The Dean’s Office of PGE together with the Help Desk organized the participation of students and residents of the International Higher School of Medicine in the Virtual Academic Exchange Program “Development of actual student competencies - critical thinking and increasing intrinsic motivation through metacognition”, conducted by the IHSM partner, Modern Education & Research Institute (MERI), Belgium, from  April 1  to May 23, 2022.
Virtual exchange, as defined by the EVOLVE Erasmus+ project, is an educational method based on technologies and collaborative learning of students from different geographic regions.
The main objective of the program was to increase intercultural awareness and develop the skills demanded in the labor market.
The trainings were conducted online. The online trainings were aimed at developing basic competencies - critical thinking, as well as increasing motivation through online and combined training using empathy and metacognition techniques.

For skills building, various formats of interaction between students and trainers were proposed:

• group and individual studies;
• brainstorming;
• group discussions;
• practical exercises for the formation of basic competencies;
• learning though game;
• questionaries
• presentation of research results to the participants.

As a result of the virtual academic exchange program, students prepared 4 group studies on the features of the educational system of the EU member states: Spain, Sweden, Greece, France. The participants worked on the research in groups autonomously and with the full support of the facilitators.
To complete the task, the students successfully maintained communication in groups, developed a strategy for collaboration, applied technical tools and skills.
The results of the research were presented by the speakers of the groups at the final session and aroused great interest among the audience. The teachers noted the high technical level of presentations and the ability of the speakers to correctly convey information in English.
Based on the results of the work, the participants of the virtual academic exchange prepared articles that will be published in the September issue of MERI journal: The Scientific Journal of the Modern Education & Research Institute (ISSN 2506-8040). 

The following IHSM students successfully completed the program, carried out all the tasks and received certificates:

1. Yadav Manodj - resident, 2nd  year, specialty "Traumatology and Orthopedics"
2. Habib Ur Rehman – student, 10th semester, group 53, "General Medicine"
3. Narmin Fatima - student , 3rd  semester, group 18, "General Medicine"
4. Ikra Khurshid Ahmed – student, 3rd  semester, group 21, “General Medicine”
5. Bibi Huma – student, 3rd  semester, group 9, “General Medicine”
6. Redjab Hayat – student, 3rd  semester, group18, “General Medicine”