Transcript Vande Berg`s Presentation PPt

What Can Students and Faculty Do
to Maximize Learning Abroad?
Michael Vande Berg, Ph.D.
St. Olaf College
24-25 October, 2013
Three dominant narratives: Our community’s
”stories” about learning across cultural gaps
1. Humans learn through exposure to cultural difference
2. Humans learn by being immersed in different types of
cultural difference
3. Humans learn and develop:
a) by being immersed in cultural difference,
b) by reflecting on how they & others frame experience,
c) and by re-framing their experience
Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M., & Lou, K. H. (Eds.) (2012). Student learning abroad: what our
students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
First story: students learn when they are exposed
to the unfamiliar culture “out there”
• Students learn through exposure to the new and
different in privileged places.
• Students learn when educators describe, talk about
cultural-specific differences.
The first story is hierarchical: Students encounter
sophisticated, “civilized” people & places
• With the Grand Tour—this story’s signature
program—learning occurs through exposure to
the new & different in privileged places, and
through modeling and imitation
With story one, we learn to cross cultural
gaps through imitating external models
• To learn, we climb up. . .
• And when we
slide down. . .
Second story: Cultural relativism undermines
the assumption of cultural hierarchy
Our common humanity binds us together, and
no culture is superior to any other
Second narrative: immersing learners
productively through social engineering
The Contact Hypothesis*: several “Conditions” need to
be present if groups separated by deep differences are
to change attitudes about each other:
• Equal status
• Common goals
• Intergroup cooperation
• Authority support
• Friendship potential
*Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addision-Wesley.
*Pettigrew, T. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 65-85.
*Pettigrew, T. (2008). Future directions for intergroup contact theory and research.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32, 187-199.
Second Story: educators foster learning through
“immersing” students in difference
Types of differences
educators teach before
immersing students:
• Non-verbal
communication
• Communication
styles
• Learning styles
• Cognitive styles
• Value contrasts
Second story: our community’s core
immersion assumptions and practices
• Maximize duration of experience
• Enroll students in host institutions
• Improve second language
proficiency
• Maximize contact with host nationals
• Carry out “experiential” activities: Internships, service
learning, field work, etc.
• House students with host families or host students
Evidence supporting first and second stories
Most frequently cited: “Study abroad
transformed me”
Convergence of disciplinary evidence challenges
the positivism of stories 1 & 2: “Constructivism”
• The History of Science (Kuhn)
• Cultural Anthropology (Hall, La Brack)
• Experiential learning theory (Kolb, Osland)
• Developmental theory (Piaget, Perry, Belenky, Kegan, Baxter Magolda)
• Intercultural Communication (Hall, Bennett, Bennett, Hammer)
• Psychology (Lewin, Kelly, Savicki)
• Linguistics (Sapir, Whorf, Deutscher)
• Cognitive Biology (Maturana, Varela)
• Neuroscience (Zull)
Recent research findings also challenge
first & second story assumptions about learning
• In the Georgetown Consortium study* 1,159 study abroad
students enrolled in 61 separate study abroad programs; 138
control students did not study abroad.
• On average, students abroad did not make significant gains in
intercultural competence: “a student is all too often in the vicinity
of Shanghai without having a Shanghai experience.”
• While learning gains of
female students were not large,
they did, on average, learn & develop
significantly more—interculturally
and linguistically—than did males.
*Vande Berg, M. (2009). Intervening in student learning abroad: A research-based
inquiry. (M. Bennett, Guest Ed.) Intercultural Education, Vol. 20, Issue 4, pp. 1527.
Core Georgetown Study findings*: To what
extent do traditional “immersion”
practices foster intercultural learning?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Send students abroad for longer periods: Limited impact
Take steps to improve SL proficiency: No impact
Maximize contact with host nationals: No impact
Enroll in host school classes: No impact
Doing Internships, service learning: No impact
Maximizing contact with host nationals: No impact
Being housed in home stays: No impact
Pre departure cultural orientation: Yes—some impact
Home stays: Yes—when students engaged with host family
Cultural mentoring at sites abroad: Yes—the highest impact
practice in the study
*Vande Berg, M.; Connor-Linton, J.; & Paige, R. M. The Georgetown Consortium
Study: Intervening in student learning abroad. Frontiers: the Interdisciplinary
Journal of Study Abroad. Vol. XVIII, pp. 1-75.
Third Story: how each of us frames
an event determines what it means
• We begin to learn interculturally
as we become aware of how we
and others typically frame
our experiences:“ We don’t
see things as they are,
we see things as we are.”
