Learning intercultural communication through group work oriented to the world beyond the classroom

Competence in intercultural communication has become a necessity for functioning effectively in our increasingly globalised and multicultural society. This study reports the use of a group project to enhance students’ learning of intercultural communication. Participants were from a large undergraduate class in an Australian university. The aim of the course is to encourage students to develop knowledge of intercultural communication by orienting themselves to the world beyond the classroom, and by learning from each other’s experiences and perspectives. In a group project assignment, students used the knowledge and skills gained in class to resolve practical problems that they encountered in intercultural interactions outside the classroom. This paper focused on students’ experience of working in groups, and links between this experience and performance on the group project. Our study confirms previous research that demonstrates active engagement in group work can enhance learning outcomes. It also goes further in showing that groups that more highly rated their learning of intercultural communication through the group work experience obtained higher grades on the project.     

Cross‐Cultural Management Learning Through Innovative Pedagogy: An Exploratory Study of Globally Distributed Student Teams

This article presents an innovative pedagogy based on student participation in globally distributed project teams. The study questions the link between student learning of intercultural competence and the global teaming experience. Data was collected from 115 students participating in 22 virtual intercultural teams. Results revealed that students learned from the teaming experience, especially those with more prior international experience. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on innovative and collaborative pedagogy on global student teams, provides an analysis of the impact of the teaming experience on student learning, and provides insights on international and collaborative course design.     

Unexpected self-expression and the limits of narrative inquiry: exploring unconscious dynamics in a community-based digital storytelling workshop

In parallel with many nations’ education policies, national education policies in Australia seek to foster students’ intercultural understanding. Due to Australia’s location in the Asia-Pacific region, the Australian government has focused on students becoming “Asia literate” to support Australia’s economic and cultural engagement with Asian countries. Drawing on Allport’s optimal contact principles and key factors supporting intercultural understanding, this study examines two “sister school” cultural immersion trips in Indonesia and East Timor to explore ways in which their different approaches supported positive intergroup contact and helped foster intercultural understanding among students. Focus groups and interviews with school project teams and analysis of both researcher and teacher project field notes and documents suggested that these schools’ programmes could be mapped onto Allport’s contact principles in different ways. The paper concludes with promising approaches that can help to inform sister school programmes.     

Identification of dysfunctional cooperative learning teams and troubled individuals

In cooperative learning, students work together as a team to maximize the academic success of all the team members. The failure of even a single member can compromise the success of the entire team. Thus, to evaluate the functioning of the team reliably, it is necessary to consider both the performance of the individual team members and the interactions among them. In this study, a method was developed for identifying dysfunctional teams and troubled individuals by examining the correlation between the team scores obtained in sequential tests and the correlation between the scores obtained by the different team members. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated via field experiments. Forty‐eight students were randomly assigned to cooperative learning teams and their learning performance assessed by four‐unit tests. The results indicated that the proposed method can identify the most troubled individuals in a team even when the team performance/grouping information is not taken explicitly into account. Furthermore, when the team information is considered, the method can identify both the dysfunctional teams and the troubled individuals within the teams. Therefore, the proposed method provides a useful basis for the development of computer‐assisted solutions for assessing the performance of cooperative learning teams.     

外语教学中跨文化交际能力和跨文化敏感度研究

文章应用SPSS12.0统计软件对中国非英语专业英语学习者跨文化交际能力和文化差异敏感度开展调查并对所得数据进行分析,并归纳了现阶段我国外语教学中文化教学的特点;通过提高第二语言学习者文化差异敏感度从而提高跨文化交际能力的可行性,为第二语言教学中如何提高学习者跨文化交际能力这一教学目标找到新的出口。     

对来华留学生“中国文化”英语授课之探索

在对来华留学生进行中国文化英语授课时,大部分高校存在授课的形式化、授课教师的非专业化、授课内容雷同化及课程被边缘化等问题;指出了中国文化英语授课时存在“中国英语”表达、外国留学生对中国文化的片面理解、教学方式僵化等瓶颈。针对上述问题,提出了精选授课内容、突出学校特色、教学与实践相结合等措施,以达到授课效果的最大化;同时,应该在提高师资水平、加强教师团队建设、增强授课教师跨文化交际能力等方面下工夫,以提升中国文化英语授课质量。     

The Development of Teachers’ Intercultural Competence Using a Change Laboratory Method

Immigration is an integral phenomenon of our globalising world. The increasing flow of people creates new challenges for educational institutions and workplaces. The purpose of this article is to address challenges that vocational teachers face with diversity at colleges and workplaces. Two research questions are addressed: how do teachers prepare immigrant students for working life? What challenges related to intercultural competence do teachers preparing immigrant students for working life face? The theoretical background lies in cultural–historical activity theory, developmental work research and in the concept of intercultural competence. The change laboratory method used in study is a formative intervention method evolved within developmental work research. The data comprised two change laboratories organised at the same vocational college in 2001 and 2011. The results showed that teachers’ work with multicultural students and groups can be developed by following five perspectives: preparation, reflection, contribution, guidance and responding. Intercultural competence is constructed contextually and is intertwined with activities such as teaching, facilitating students’ learning and cooperating with workplaces. The participants of the change laboratories experienced it as a good instrument for their intercultural work. Based on the results, some implications are suggested.     

