Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college overlooking Lake Champlain and Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Quebec and Dublin, Ireland.

From March 24 to April 10, 2015 17 of their Mediation & Applied Conflict Studies students practiced their mediation skills online with Giuseppe Leone, founder of Virtual Mediation Lab.

They played the mediator’s role and the role of of one of the parties in a series of online simulations which consisted of 3 parts:

>> 1-hour mediation of a commercial, family or workplace case
>> 15-min debriefing
>> Video recording (all students could watch all video recordings)

At the end of their online mediation skills development training, students filled out an Exit Survey. Here are some of their comments.

Kelly – “The debriefing session at the end is very helpful, and I find that I learn just as much being a party as I do being the mediator.”

Melissa – “ I enjoyed all of it. I would love to see this incorporated more regularly into the curriculum.”

Susannah – “Thank you, Giuseppe. I find Virtual Online mediation very helpful in practicing, even more than in person because I can play it back and reflect on what I did well and what I could have done better.”

And this is what Julian Portilla – Director, Masters in Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies – wrote to Giuseppe Leone:

“Many many thanks for the great work you did. The students were thrilled and so were the instructors.”