Cross-Cultural Engagement
Training for Faculty: A Model
for Faculty Preparation
CIEE Annual Conference, Shanghai, November 2012
Presenters:
Steven T. Duke, Wake Forest University ([email protected])
David Taylor, Wake Forest University ([email protected])
Michael Vande Berg, MVB Associates
([email protected])
Institutional Profile
• Wake Forest University
• Private, Winston-Salem, NC – 4730 u.g.
• Six semester-long faculty-led programs, with
rotating set of faculty (1-2 faculty per year)
• “House” programs in London, Venice, Vienna
• Direct-enroll programs in Chile, France, Spain
• 15-18 summer faculty-led programs
• ~ 700 students abroad, 50% on faculty-led
Faculty Selection
• Faculty apply to lead semester programs through
the Provost Office
• Faculty propose summer programs through the
faculty Committee on Study Abroad
• The Center for International Studies cannot
hand-pick faculty to lead programs based on
intercultural learning or skills, we need to work
with those who are available and willing to teach
abroad
Faculty Training: Logistics
Wake Forest faculty receive training/orientation
for their responsibilities
• Document on expectations of faculty
• Timeline document for Communications
• Health and Safety training
• Mental Health training
• Student Orientations
• Budgets and financial aspects
Quality Enhancement for SACS
• In 2006, Wake Forest submitted a 10-year
reaccreditation “Quality Enhancement Plan to
SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and
schools): “Beyond Boundaries: Preparing
Students to Become Global Citizens”
• Three study abroad support courses were
created, and offered beginning in Fall 2007
• Goal of preparing students to become global
citizens has focused on intercultural competence
What was Missing for Faculty:
Intercultural Preparation
Faculty realized that they lacked resources and
guidance on best-practices for helping students
with cross-cultural learning
• Faculty Study Abroad Committee always looks
for cross-cultural elements, such as interaction
with the locals, in new programs
• “Why here?” is commonly asked
• But how do we introduce culture? What are the
best practices for cross-cultural engagement?
Our Solution: A Workshop
• WISE (Workshop on Intercultural Skills
Enhancement) was created by faculty for faculty
• WISE is a practitioner’s workshop intended to
help faculty learn strategies and design activities
that can help students develop intercultural skills
and awareness
• A steering committee of six faculty worked with
CIS to design the content and contact speakers
• WISE first offered in Feb. 2009, just six months
after we started the initiative
WISE as Workshop
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We learned a lot along the way
WISE 2009 had 57 attendees
Wake Forest faculty and staff could attend at no cost
The workshop fee was $295 and included one night
of accommodation plus dinner, coffee and snacks
• WISE 2009 began at 1pm on Friday, ran through
8pm, then Saturday from 8:30 to 11:45 am
• WISE 2010 increased attendance to 75
• WISE 2011 started at 9am on Friday
Content of WISE
• Has changed over time
• The Developmental Model of Intercultural
Sensitivity (DMIS) and intercultural continuum
• Sessions on assessing intercultural competence,
cross-cultural engagement courses, integration
of language learning and cultural training, and
approaches to language in non-language pgms
• Sessions on mentoring while abroad, effective
assignments and activities, challenges of
developing countries, and risk management
• Participants (‘11 and ‘12) had option of taking IDI
Impact on faculty
• Several faculty have implemented new activites
or changed the content of their programs based
on what they learned at WISE
• Kathleen Macfie (UNC Greensboro) came back in
2011 to report on new efforts to have students
self-reflect and blog during their program
• Keith Mobley (UNC Greensboro) create a
journaling template for structuring reflection and
guiding activities; he also focused more time on
group dynamics and processing of activities
Impact on study abroaders
• Brett Krutzsch (NYU) reported: “I returned from
WISE with new information about making crosscultural awareness, cultural adjustment and
identity reflection key components of the study
abroad pre-departure process and with ideas on
how to get others at my institution on board.
We have begun to restructure our pre-departure
curriculum so that our focus is not just logistics,
but heavily about self-reflection and preparing
for cultural immersion.”
