Learning Culture Shock" in Multicultural Authentic E-Learning
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University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities January 2013 Dealing with "learning culture shock" in multicultural authentic e-learning Hanna M. Teras University Of Wollongong, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers Recommended Citation Teras, Hanna M., "Dealing with "learning culture shock" in multicultural authentic e-learning" (2013). Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers. 869. https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/869 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Dealing with "learning culture shock" in multicultural authentic e-learning Abstract Abstract: With international e-learning becoming increasingly widespread, questions of cultural considerations and accommodating for learners with different cultural backgrounds have become ever more important. This paper discusses the cultural aspects in a fully online, authentic e-learning based professional development program for international teaching faculty. Instead of attempting to customize the learning environment for individual learners, the aim has been to develop an environment that promotes cultural sensitivity, appreciation for diversity and dialogue, based on the principles of authentic e-learning. As this approach differs from traditional teaching and learning methods, it may feel unfamiliar for the students. Therefore the paper concentrates especially on the concept of learning culture shock and examines the factors that may cause it, or on the other hand, help learners deal with it. It also discusses the suitability of authentic e-learning as the design framework for multicultural contexts. Keywords culture, shock, multicultural, learning, authentic, dealing, e Publication Details Teras, H. (2013). Dealing with "learning culture shock" in multicultural authentic e-learning. E-Learn 2013-World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 2988-2996). Chesapeake, United States: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). This conference paper is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/869 Dealing with “learning culture shock” in multicultural authentic e-learning Hanna Teräs Academic Services Division University of Wollongong, Australia [email protected] Abstract: With international e-learning becoming increasingly widespread, questions of cultural considerations and accommodating for learners with different cultural backgrounds have become ever more important. This paper discusses the cultural aspects in a fully online, authentic e-learning based professional development program for international teaching faculty. Instead of attempting to customize the learning environment for individual learners, the aim has been to develop an environment that promotes cultural sensitivity, appreciation for diversity and dialogue, based on the principles of authentic e-learning. As this approach differs from traditional teaching and learning methods, it may feel unfamiliar for the students. Therefore the paper concentrates especially on the concept of learning culture shock and examines the factors that may cause it, or on the other hand, help learners deal with it. It also discusses the suitability of authentic e-learning as the design framework for multicultural contexts. Introduction As e-learning has become increasingly common, new doors have opened for accessibility and virtual mobility of students. During the recent years, educational phenomena such as MOOCs (massive open online courses) have led into situations where the backgrounds of the people learning together are ever more heterogenous. Questions of cultural considerations and how to accommodate learners from different backgrounds have become more important than ever, but there is still very limited understanding of how this could best be done. As Wang & Reeves (2007) point out, it is surprising how little published literature on the cultural aspects of online learning and teaching there is. Wang & Reeves suggest that this could be partly because of difficulties related to finding appropriate methodologies and resources for this type of research, partly because of the vagueness and differing definitions of the concept of culture. (Wang & Reeves, 2007). When thinking of multicultural learning groups and the impact of cultural aspects in learning, we often tend to associate this with students being from different parts of the world, representing different ethnic backgrounds, religions and languages. While all these are important aspects to consider, it can also be argued that there are diverse learning cultures that are affected by factors such as academic tradition, field of study and teaching methods. Moreover, the transition from classroom education to online learning can also be seen as a major cultural shift. This paper examines the cultural aspects in a fully online study program that had participants with very diverse multicultural and multidisciplinary backgrounds. The case presented here is an online postgraduate certificate program for teaching in higher education that was developed at the School of Vocational Teacher Education at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) and implemented in a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates. The learning design of the program was informed by the elements of authentic e-learning as presented by Herrington, Reeves & Oliver (2010), and it was developed with the help of an iterative educational design research process. This study is a part of this process. A survey conducted after the first module of the program suggested that while the authentic e-learning design promotes activities that can lead to increased cultural understanding and collaboration, the pedagogical approach is quite different from many traditional models of teaching and learning and may therefore at the beginning cause “a learning culture shock” for learners who are accustomed to a different learning culture. (Teräs, Leppisaari, Teräs & Herrington, 2012). This paper takes a closer look into the concept of learning culture shock. I use data from three surveys that were conducted after each of the three module of the program -2988- to examine the factors that may cause, or on the other hand, help learners deal with a learning culture shock. I also discuss the suitability of authentic e-learning as the design framework for multicultural contexts. The Study This study is a part of a wider scale educational design research process, motivated by the need to develop a new type of professional development for teaching faculty in the middle of an ongoing paradigm shift towards a networked knowledge society. Introducing the case The case being studied is “21st Century Educators”, a fully online postgraduate certificate program for teaching in higher education that was designed at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) in Finland and implemented at Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates during September 2011 - February 2013. The program was divided into three modules, each lasting for one semester. The learning environment used consisted of a learning management system (Blackboard Vista in Module 1, Moodle in Modules 2 and 3), each participant’s personal blog, Google Docs (Drive), Google Hangouts, Google+, and various technologies of the participants’ own choice. The program was coordinated at TAMK, but local teachers were trained to facilitate the online collaboration and function as team leaders. In the case of 21st Century Educators, one of the challenges that could not be easily addressed with the help earlier research was the exceptional diversity of the participants and the implications the multicultural aspect might have in an authentic e-learning based learning process. The participants to the program had moved to work in the UAE from all corners of Earth: Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, South America and North America. In addition to the ethnic and national diversity, they represented different fields of study, different genders and different age groups. It was also fair to assume that the majority of the participants would not have had previous experience with authentic e-learning. This was one of the reasons why a decision was made to use an iterative process of educational design research in the development of the program. The educational design research process Educational design research has often been regarded as a very useful approach especially when there is a complex educational problem that needs to be addressed in a way that has a potential for a high level of practical impact and relevance (cf. Plomp, 2007; Anderson & Shattuck, 2012). Typically, in educational design research, an educational intervention is designed, evaluated and refined iteratively in the actual setting where it is intended to be used. It thus provides information on how the intervention works in a complex real life context. (McKenney & Reeves, 2012, Collins, Joseph & Bielaczyc, 2004). In addition to the practice-driven goal of designing a useful intervention, educational design research also has the theoretical goal of producing knowledge of whether and why a given intervention works in a given context and, based on this knowledge, produce design principles for effective and workable interventions of the same kind. (McKenney & Reeves, 2012,