The International Virtual Internship of the RUDECOLOMBIA PhD Program in Education Sciences in partnership with UNAD Florida: an innovative good practice in education

Abstract

This article aims to analyze an innovative good practice in education accomplished within RUDECOLOMBIA PhD program in Education Sciences, at the University of Cartagena, in partnership with UNAD Florida, USA. Specifically, the process of designing and putting into practice the International Internship in virtual mode is addressed. The internship is a condition of graduation from the doctoral program that required, until the year 2020, the displacement of doctoral students from Colombia to foreign countries, for a period of not less than one month. The internship, focus of this research, was implemented for two purposes; one, face the transition to virtuality, imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 and, two, adhere to the orientation of training oriented by learning outcomes. The research led to a process of hermeneutic analysis of the actors, objectives, design/ components of the pedagogical practice, quality standards and scope of internationalization as explanatory and validating axes of the international internship. A documentary research process was carried out to inform the variables that affect doctoral training in an international internship. Additionally, the experiences of doctoral internships developed in virtual learning environments in Latin America were explored. Equally, a qualitative approach was used; several focus groups were performed in order to involve the leading actors in the process of designing the doctoral internship: doctoral students, teachers and tutors (supervisors). An essential element of feasibility was the construction of a Virtual Learning Environment, which was a virtual classroom hosted at UNAD Florida (Moodle platform). It is concluded that the virtual international internship contributes to achieving several objectives: inter-institutional cooperation, internationalization, the training of doctors, the transition to virtual education and the reorientation of the educational process according to learning outcomes. The internship constitutes an innovative academic practice not only for the doctoral students, but also for the professors of both universities, for the supervisors, and for the academic coordinators of the program who are incorporating technological tools and approaches unexplored in face-to-face internships.