The global classroom model simultaneous campus- and home-based education using videoconferencing

This paper presents and discusses findings about how students, teachers, and the organization experience a start-up-project applying videoconferences between campus and home. This is new territory for adult learning centers. The research is based on the Global Classroom Model as it is implemented and used at an adult learning center in Denmark, named VUC Storstrøm. . After a couple of years of campus-to-campus video streaming, VUC Storstrøm started a fulltime day program in 2011 with the support of a hybrid campus and videoconference model. In this model the teachers and some of the students are present on campus in the classroom, while other students are participating simultaneously from their home using laptops.
In this paper, the case and context of VUC Storstrøm, the research design chosen, and the literature that already exists in this area constitutes the backdrop for the analysis and discussion of the first activities in this long-term project. The research is based on interviews, on utterances in feedback sessions, and on the observed interaction taking place in the first sixths month of 2013 (i.e. 1½ year after the first program commenced). Evaluations show that the students are happy with the flexibility this model provides in their everyday life. However, findings also show several obstacles: Technical issues are at play, but also the learning design of the lessons, as well as general organizational and cultural issues. In this paper we focus on the students and teachers experiences and on the organizational issues related to the transition to the Global Classroom Model as well as provide outlines to the consequences these findings may have, for example in relation to the continued development of the teachers’ educational designs.