GPE CONFERENCE EXPLORES IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON EDUCATION IN LEBANON

The technology in support of online learning for universities during the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved quickly and each country faces it’s own challenges. With this in mind, the Modern University for Business & Science (MUBS) participated in the 13th Annual Global Partners in Education (GPE) Conference hosted by East Carolina University from 18-20 May 2020.

In response to COVID-19, the Conference moved on-line and teachers, technical support personnel, students, and administrators from GPE partner institutions around the world explored how the current state of the world is changing education. Global Partners in Education is a membership organization of 47 institutions in 29 countries committed to using technology to provide students international opportunities to help develop the intercultural skills so essential in today’s world.

The three-day conference included sessions on the State of GPE, New Initiatives, the Global BEEHIVE Project, paper presentations on best practices and research, and an awards ceremony for the 2020 GPE Awards. MUBS is a previous recipient of the MengFanxi Award for Institutional Excellence granted by the Secretariat of the GPE. During a facilitated discussion examining how GPE partner institutions have responded to this global crisis and lessons learnt Manal Ahmad Zeineddine, English language and Global Understanding course coordinator, MUBS, joined partners from the GPE community to address the challenges of training university students to use online platforms. She also discussed her study Establishing Empathy in a Virtual Course: A Study Depicting Polish and Lebanese Students in a language course which she co-authored with Katerzyna Dzimian, Krosno State College, Poland.

MUBS instructors also shared the University’s best practices on delivering a new global health course using online platforms. As the Global Partner in Education for Lebanon MUBS aims to provide opportunities for students with Global Virtual Exchange (GVE). “Our goal is for our students to improve intercultural communication and collaboration skills necessary in today's multi cultural society", says Diana Maddah, Research Director, MUBS.

"Offering the conference on-line in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic created opportunities for groups that otherwise typically cannot participate in our in-person conference", says Jami Leibowitz, Ph.D., Chair, Global Partners in Education. “Subsequently we had approximately five times as many people participate than normal. This allowed us to really explore some important issues for the organization and member institutions and hear from a diversity of voices.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is an experiment in the demands of online learning around the world. And, university students in Lebanon are navigating the crisis positively with access to digital platforms, despite the challenges of a weak digital urban-rural divide, to pursue their studies. Online delivery has proven to be a worthy global learning format for MUBS students with its own distinctive asset: to reach out globally and share best practices and research.