1This presentation reported on the EVALUATE (Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative Teacher Education) project. This was a European Policy Experiment (EPE) project funded by Erasmus+ Key Action 3 which examined the impact of Virtual Exchange on students and teachers of Initial Teacher Education. The project ran from January 2017 until September 2019.
2Virtual Exchange is an educational approach which involves the engagement of groups of learners in extended periods of online intercultural interaction and collaboration with international partner classes as an integrated part of their educational programmes and under the guidance of their teachers or online facilitators. Virtual Exchange is based on student-centred, international and collaborative approaches to learning where knowledge and understanding are constructed through online interaction and negotiation with students from other cultures.
3The aim of policy experimentations is to assess the effectiveness and potential scalability of innovative policy measures through experimental or semi-experimental approaches. This particular EPE evaluated the impact of class to class Virtual Exchange on student teachers involved in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (also referred to as "pre-service" education) in European countries and regions.