cultural academy: a new approach to learning
DESCRIPTION
Cultural diversity is a fact of life, especially at the University of Surrey where over 30% of our students originate from over 130 different countries. The concept of a ‘Cultural Academy’ was born from a concern and a belief that we could do more to learn from our cultural diversity. Cultural Academy is not part of the formal curriculum but a process, founded on the idea of appreciative enquiry that requires voluntary participation from both students and staff. Through a series of workshops, planning meetings and a student-led conference extending over five months, participants (students, facilitators and mentors) shared their experiences and understandings of culture and its influences on their lives. Infrastructures to support learning included an on-line social networking space to encourage conversation and the recording and sharing of experience , a mentoring scheme to support and encourage learning and to validate learning, a new learning through experience award to value and recognise the learning, a wiki to support the production and accumulation of knowledge gained through enquiry. Various pedagogic processes within the learning process will be explored at the presentation.TRANSCRIPT
Cultural Academy: a new approach to cultural enquiry
• Norman Jackson, Director SCEPTrE• Vasso Vydelingum & Nimmi Hutnik, Senior
Lecturers, Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford. UK.
Creation of Cultural Academy
• University of Surrey: nearly 30% of our students originate from over 130 different countries.
• SCEPTrE wanted to make multiculturalism a more explicit part of students’ educational experiences.
• The motivation for ‘Cultural Academy’: to learn more from the cultural diversity within our own campus society
• Ideas underpinning Cultural Academy:• collaborative learning
• productive inquiry
• Immersive experience
Cultural Academy aims to:
• Build and support a diverse community of enquirers (students all levels and staff facilitators) willing to share their understandings and experiences of culture and how it affects us
• Engage members of the Cultural Academy in thinking about their own Cultural identity
• Involve the community in enquiry into our own multicultural campus society
• Influence the university – by highlighting the importance of culture in the experiences of students preparing for a lifetime of living and working in an a culturally complex world.
• Its about communicating across cultures having fun and learning in the process!!!
Cultural Academy: An Overview
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Process
• Through a series of Workshops• Planning meetings &• A student-led conference extending over five
months, participants (students, facilitators and mentors) shared their experiences and understandings of culture and its influences on their lives.
Cultural Academy productive enquirers
Sarah Campbell Y3 Psychology student on placement with SCEPTrEevaluation of learner experience& on-line staff and student perception surveys
Lori RileyM level student
micro-conversation research
Ben Mercer & William Pattersonrecent graduate
enquiring film makers
Nimmi Hutnick Norman Jackson
Vasso Vydelingum
workshop design and evaluation
17 student participants
FACILITATORS
Workshop 1 Theme: Me and My Culture
Introduction to the Cultural Academy Get to know members of the Academy Acquaint participants with the aims and
objectives of the Cultural AcademyExercises: I am & I am not What does my name mean?Cultural Gift
Cultural Gift:Exploration of Self-Cultural
Identity‘Anything personally significant that you think contributes to and represents an aspect of your
own cultural identity’
Exploration of Self-Cultural Identity: Using Concept
maps
Workshop 2
Theme: Culture and Others
Discovery and discussion on idea of ‘difference’ in culture
Produce a Cultural GenogramVoting on propositions
On-line social networking space
WORKSHOP 2
A good way of enquiring into culture was to share beliefs by voting on propo-sitions
I donI don’’t feel I fit into any specific culturet feel I fit into any specific culture
9%
27% 27%27%
9%
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Don’t know
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
Workshop 3
Theme: Organisations, Language, and Culture
An organisation as a cultural web Importance of language (and other
forms of communication) in organisations through which culture is propagated
Workshop 3:Japanese Calligraphy
Control systemsControl systems
Rituals & routinesRituals & routines
Stories & mythsStories & myths
SymbolsSymbols
Power structuresPower structures
Organisation Organisation structuresstructures
The ParadigmThe Paradigm
Reflective Process
‘Appreciating Being Multicultural’ Conference
Reflective Accounts as Student Legacy
STUDENT LED CONFERENCE OUTLINE
14.00 Sharing cultural experiences – workshops, conversations and quiz Sessions will run concurrently. Most will last about 30mins and be repeated. Participants welcome to move freely from one conversation or activity to another. Location and theme for each session shown on room/timetable sheet.