The effect of team feedback and guided reflexivity on team performance change

Providing teams with feedback has been forwarded as a powerful practice to improve their learning and performance. Yet, this learning potential may not be realized unless teams actively process this feedback by stepping back from their team activity, building plans, and ultimately putting them into action. In an experimental study (N = 212 undergraduate students), we compared the effects of team-level feedback with or without an intervention prompting shared reflection on the feedback (i.e., guided reflexivity) to a no feedback control group on team performance growth. The results showed that only the combination of team performance feedback and guided reflexivity lead to performance change, at the beginning of team activity. These findings suggest that prompting feedback processing at an early stage of collaborative work has the power to help teams benefit from their past experiences and improve performance.     

Student teams’ development over time: tracing the relationship between the quality of communication and teams’ performance

Current discussions in higher education and alumni training acknowledge the challenges training programs face in responding to the authentic needs of the labor market. In addition to academic knowledge, higher education institutions are expected to provide general twenty-first-century skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and interpersonal skills. To meet these challenges, many institutions utilize collaborative pedagogies such as learning in teams. However, teamwork in higher education tends to focus primarily on the task aspects of performance at the expense of the team aspects, and for educators, there may be no feasible way to assess whether the students are learning to work successfully as teams. This paper explores how new student teams (n?=?3) that simulate real business teams by taking a challenging entrepreneur assessment, developed over three semesters for general skills (i.e., communication), and whether the improvement in their communication also indicated the teams’ improved performance (i.e., financial success). As an analytical tool, the study relies on initial parameters on teams’ microdynamics of communication [Losada, M. (1999). The complex dynamics of high performance teams. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 30, 179–192] normalized with fuzzy logic. In accordance with the current understanding of team development, the results did not show any linear improvement, but the quality of communication in the teams improved episodically. Further, the results provide evidence of the possible relationship between the improved quality of communication and the teams’ collective financial success. However, in future work, due to the lack of sensitivity of the parameters in this context together with the recent criticisms of the mathematical basis of the patterns of team dynamics based on Losada's parameters, they will be reexamined with a Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis.     

内容型教学法对跨文化交际能力培养的影响研究--以郑州市某初中英语教学为例

通过对目前初中英语教学现状的分析,提出了在初中英语教学中运用内容型教学法,注重对学生跨文化交际能力的培养,并探讨了其可行性。本文以郑州某初中英语教学为例,研究和探讨了内容型教学法对学生跨文化交际能力培养的途径。通过使用问卷调查法、访谈法和测试法,实验结果表明,将内容型教学法运用到初中英语的教学中,能够满足学生的学习需求,对学生学业表现和激发学习兴趣有明显效果。对于提高学生跨文化交际能力和培养具有国际视野的人才具有积极作用。     

Self-selection and Its Impact on Team Diversity and Performance

ABSTRACT : Increased diversity in the workforce brings several benefits. However, organizations may also face challenges as they seek to embrace diversity within team-based work environments. In this paper, we attempt to gauge the magnitude of this challenge by examining the level of diversity that results when individuals self-select their own team members. We describe a quasi-experimental field study in which we examine the ways individuals select project team members and how the resulting group composition is connected to the success or failure of those teams. We find that teams are most likely to form through prior acquaintance and/or demographic similarities. Linking composition to group process and performance, we find that ethnic diversity decreased similarity of work values but did not affect group performance, which is primarily predicted by satisfaction and conflict. We discuss the results in terms of the challenges and opportunities organizations face with a diverse workforce and a team-based work environment.     

高职院校田径运动队现状调查研究

对福建省高职院校田径课余运动训练工作中诸多相关因素进行调查,分析产生问题的原因,寻找解决问题的办法,以指导和改善高职院校田径课余训练工作,使高职院校的田径运动队在组织管理、训练和政策体制上步入正轨。     

Professional Development in the Use of Data: From Data to Knowledge in Data Teams

Schools need support in the use of data. To provide this support, a data team intervention was developed. A prior study conducted in the Netherlands showed that several factors can enable or hinder the work of data teams. The current replication study focuses on the factors influencing data use in data teams and the perceived effects of the data teams’ work, but looking at data teams in Sweden. The results of this qualitative study show that the data teams’ work is influenced by the same factors as in the Netherlands: Data characteristics (e.g., relevance of the data), team characteristics (e.g., heterogeneity of the team), and school organizational characteristics (e.g., school leader support).     

