing scenario-led interventions on masculinity, gender-based violence and the manosphere”

Presentations in the Sessions

Session I: Inclusion, Intercultural Understanding, and Critical Virtual Exchange

• Building intercultural competence through educational role-playing games (Schreiber)
• Cracking the Culture Code: Cultivating Intercultural Competence to Transform Diversity into Team Strength (Granson)
• Going beyond “Did the Zoom Work?”: Measuring, evaluation and learning from DEI Impact in Critical Virtual Exchange (Berkowitz)
• Bridging Cultures in Hybrid Spaces: Lessons from Virtual Exchange and Seasonal Schools in Intercultural Learning (Topuz)

Session II: (Neuro)Diversity and Roleplaying Games

• Learning Neurodiversity and Cognitive Alterity by Doing: A Game-Based Pedagogy for Developing Cognitive Empathy (Rebecchi)
• Teleneuro: Results and Findings from a Neurodivergent TTRPG Design Workshop (Femia)
• “Black to Blue” – A transformative Tabletop-RPG (Hennemann)

Session III: On Gender Equity and Becoming a Researcher

• The Sexist Journalism Observatory as an Interface for DEI: Critical Virtual Exchange and Role-Play in Journalism Education (Taboada-Castell and Merchan-Mota)
• Two Cultures, One Problem? Gender-Specific Barriers for Early Career Researchers in the Natural Sciences and the Humanities (Övermann and Fulda)
• Becoming a Researcher? Designing a Meaningful Career Within and Beyond Academia (Maut)

The presentations address one of the project areas and place a strong focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We are interested in various kinds of inter/faces; a term which we take to extend to intercultural exchange, diversity, digital teaching formats and how they can connect participants across the globe. We also apply this term to conflict transformation and role-playing games, which allow us to interact playfully by putting on a different face.

The project ROCKET (“Role-Playing Games on Conflict Transformation for Equity in Higher Education through Virtual Exchange”) began in 2024. The project’s main objective is to develop a blueprint for Critical Virtual Exchange (cf. Hauck), which integrates interpersonal and conflict transformation skills as well as the innovative teaching format of online role-playing games, in order to deepen intercultural understanding and appreciation of diversity in higher education. Initiated in the ENLIGHT network and conceived by the universities of Göttingen, Groningen, and Uppsala, ROCKET is a cooperation partnership funded by Erasmus+. Accordingly, it combines areas of expertise from all three institutions and thereby addresses matters of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (Göttingen), Critical Virtual Exchange (Groningen), and Role-Playing Games and Conflict Transformation (Uppsala).

Reference: Hauck, Mirjam: From Virtual Exchange to Critical Virtual Exchange and Critical Internationalization at Home (2023-07-03). The Global Impact Exchange, 2023 (Spring). 9-12.