PBL in Engineering and Science – Development of Supervisor Skills

Session 4: Intercultural competences

Mona DahmsDept. of Develoment and Planning

mona@plan.aau.dk

Session 4: Learning outcomes

After this session you should be able to • Identify and discuss learned cultural differences in your

students’ behaviour in the learning situation

• Adapt your teaching style to accomodate a multicultural group of students with culturally learned learning styles, enabling all students to achieve the learning outcomes

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Agenda for session 4

1) Culture and cultural differences (group discussions, 45 min)

2) A break (15 min)3) From cultural differences to intercultural

understanding (personal experiences,15 min)

4) Culture and cultural understanding (lecture, 30 min)

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1. Culture and cultural differences

Group discussions on culture

Tasks in this activity:

In multicultural groups of 5 – 6, your tasks are to• discuss the one topic corresponding to your

group number (all topics are relevant in a teaching and learning situation) (20 min)

• prepare a poster with the topic as the title and the most important and interesting results of your discussion (10 min)

• present your poster in plenum (3 min)

Each participant in the group provides information about her/his own cultural background

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Main Topics to be Discussed

1) Face-to face Communication

2) Timing & Meetings3) Learning Environment4) Teacher-student Relations5) Success and Failure

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Bear in mind in the discussion:

What is Core Value behind such behaviour?

What is Core Distinction between different cultures?

Language, Non-verbal communication, Stereotypes

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Groups for the group exerciseGruppe 1 Group 4

Dalia Kaulakiene Martin Hundebøll

Line Røseth Karlsen Søren Henrik Adam

Kristian Bohnstedt Fang Wang

Wei Fan Lorenza Di Pilla

Alireza Rezaniakolaei Martin Leginus

Giang Phuong Nguyen Prateek Mathur

Group 2 Group 5

Michael Madsen Qobad Shafiee

Steffen Nielsen Chayapol Kamyod

Sonia Fu Pil Seok Kwon

Swati Prasad Simone Riis

Quang Vinh Dang Alexandru Tatomirescu

Priscila de Brito Silva  

Group 3  

Niels Terp Kjeldgaard Jørgensen  

Bente Nørgaard  

Huai Wang  

German Corrales Madueno  

Reza A. Kordkheili  

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Summing up from the group discussions on culture:

• Be aware of your own cultural background

• Be aware of cultural differences

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Is culture an issue ?

How would you read this ad for pills?

(Herlitz 1989:38)

A 15 minutes break!

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2. From cultural differences to intercultural understanding

Personal experiences

Tasks in this activity1) Reflect on your own personal experiences with

meeting people from another cultural background, whether meeting foreigners in your own country or travelling to other countries

2) Write down a few key words describing the most memorable experience you have had, whether surprising, positive, negative, embarrasing or in any other way memorable (5 min)

3) Share this experience with one of the other participants (5 min)

4) Please be prepared to tell your story in plenary (15 min)

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Summing up on personal experiences

• Re-interpret behaviour of other persons from their cultural perspective

• Accept the ambiguity of cross-cultural situations

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3. Culture and cultural understanding

Lecture on

1) Culture – What? 2) Cultural understanding – Why?

How?

Culture – What is it?

Definitions”..that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor 1871)

”Culture is the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others” (Hofsted 1986)

”… the world view and the values, moral norms and observed behaviour … that people take over from a previous generation, that they … seek to pass on to the next generation; and that in one or another way distinguishes them from people belonging to other cultures” (Gullestrup 1992; own translation) 15

Culture – What is it?

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You see only the tip of the

iceberg!

Hofstede’s Theory on Culture

What?

• Hofstede made a comprehensive study of how cultural values influence behaviour in the workplace

• His model of culture includes 5 dimensions

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Ref: http://geert-hofstede.com

The 5-D model of culture

• Low versus high Power distance (PDI)• Individualism versus collectivism

(IDV)• Masculinity versus femininity (MAS)• Low versus high uncertainty

avoidance) (UAI)• Long term versus short term

orientation (LTO)

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The 5-D model of cultureDenmark versus the BRIC countries

Ref: Brændgaard, 2010 19

The 5-D model of cultureDenmark versus other ‘selected’ countries

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Cultural understanding – Why?

From a student/graduate perspective:• One of the required competences in

most large engineering companies• Ex: Global Project Managers in

Grundfos: Communication:• Presentation and language skills –

cultural understanding, that makes you able to operate in different cultures and at different levels of the organisation (Ref: Brændgaard, 2010)

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Other required competences

• Ability to think ‘outside the box’ – open to new ideas

• Minded for working in global networks• Ability to understand customers at different

levels of the organisation and across cultural and geographical borders

• Empathy and ability to manage/lead people with very different backgrounds – culturally and professionally (Ref: Brændgaard, 2010)

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Cultural understanding – Why?

From a teacher perspective the challenges are:

• Use of english as second language

• Culturally learned – and therefore different – perceptions of what is appropriate behaviour in the teaching/learning situation

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Shared perceptions? • ‘I once asked them direct

questions, but I gradually stopped, because I could see that they were embarrassed. I could see that they felt uncomfortable when I asked them, and they were not used to it.

• ‘You need to make it clear to Danish students that they may benefit from the high theoretical level of Polish and Spanish students.’

• ‘The instructions about what to focus on in the project is not clear. He seems to be more interested in process but not in outcomes’.

• ‘I never could speak to a professor like my Danish classmates did as pals. It was too much for me. I would not get used to that attitude.’

• ‘It is nice that professors are informal, but there might be a limit’.

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Shared perceptions?

• ’It is hard to work with them since they are often passive and it is difficult to understand their English…’

• ’It was fun to work with students from different countries, you really learn lots of culture stuff, but I tend to use too much time on teaching them what PBL is and how to do project in a correct way…’

• ’Danish students…they don’t like us, or they behave in a way not so good. I felt, they don’t want to speak to us and that we are complete strangers. In my country usually we are very welcome and warm and we look after our guests’.

• ’It is the way to communicate with Danish students - if I don’t start a conversation, I can easily be quiet the whole day. People are cold…they see you, but they don’t want to acknowledge you.’

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From different to shared perceptions

Shared perceptions on:

• Learning outcomes • Teacher’s role• Learners’ role

• Communication methods

Teaching Learning

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What can you (the teacher) do to achieve shared perceptions?

• Write clear and explicit learning outcomes for all study activities, describing in detail what students are expected to be able to do by the end of the activity, at what level of competence and with which support (See Cowan, App. A for more details)

• Clear and explicit contracts of cooperation with your students, whether in a project group or in a course – mutual, clearly explicited expectations help prevent misunderstandings

• Use the 3 E’s: (More) Explanations; Examples; Exercises

• Use the 3 S’s: Short sentences; Simple words; Speak slowly

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Session 4: Learning outcomes

After this session you should be able to • Identify and discuss learned cultural differences in your

students’ behaviour in the learning situation

• Adapt your teaching style to accomodate a multicultural group of students with culturally learned learning styles, enabling all students to achieve the learning outcomes

• Have these outcomes been achieved?

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Thank you for your attention

–any comments or

questions ?

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