Evaluating Examination Results

Problem‐solving teams (PST) play an important role with regard to organizational performance in restructured schools. The concepts of team‐work and team effectiveness are examined and related to functions of problem‐solving teams. A case study of a successful PST provides a framework for the development of propositions on effective PSTs which may be subject to testing.     

Intercultural education in Brazil: Between conservatism and radical transformations

This article analyses the emergence of intercultural education in the Brazilian educational system. After summarizing the debate on international convergence in intercultural education, it traces the development of interethnic relations in Brazil, describing the heavy legacy of slavery and colonization. It then investigates recently adopted legislation that encourages the inclusion of cultural diversity in education. Finally, it explores intercultural approaches in the training and work of teachers. The Brazilian example is interesting because it reflects both an ongoing conservatism that resists the teaching of intercultural material in schools and a profound debate about cultural identities and the need for education to take into account all of the nation??s historical inequalities.     

Team Research at the Biology–Mathematics Interface: Project Management Perspectives

The success of interdisciplinary research teams depends largely upon skills related to team performance. We evaluated student and team performance for undergraduate biology and mathematics students who participated in summer research projects conducted in off-campus laboratories. The student teams were composed of a student with a mathematics background and an experimentally oriented biology student. The team mentors typically ranked the students'' performance very good to excellent over a range of attributes that included creativity and ability to conduct independent research. However, the research teams experienced problems meeting prespecified deadlines due to poor time and project management skills. Because time and project management skills can be readily taught and moreover typically reflect good research practices, simple modifications should be made to undergraduate curricula so that the promise of initiatives, such as MATH-BIO 2010, can be implemented.     

跨文化电子邮件交流对学生英语写作能力的影响

电子邮件的核心价值在于用户利用互联网达到快速便捷地传递信息和沟通的目的。电子邮件在教学中传递作业、分享资讯、同侪讨论、合作学习、便于师生与家长沟通等功能已为越来越多的教育工作者所认同。这为大学英语教学突破传统的"教师灌输——学生被动接受"模式、充分利用网络信息技术促进英语教学改革提供了新的思路。以兰州交通大学非外语专业的大一新生英语写作教学为例,对实验组和对照组分别采取跨文化电子邮件交流和传统纸笔写作教学方式实施对比教学研究,结果显示:跨文化电子邮件交流显著提高了学生的写作水平,尤其是写作的流利性和准确性;也增强了学生的内在学习动机。教师在跨文化电子邮件交流之前应进行精心策划,交流过程持续的时间不宜太短,应及时发现学生在交流过程中出现的问题,扮演好监督者的角色。     

Team Machine: A Decision Support System for Team Formation

This paper reports on the cross‐disciplinary research that resulted in a decision‐support tool, Team Machine (TM), which was designed to create maximally diverse student teams. TM was used at a large United States university between 2004 and 2012, and resulted in significant improvement in the performance of student teams, superior overall balance of the teams as well as overwhelmingly favorable reactions from stakeholders. An empirical study is conducted comparing the performance of teams created by TM compared to teams manually allocated by a subject matter expert. The findings show that optimally balanced teams perform better than those created manually. TM serves as a broad‐based example of how to integrate business analytics into interactive search by conflating human judgment with algorithmic efficiency in the context of team formation. The contribution of this research to the academic community is a model and solution method which can be easily implemented to solve a very important and recurring issue faced by many MBA programs and empirical evidence of its value. The outcomes of this study include empirical evidence of increased team performance, significant administrative time savings, improvement to team diversity, and increased satisfaction from students and administrators with the team formation process.     

团队激励薪酬的选择及其模式探讨

在现代化大生产形式下,企业不但需要分工,更需要协作。日新月异的环境变化要求组织建立一种更加灵活的、注重横向合作的分权化结构。在高效率、高产出的企业中,团队将成为主要的工作单位,也是企业保持其竞争优势的运作单元。有效管理团队的能力已成为企业的核心竞争力。如何有效地激励团队,提高团队的绩效是企业亟待解决的难题。文章从研究团队出发,分析了团队的优势;在个体激励与团队激励的比较中,总结影响团队激励的因素。做出了不同组织对个体激励和团队激励的选择模型;在此基础上提出团队激励薪酬模式,并对实施前提和实施过程进行阐述和分析;探索性地提出了实施团队激励薪酬模式的相关策略。