(Anias Nin)
Third story: Since most students abroad don’t
develop on their own, educators need to intervene
 Educators help students learn to interact more effectively
and appropriately in unfamiliar cultural contexts through:
• Helping immerse students in difference—part of the time
• Helping students learn to reflect—and thus to become
aware of the ways that they and others characteristically
frame experience
• Helping students learn to re-frame—that is, to shift
perspective and adapt behavior to other cultural contexts
An influential third story learning theory: Learning
is experiential, developmental and holistic
Kolb, A. & D. Kolb. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential
learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 4,
No. 2, 193-212.
An influential developmental theory:
the Intercultural Development Continuum
Deeply
Comprehends
Difference
Bridges across
Difference
Deemphasizes
Difference
Judges
Difference
Misses
Difference
Intercultural
Mindset
Adaptation
Acceptance
Minimization
Polarization
Denial
Monocultural
Mindset
Copyright, 1998-2013, Mitchell R. Hammer, Ph.D., IDI, LLC, used with permission
Modified from the Developmental
Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
(DMIS), M. Bennett, 1986
Facilitating intercultural development through
study abroad: 4 current approaches to intervention
• Faculty or staff living at sites abroad train students
through required or elective courses
• Home campus faculty accompanying students train
them at sites abroad
• Faculty and staff train students before and after study
abroad through required training courses
• Faculty or TAs at home campuses train students, on line,
while students are abroad
Assessing Intercultural Development:
Comparative Program Data (IDI=90-point scale*)
SA without facilitation at program site:
IDI Gains
• Georgetown U. Consortium Study (60 progs.)** +1.32
SA with facilitation across program:
• U of Pacific training program
IDI Gains
+17.46
• AUCP training program (Aix, Marseille)
+13.00
• CIEE training program (20 programs, fall 2012) +11.34
•
•
Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI): www.idiinventory.com; Hammer, M. (2012).
Hammer, M. (2012). The Intercultural Development Inventory: A new frontier in assessment and
development of intercultural competence. In Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M. & Lou, K. H. (Eds.). What our
students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Four core intercultural competencies
Helping students learn to interact more effectively and
appropriately with culturally different others means:
 Helping them increase their cultural and personal
self awareness through reflecting on their
experiences;
 Helping them increase their awareness of others
within their own cultural and personal contexts;
 Helping them learn to manage emotions in the face
of ambiguity, change, and challenging circumstances
& people
 Helping them learn to bridge cultural gaps—which is
to say, helping them learn to shift frames and adapt
behavior to other cultural contexts.
Thank you!
[email protected]
21
Workshop: Applying Intercultural Theory
and Research to our Teaching & Training
Michael Vande Berg, Ph.D.
St. Olaf College
Friday, October 25
Three dominant narratives—our community’s
”stories”—about learning across cultural gaps
1. Humans learn through exposure to cultural difference
2. Humans learn by being immersed in different types of
cultural difference
3. Humans learn and develop:
a) by being immersed in cultural difference,
b) by reflecting on how they & others frame experience,
c) and by re-framing their experience
Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M., & Lou, K. H. (Eds.) (2012). Student learning abroad: what our
students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
A growing gap: different stories
about learning away
• Which story or stories about learning away are
students typically telling?
• We educators are increasingly likely to be telling
story three.
• What can we do to bridge this learner/educator
cultural gap?
Four core intercultural competencies
Helping students learn to interact more effectively and
appropriately with culturally different others means:
 Helping them increase their cultural and personal
self awareness through reflecting on their
experiences;
 Helping them increase their awareness of others
within their own cultural and personal contexts;
 Helping them learn to manage emotions in the face
of ambiguity, change, and challenging circumstances
& people
 Helping them learn to bridge cultural gaps—which is
to say, helping them learn to shift frames and adapt
behavior to other cultural contexts.
Approaching learning away developmentally:
A profoundly intercultural process
1. Bring my own way of framing the event into
awareness
2. Bring the student’s/students’ way(s) of framing the
event into awareness
3. Start our teaching/training by shifting our frame
and adapting our behavior to our students’ ways
of framing learning away—a developmental
approach to interacting more effectively and
appropriately
At the same time we’re working to shift our frame:
We’re balancing learner Challenge & Support
Fadiman, Clifton. (1966). Self and Society.
Pre-departure & on-site orientations:
Helping start student IC learning & development
• Identifying personal goals (identifying outcomes and obstacles
comes later): “Why am I choosing to learn away from home?”
