1. Learning in a new culture and in an intercultural environment
Xiangyun Du & Lars Peter Jensen

2. Overview Confronting culture
Intercultural issues in teaching and learning
Intercultural group discussion
Presentation

3. What are the things confronting when entering a new country?
Is there anything 2 learn bout this

4. Things that have been taken for granted in one culture might be unknown in another
Parents
Not for you maybe but it was for my parents!!!!!

5. Meeting cultures – Cultural shock
Please write 3 words
For foreign students:
What were your most impressive observations on arrival of AAU/DK?
For Danish students:
What were your most impressive observations on arrival of another country?

6. Intercultural communication - values and meanings
A Danish kindergarten teacher worked at a kindergarten in Greenland. A real story she experienced:
One day a boy’s mother was picking up him from kindergarten. He did not want to go home with her and behaved very badly. The mother pretended to leave kindergarten without him. She might expected the boy to go after her, however, he picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at his mother and hit her on the back of her head. Surprisingly, the mother turned round and cried ‘oh, how clever you are that you can throw stone so far and so precisely. Come on, we must hurry home to tell Dad. He will be very proud of you.’
Rasmussen & Bank-Mikkelsen 2000: 8)

7. Intercultural communication - Power of language
Please work in pairs, talking to different people using the script which follows…
The script:
A: ‘Hello’.
B: ‘Hello’.
A: ‘You are late’.
B: ‘I know’.
Try to do it completely differently each time.

8. Intercultural communication - non-verbal language
Symbolism
Manners and body language – eye contact, distance, etc.
Rasmussen & Bank-Mikkelsen 2000: 8)

9. Intercultural communication - cultural understanding
How would you read this ad of pills?
(Herlitz 1989:38)

10. Intercultural communication - cultural understanding
‘The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.’
(Peter F. Drucker American Educator, b.1909)
Solution
(Herlitz 1989:60)

11. Intercultural communication in teaching and learning
Why is culture an issue?
Development of intercultural competencies for future engineers
Establishment of international program

12. Developing intercultural competencies for future engineers
Globalized context
Interdisciplinary knowledge
Lifelong learning
Effective communication
Analytical skills
Designing and conducting experiments
Application of
mathematics and science knowledge
Diverse capabilities
Intercultural competencies
Team work
Identity and solve applied science problems
Characteristics of a communities of practice are cultivated in the historical, social and cultural context.
Learning as personal growth and development process – being and becoming through interaction with others in the social context
Project management
Social, environmental, and ethical concerns
National Academy of Engineering, The Engineer of 2020, 2004
EUR-ACE (Accreditation of European Engineering Programmes and Graduates,
- ABET:

13. Intercultural environment in PBL

14. Challenges and identified problems 1
Miscommunication arises due to
Use of second language (English) as a means of communication
Learning and working styles
Personality

15. Challenges and identified problems 2 Different beliefs on/ways of learning – different expectations
Knowledge
Answers
Opinions?
Educational background

16. Nobody knows the exact answers until the project is finished
Challenges and identified problems 2 Different beliefs on/ ways of learning
Nobody knows the exact answers until the project is finished
Students are responsible for managing their own learning
Learners are creating new knowledge
Studying in a PBL environment, Denmark

17. Challenges and identified problems 3 Can group work be an efficient way of learning?
Will they believe me because I am a girl??
NO, I can’t get up anyway
YES, we can meet at 8 tomorrow morning
It is my turn to talk?
If we don’t follow the supervisor’s suggestion, will he allow us to pass?
Listen to me, I am very experienced
He complains of my garlic, but he has coffee and carrots all the time!!!
They don’t understand even such easy things!!

18. Foreign students’ perceptions
Challenges and identified problems 4 Different expectations between students and teachers
Danish lecturers’
perceptions
The lecturers’ role:
Enter into a dialogue
refrains from giving answers
moves activity onto students
The students role:
Participation in formulation of course content
commitment and self-
management
Foreign students’ perceptions
The lecturers’ role:
Transferor
Is responsible for course contents and organization
The students role:
Receivers
Reproduction of knowledge at examination
(Reimann & Ulsig 2005)

19. Challenges and identified problems 5 New student life
Housing?
Cooking?
Shopping?
New Life
in Denmark
Transportation?

20. Doing project in groups
meeting
Life
Brainstorm
Report
writing
Exam
Presentation
Doing project in groups
Subgroup
work
Compromise
Discussion
Disagreement

21. I was a new student like you 7 years ago…
I don’t
understand
the lecturer
What on earth
the supervisor wanted
me to do?
I was a new student like you 7 years ago…
So difficult to do a
project in group work!
I am
Depressed!

22. Study environment in some countries… Big class, little room for individual ideas
’There is still one more seat in the wall’

23. Same materials year after year…
(Karl Smith, UMN)
Same materials year after year…

24. Memory is more important than application skills for high scores…

25. Transferred knowledge will be returned after exams

26. Room for creativity?

27. My story: being a student in China
6:30 Get up in dorm
6:30-7:00 Morning Exercise

28. 7:00 Breakfast in Canteen
7:30 – 8:00 Morning Reading

29. 8:00 – 9:50 Morning Lectures
10:10 – 12:00
Morning
Lectures

30. 14:00-16:00 Afternoon Activities
Lectures
Supervision
Library
Laboratory

31. 16:00-18:00 Leisure time

32. Evening Activities – study individually

33. Exams
Written form
Hard tasks
Textbook knowledge based
Scores matter

34. Good Good Study, Day Day Up!
Study hard - high marks - diploma - good student

35. Student’s reflection
`I have never worked in a group in my educational life… In group work, I preferred to listen when some students discussed intensely, because I could not understand why it was a question to discuss. Sometimes I could not follow their ideas or thinking. I need to change and actively work in the group.´ (Chinese female master student)

36. Is ethnicity the only reason that
Muslim
Is ethnicity the only reason that
makes us different?
Young girl
Philosopher
Animal
doctor
butcher
farmer
artist
wolf

37. Is culture something we are born with?
(Jensen 2005:18)
’I got culture from mom’s breast breeding’
Is culture something we are born with?

38. Learning from each other vs. cultural integration Self vs. others
Acceptance vs. adaptation
(Jensen 2005:72)
You are so big. You can not stay here! Come back when you become smaller!

39. PBL in International programs, AAU, Denmark
Cultural reflections
PBL in International programs, AAU, Denmark
Different backgrounds in educational culture
Doing PBL in ‘the right’ way!
Root of PBL in DK
- Tradition of group
work in Denmark
- Critical thinking
- Emphasis on
- Collaboration
and participation
- Lower power gap
- Close link between
industry and university
A new culture to be established

40. What can we benefit from international programs?
Group exercise
Discussion in intercultural groups
Products presented in posters
Poster presentation around walls