Collaboration
Collaboration
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“It is important to know ourselves, to understand our own ways of doing things and how we react to situations […] It is important to question our principles and our knowledge […] only then will we be able to understand others (Jacinta).” (quote in Pinto 2018)
During the coming period, you will be communicating, meeting up, and working together on a cross-cultural educational challenge in different teams: with your international team and with your fellow students from your own university. In this step, you will get to know each other, figure out what's needed to 'make it work', and learn about intercultural competency.
This step is part of the online starting session on March 23. After that, you need about 1.5-2 hours to further set up your teamwork. You can find the general planning of the course here.
Nice to meet you, let's make it work together!
Nice to meet you, let's make it work together!
Working together as well as communicating in an international/intercultural setting can be challenging. What competencies are required to bring this programme and your challenge to a success? What do you personally need to 'make it work'? Below, a list of guiding questions is provided to get to know each other and to discuss possibilities and requirements to make your teamwork successful.
Nice to meet you! (20 minutes)
Start with a quick ‘introduction round’, sharing your name, your programme/teaching subject, and answering one (!) of the following questions:
How do your friends describe you (in three words!)?
What do you prefer to spend your time on?
What gives you energy?
What can we wake you up for at night?
What defines us? (20 minutes)
For this part, you are divided into four breakout rooms (one per university). Take 5-7 minutes to think about the following questions individually and write down what comes to mind first:
What defines me? Can you come up with a couple of main characteristics that can be related to you, and your (cultural) background?
What defines my culture? What is, according to you 'typical...', which ‘rules & codes’ can you distinguish, looking at your own ‘culture’?
How do we in [country/region] communicate? Can you come up with a few examples?
Learning and teaching: What are your views and which ideas are ‘common’ in your culture/region on learning and teaching?
What do we need? Based on your answers to the previous questions, describe briefly what you need to perform optimally during this challenge.
Then take another 13-15 minutes to quickly share your main thoughts on your background as a group and try to come up with a few commonly shared characteristics, codes, values, etc. What makes you 'you'? What is the 'common denominator'? Please note:
Try to avoid assumptions, judgements or prejudices.
Keep the remaining, more personal, answers to yourself for now. They might help you during upcoming sessions. Two additional questions you can reflect on for yourself towards the next session, are:
How do I personally communicate?
What do I need? What do you (personally) need (from others) on a more personal level to perform optimally during this challenge?
According to David Pinto, it takes three steps to develop your intercultural competency:
Getting to know your own (culture-related) norms and values. Which rules and codes influence your thinking, acting and communicating?
Getting to know the other person's (culture-related) norms, values and codes of conduct by investigating the possible meaning of the other person's ‘different’ behavior.
Defining your response to the major differences in norms and values in the given situation. Then determine where your limits lie in terms of adjustment to and acceptance of the other person and explain these boundaries clearly to one another.
More on the three-step method can be found in Pinto's 2000 monograph Intercultural Communication: A Three-step Method for Dealing with Differences.
Let's make it work together! (20 minutes)
For this part, you are divided into six breakout rooms (one per international team). To make a smooth start as a team, it’s good to take some time for exploring the digital environment, and discuss possibilities and requirements: what do you need as a team and how can each of you contribute to make the team work? Besides that, you’re invited to make a planning for the upcoming steps.
NB You won't be able to finish this part in 20 minutes. Take your time: after the starting session, you have another 1,5 hours this week to further explore the digital environment and set up your teamwork. Make sure that, at the end of the starting session, you have decided how you and your team members will complete this step together.
Discuss the following questions:
Which roles can you distinguish when it comes to working in a team?
Which competencies are needed to collaborate and communicate in an intercultural setting like this?
Intercultural competencies are 'attitudes, knowledge and skills that comprise a person's ability to get along with, work and learn with people from diverse cultures' (The Higher Education Academy, 2014). See also the section above on the three steps to develop intercultural competency.Which skills do you want to deploy to make a positive contribution to the team?
Which competencies and/or skills do you want develop the coming period and what do you need ‘to get there’?
Now try to make a task division, based on what is needed to make the team work and challenge to a success, and on the skills of the different group members. Consider the following questions:
What do you prefer as an approach, ‘modus operandi’ to work together?
What do you need to get there?
Which concrete agreements need to be made and how are you going to make sure that everybody will commit to them?
Lastly, make a planning with your team for the upcoming steps. Use the set-up and planning page as a guideline.
Further reading
Further reading
The quote in the introduction is from the article Intercultural competence in higher education: academics’ perspectives (Pinto 2018). You find the full article here. More on the three-step method can be found in Pinto's 2000 monograph Intercultural Communication: A Three-step Method for Dealing with Differences. The definition of intercultural competencies used here is derived from the Higher Education Academy's brochure on the topic (2014).
Help
Help
During the starting session, the teacher trainers are there to help you. If there's no teacher trainer present in your breakout room (or if you have a question for a different trainer), you can ask for help in the Zoom chat. After the session, you can consult your teacher trainer via e-mail.
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