Reflective Learning Journals for Intercultural Awareness

1. What lessons to be learnt from reflective learning journals written by students to improve learning and intercultural awareness? Lars Peter Jensen Associated Professor at Automation and Control Department of Electronic Systems

2. Problem:Mixing Danish engineering students having 3 years of experience with project work in teams, with foreign students starting on Master Engineering educations with close to zero PBL experience. • Solution: • A new course for Danish 1st semester Master students in 2007, with a double purpose of both developing team work and intercultural skills further and restart the students reflection and talking about how they actually work together, to prepare them to take in foreign students on the 2nd semester. • To secure the latter part and the learning goal the students have to write an individual learning journal. • Agenda: • Short presentation of the course and method • Investigating the learning portfolios, with focus on intercultural awareness and the lessons to be learnt about how to prepare for and start up an intercultural teamwork in problem solving.

3. Course Setup • A one ECTS course with five lectures covering the following subjects: • Project management • Management of changes in organisation • Intercultural competencies • Learning • Prevention of stress • To provoke new reflections on the students’ past experiences with the subjects, each student has to write a personal portfolio or learning journal documenting his experiences and ability to reflect upon them. These documents are used as a written examination of the course (pass/no pass). • To give the students the freedom of developing their own portfolios, no specific guidelines of how to write them are given, but for each lecture some advice on how the students could write and reflect on the subject were suggested.

4. Lecture about Intercultural Competencies • For this lecture the Danish and foreign students are mixed, to establish a platform to discuss cultural differences and at the same time the students get an opportunity to know each others background better before they have to work in mixed groups next semester. • The lecture is held as a combination of lecturing, discussions and small exercises in mixed groups followed by plenary discussions of the following subjects: • meeting new cultures • shocks and stereotypes • intercultural communication • cultural awareness in multicultural teams • intercultural competencies in engineering • In the portfolio the students are advised to describe personal experiences meeting other cultures, e.g. on holiday and to reflect on what can be learned from these meetings. Based on experience and the outcome of the lecture the student is also advised to reflect on how to prepare for meeting other cultures and especially for working together with foreigners on the next semester in culturally mixed teams.

5. Method to collect data

6. Danish culture, values and norms – where to be careful • Danish people are very punctual; they keep to themselves and seldom greet strangers. At the same time they speak their mind and the power hierarchy is very low. • Students are very self conscious and might force their working methods (AAU PBL methods) on others. The attitude in teams is friendly, relaxed and humour is often used. • This knowledge about Danes might be very useful for foreign students arriving at Aalborg University. The lessons to be learnt for the Danes are: • be aware that punctuality is no great issue in most other countries • be open-minded and interested in newcomers • ask for and listen to others opinion, hold back a little and be aware that the Danish direct attitude might be considered rude • don’t force the AAU way of working on others, discuss and integrate new ideas in the team working culture • be careful with humour and don’t use irony

7. Other cultures - what to know • It is useful to know as much as possible about other cultures. Compared to Danish culture the foreign students are seen as more warm, open and talkative. Punctuality is not a great issue, they talk English differently and their English skills might be poorer. The technical and educational background is very different and they are used to a big power distance to the teachers. • This is useful knowledge for both parties and calls for some actions in mixed teams: • be patient when communicating, it takes time to get used to different pronunciation of a language • discuss the problem about different view of punctuality to find a way to deal with it • identify the difference in technical knowledge in order to use the differences as strength • help the foreign students to be freer to address the teachers to be able to use them better as facilitators

8. What should be planned? • First year under graduate Danish students gradually learn the strength of planning the projects, not only in time but also how to work together in a team. They continue to do this for the next semester or two, until they are familiar with the process and only make time schedules. • The foreign students also learn to plan on the first semester Master level. • When they are mixed with Danish students on the next semester the lesson from the portfolios is: • mixed groups shall discuss and make plans on how to work together, in integrated groups, where the plans are not just copies of the usual AAU way of working, but reflects the contributions from the newcomers • the content of the plans should be based on discussions of norms, values, expectations; knowledge etc. and a common ground for working together should be established • the teams should follow up on the plans and assess them • in case of disagreements the conflicts needs to be solved and tools for conflict handling might become handy

9. Good advises • Lessons to be known to students that are not yet mentioned can be grouped into three categories: • collect knowledge to gain a better understanding of each other • identify strength and weaknesses in both people’s behaviour and knowledge and use it to improve the team and its working methods • use the good examples, story telling and “funny” traditions to gain insight in the different cultures in the team, improving the cultural awareness

10. Focus areas for educators • It is obviously that a teacher in a mixed cultural educational system can pass the lessons from this presentation on to the students to enforce their awareness, and additional the facilitators for mixed teams working with projects should focus on: • reducing the distance to students from more hierarchic educational systems • enhance the student knowledge about scientific work and the necessity of quoting other researchers • helping teams establishing a common ground for how they work together and plan their project • The facilitator of a team can do that by addressing the issue of planning both time and collaboration (how to establish a good team with good communication), and at later meetings asking if deadlines are met and the if the collaboration is okay, or the plans need to be updated or improved.

11. CONCLUSION • Intercultural competencies are a subject most of the students find interesting, but only a few have experienced working together with foreign students. • The lessons to be learnt from the comments and reflections in the portfolios show that, giving the opportunity, the Danish students identify the need for preparing to integrate foreign students and give a lot of practical advises about how to do so and what to be aware of. • Based on the findings it is clear that the course and the individual portfolios have restarted the students’ reflection and talking about how they actually work together, and what they will do to integrate newcomers in a mixed cultural team next semester. • How and if this affects the new teams will be the next area to investigate.