This paper aims to present the concept and the evaluation of a series of digital workshops between the Faculties of Education at Nelson Mandela University (South Africa), Rijks University (Netherlands) and the Carl Von Ossietzky University (Germany). The workshop series forms part of a bigger project that focuses on Internationalising Teacher Education that is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service. The workshop series was conceptualized as a way to facilitate student exchanges during the Covid-19 pandemic when physical mobility was not possible.

The “Teaching Across Borders” (TAB) workshops were developed and implemented to get students from the different institutions to collaborate in lesson planning. In the first workshop students learned about the different schooling systems of the participating countries. During the second workshop they analyzed videos of classroom settings and lessons taught in the three countries. Their analysis was informed by the principles of lesson planning and lesson design. In the third workshop the students were provided with a lesson plan template and required to work together to develop a lesson that could be taught in all three countries. These lessons were then presented at the final workshop where students got feedback from a panel of teachers from the different countries.

The aim of the workshop series is to expose students to different education systems to enhance international teacher education. The TAB workshops are informed by the professionalization of teacher education and the understanding of the role of the reflective practitioner as well as the application of a humanising pedagogy. We are currently implementing the fourth round of the workshop series and each iteration built on the previous series with changes suggested by the student participants to further enhance the exchange experience.

Student experiences of the workshop series over the past three years were established by survey and by interviewing a selection of the participants from each university. The results showed mostly positive reviews with the interviewees highlighting the benefit of enhanced intercultural experiences through participating in the workshops. In this paper I reflect on my experience of planning and participating in these workshops as a teacher educator and seek to find new possibilities to further develop the virtual workshop series as well as how it can be transferred to other universities.

Keywords: Internationalisation, Teacher Education, Virtual Exchange Programme, Lesson Planning, Teacher Professionalization, Reflective practitioners, Humanising Pedagogy.