15.45 Tea/coffee break 16.15 Enquiring into our own multicultural society AC 01 Lecture Theatre
‘Appreciating our Multicultural Campus’ A film by Ben Mercer and William Patterson (SCEPTrE Film Makers)
Our multicultural campus society Norman Jackson and Vasso Vydelingum and Sarah Campbell
Final act – a certificate for all the students who participated in the Cultural Academy, presented by Professor Bernard Weiss (Pro Vice Chancellor Student Experience)
17.30 International buffet – the cultural gifts of food and music. Live entertainment from African drum group ‘Jali-Djembe’ (18.00-19.30).
Class activity
• ‘ I am’ Exercise 5 mins• Naming Exercise 15 mins
Integration across Curricula
Informal Curricula: Cultural Academy
Workshop Discussion Group
Formal Curricula: Interpersonal
Communication MA Research on Conversation
Analysis
Pedagogic practices within the enquiry process included
Concept mapping – to facilitate personal enquiry into understandings of culture
• Cultural enquiry using simple question-based tools
• Voting systems to reveal patterns of beliefs in response to propositions about culture
• Story telling – descriptions of personal experiences and on-line blogs and postings to community forum
Pedagogic process contd.
• Mentoring to encourage conversation and reflection
• Film making – enquiry into our multicultural campus, the recording of the cultural academy process
• Peer ‘teaching’ – the facilitation of conversation• Questionnaire surveys • End process reflective account and conversation
Multicultural Questionnaire
100 staff responded
473 students responded
Information about ethnicity and culture
Key Findings
Ethnicity and culture conceptually very complex
General feeling of cultural awareness and acceptance of cultural diversity at Surrey
Feeling more could be done to incorporate different learning approaches into teaching in response to cultural differences
Key Findings
Students feel there is a need for more conversation about cultural diversity
More integration between British and international students is needed
Cultural complexities are present even in the British home students
Cultural Academy - the student experience
Members of the Academy were interviewed
Appreciative conversations
Analysis of written ‘Learning through experience’ accounts
Cultural Academy - the student experience
Learning Environment Motivations
Skills; abstract & concrete knowledge;new perspectives; developed as people
Relationships Emotions
Positivity - ‘positive attitudes towards different cultures’
Communication Expectations
Wider context Safe environment for sharing
Background
Stereotypes Respect, trust, confidence
Experience
Similarities & Differences
Evocative Words from Accounts
‘deeper sense’
‘embedded’
‘reflection’
‘I feel so grateful that I am Chinese’
‘Another inspiring part of Cultural Academy'
‘understanding is enhanced’
‘culturally sensitive’
‘a better person’
‘I wish we had the chance to meet more often’
‘to reflect on what culture is and to respect its deep meaning’
‘more accepting, considerate and open-minded of other opinions’
‘respect’
‘immersing oneself in the experience’
‘passionate and curious’
‘deeper discussion and inquiry’
‘self-discovery’
‘I was proud of our achievement’
‘interdependence’
‘sensitive’
‘united in experiencing learning’
‘a creative venture’
‘I had a sense of shame’
‘personal choice is important’
RecommendationsCultural Academy wiki, develop and connect
‘Cultural Academy Alumni’
Members suggested more sessions, with more regularity
Members suggested the structure should be thought out more carefully; either designed and owned entirely by members or rigid structure around the objectives of Academy leaders
Recommendations
Tasks between sessions led to thinking outside of sessions, learning through reflection
Workshops more explicit in direction, objectives and generalisability
Some members felt awareness of courses and backgrounds should be considered in workshop planning.
Cultural Academy grown to provide space & support in the form of a drop-in for students needing support or a confidential place to discuss cultural issues they may be experiencing
Impact
Student Experience Strategy
Induction week for Freshers
Conference promoted awareness and interest among senior managers and departments such as Careers Service
Conclusions• The appreciative inquiry approach certainly
has had beneficial effects as participants developed a very positive sense of culture
• Cultural safety • Better marketing techniques for such events• Learning about culture is a life-long learning
conversation.
References- Further reading• Cooperrider, David L. & Whitney, Diana (1999). Appreciative
Inquiry. In Holman, P.& Devane, T. (Eds.), Collaborating for Change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
• Novak J.D ( 1998) Learning, Creating, Using Knowledge: concept maps. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. London
• Hay, D.B. & Kinchin, I.M. (2006) Using concept mapping to reveal conceptual typologies. Education & Training 48(2/3), 127-142.
• Ramsden I H (1992) Cultural safety in nursing education in Aotearoe at the Year of Indigenous People’s Conference, Brisbane, Australia.
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