• Practicing framing & re-framing
• Understanding “Culture,” mine and yours (objective & subjective)
• Identifying out-of-awareness assumptions
• The comfort, learning and panic zones (“holistic learning” without
the third story jargon)
• Practicing reflection, & increasing awareness of self and other
• Practicing learning around the experiential cycle
• Reflecting and increasing awareness of own tendencies through
practicing basic transition model (not “culture shock” models)
• Suspending judgment and engaging ambiguity
• Becoming aware of learning styles, mine and yours
• Becoming aware of common communication style dimensions,
mine and yours
• Practicing basic adaptation process
• Practicing mindfulness
• Beginning to engage with cultural partner
Teachers/trainers need to familiarize themselves with:
• Learner-centered needs at each stage of sojourn
• Focusing all training around the four core intercultural
competencies
• Activities that help learners practice the four core competencies
(see bibliography)
• Helping students shift perspective around their learning and adapt
their behavior to the third story (that is, practicing the basic
adaptation process ourselves)
• Balancing learner challenge and support (including the comfort,
learning and panic zones)
• Differentiating learning and development
• Assessing Intercultural learning and development
• Experiential training—through simulations, role plays, skits
• The debriefing of such analogue activities “around the
experiential cycle” (Kolb and Thiagi question sequences)
• Holistic training: legitimizing and practicing the emotional
dimensions of learning and training
• Understanding and practicing mindfulness and empathy
• Focusing on our own intercultural development
Facilitating our own intercultural learning
and development: Some action steps
• From theory to practice: familiarizing ourselves with
the literature (see bibliography)
• Learning to train developmentally, experientially &
holistically: attendance at intercultural workshops
– Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC;
annually in July in Portland, OR)
– Intercultural Development Inventory Qualifying Seminar (IDI
QS; multiple times a year, including in Minneapolis)
– Queen University’s International Educators Training Program
(IETP; annually in June in Kingston, ON)
– Wake Forest Skills Enhancement Program (WISE; annually in
February in Winston-Salem, NC)
Framing the experience their way: Students
choose to learn away “to make a difference”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Goals
“Making a difference”: for self, self & other, society
Study what I can’t at home in my major
1
Explore new academic perspectives
1
Improve Second Language proficiency
1
Make a difference in others’ lives: service
3
Make a difference in other’s lives: research
3
Enhance c.v. and employability
1
Travel to new and different places
1
Find romance, maybe the love of my life
2
Make friends in new & different places
2
Escape personal problems at home
1
Escape academic rigor of home campus
1
“Bragging rights”
1
One case: shifting our frame for those students
who want to enhance their c.v. & employability
“There is real business value in employing staff who have the
ability to work effectively with individuals and organizations
from cultural backgrounds different from their own.
Employees who lack these skills may leave their organizations
susceptible to risks including:
• Loss of clients
• Damage to reputation
• Conflict with Teams” *
Employers report that educational institutions should do more
to help students develop intercultural competence.
*“Culture at Work: The Value of Intercultural Skills in the Workplace.”(2013). British Council,
IPSOS, & Booz/Allen/Hamilton. http://www.britishcouncil.org/press/research-revealsvalue-intercultural-skills-workplace
Providing support often means starting with the
(more or less) familiar: “What do we see?”
Providing support by leading with the familiar:
Describe the woman in this picture
Teaching Learning: A basic simulation game
for introducing framing and assumptions
Draw four straight lines connecting all nine dots, without
retracing any line or lifting your pen from the page
Practicing framing & frame shifting
“Ask yourself:
What assumption am I making,
That I’m not aware I’m making,
That gives me what I see?
And when you answer that, ask yourself:
What might I now invent,
That I haven’t yet invented,
That would give me other choices?”
* Zander, R. S. & Zander, B. (2000). The art of possibility. New York: Penguin
Becoming aware of out-of-awareness assumptions
behind our frames. More practice!
Draw three straight lines connecting all nine dots, without
retracing any line, or lifting your pen from the page
What have we begin to experience through such
optical illusions and simulations?
• We do not experience events in the same way: we
frame our experience in different ways—even if we’re
all from the same national culture.
• The meaning of events is not in the events themselves,
but in us: We make the meaning that we perceive in
events—and we can make meaning differently from
others, even if we’re all from the same national culture.
• We can learn to shift our frames of reference.
• When we can see that there are different ways of
framing an event, we have choices!
An intercultural strategy:
Simulations & Debriefing
 Thiagi’s six debriefing stages (compare Kolb):
•
•
•
•
How do you feel?
What happened?
What did you learn?
How does this relate to the world outside this
room?
• What if. . . ?
• What next?
Thank you!
[email protected]
40