WISE 2013 as Conference
• Beginning in February 2013, WISE will turn into a
professional conference
• We recognized the need to include more
perspectives and voices than workshop allowed
• WISE 2013 received 16 proposals, of which 12
were accepted, plus 12 invited presentations
• More voices will be heard, and more folks who
work abroad will present
• Faculty who teach abroad and study abroad
professionals are invited to attend
WISE 2013
• Website: http://cis.wfu.edu/wise
• Held February 1-2, 2013, in Winston-Salem, NC
• Mick Vande Berg will do pre-conference
workshop on January 31, 8 am - 5 pm
• Film screening on January 31, 7 pm
• Held in the Marriott Hotel, which has an
excellent conference center
• Registration is open, early bird thru Nov 30
Next Steps at WFU
• Goal to work more actively with faculty, to look
at their program activities and coach them more
consciously about cross-cultural activities
• Hold group faculty discussions 2-3 times per
semester to discuss common study abroad
challenges
• Work with 2-3 faculty to implement research
elements into their summer 2013 programs,
such as the IDI and observation of student
competency (not self report of impact)
Resources on display
Resources on display
• WISE brochures
• WISE programs and three-ring binders (2011 and
2012)
• Syllabi of WFU’s Cross-Cultural Engagement
courses
WISE: an historical context
• A century of study abroad
• Three stories about student learning
First story: students learn through being
exposed to diversity and difference “out there”
• Students abroad learn through contact with the
new and different.
First Story: Students learn through educators
informing them about the new and different
• Teachers deliver information about new places
& people to willing recipients:
information transfer
Our second story: students learn through
“immersion” in the new and different
Second story: educators structure the learning
environment so students are immersed in their
experiences with diversity
Common Immersion Strategies
• Lengthen duration of diversity experience
• Directly enroll students in university courses
• Take steps to maximize student contact with host
nationals
• Take steps to improve students’ second language
proficiency
• Have students do “experiential” activities:
Internships, etc.
• House students with families or
host students
But story 2 has problems: most learners
don’t respond as predicted to being “immersed”
Considerable disciplinary evidence undermines
the third story’s account of human learning
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The History of Science (Kuhn)
Experiential learning theory (Dewey, Piaget, Kolb)
Organizational Behavior (Hofstede, Trompenaars)
Psychology (Piaget, Lewin, Kelly, Savicki)
Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (Fink, Weimer)
Cultural Anthropology (Boas, Hall, La Brack)
Linguistics (Sapir, Whorf)
Intercultural Relations (Bennett, Bennett, Hammer)
Neuroscience (Zull)
Cognitive Biology (Maturana, Varela)
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.
Georgetown study* and other empirical research
challenge effectiveness of “immersion” practices
Which immersion conditions predict Intercultural
development?
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Duration of experience abroad: SMALL IMPACT
Homestays: NO
Direct enrollment in host university courses: NO
Unfacilitated “Experiential” activities: NO
Maximizing contact with host nationals: NO
Improving foreign language proficiency: NO
Pre departure cultural orientation: SMALL IMPACT
Homestays—when students engage w/ host fam. member:
YES
• Cultural Mentoring on Site: YES
Vande Berg, M. (2009). Intervening in student learning abroad: A research-based inquiry. (M. Bennett, Guest Ed.)
Intercultural Education, Vol. 20, Issue 4, pp. 15-27.
*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.
*
Our third tale: How we frame an event
determines “what it means”
Third tale: Learning starts as we reflect on our own
ways of framing, and on our and others’ differing
ways of creating knowledge
• “We know what we perceive; we don’t know what
we don’t perceive. Since there is no way that we
can know what we don’t perceive, we assume that
we perceive ‘correctly.’” (Marshall Singer)
• “We do not see, that we do not see.” (H. Maturana
& F. Varela)
• “People don’t learn from experience; they learn
through reflecting on experience.” (Thiagi)
Third tale: immersion in difference, reflection
on framing, & frame shifting = learning
• Learning does not occur, then, simply through
exposure to, or immersion in, experience
• Instead, we begin to learn as we
become aware of how we typically
frame our experiences:
“We don’t see things as
they are, we see things
as we are.” (Anias Nin)
We help our students develop by focusing on four
basic intercultural skills
 Increasing cultural and personal self awareness;
 Increasing awareness of others within their own
cultural and personal contexts;
 Learning techniques for “bridging cultural gaps”—
which is to say, interacting with culturally different
others in effective and appropriate ways;
 Cultivating emotional intelligence—developing the
capacities to identify, manage, communicate and
apply emotions effectively and appropriately.
WISE: Embracing the third story’s account of
student learning
• Recognition that the most important
predictor of student learning is the extent
to which educators are interculturally
developed.
• Not only a focal point for discussing the
intercultural needs of students, but a
model for the intercultural training of
faculty and staff
• Awareness of the critical importance of
assessing the intercultural development
of students, faculty and staff