Questions for discussion on transcultural learning and teaching
How to use these questions
Here are some suggestions on areas to explore and some questions which might be useful.
There is no suggestion that you explore all these or that you do so with all students. However, over time, if you gain an understanding of the many variations there are in answers to these questions (and if you help students to do so, too) then transcultural negotiation and communication becomes possible.
On teaching methods students experienced before travel
- What methods has the student previously experienced? How wide a range of methods were used?
- What would an observer see and hear if they watched a method being used ‘back home’? So, in a lecture, who would be talking? ….about what sorts of things? … for how long? In a supervision, what would be happening?
- Were there sessions planned into their programme where interaction, discussion and personal views were shared and explored? Between whom? What was being discussed or interrogated?
- What was being taught? Was the predominant content about agreed and predictable material, perhaps in a relatively unchanging syllabus? Who set the syllabus?
About assessment experiences before travel
- What methods were used for checking whether students have learned? How wide a range of methods?
- How often were students assessed?
- Were assessments high or low stakes i.e. did the consequences make a significant difference to students’ futures?
- Any formative feedback and if so, what sort? Any homework and how was it managed?
- Were marking criteria explicit? adhered to? set by teachers or by others?
- How was work graded, using what scale and what did grades mean? Was there any scope for renegotiating a grade, once it was set?
- Could students fail and if so, what happened then? If no failures were possible, how was student progression managed?
- In examinations, what was being tested: was it the students’ knowledge? Application of knowledge? Evaluation and judgments based on knowledge and supporting evidence? Something else?
- When set a task for a grade, was the student expected to plan how to achieve it as well as producing the expected result? So, did the student plan as well as write a paper, examination, project report etc?
About relationships between teachers and students before travel
- Did teachers know students personally? How personally? Did students know teachers personally? How personally? Did students know each other and if so, how well?
- How did students show respect to teachers? What titles and names were used? Were students largely silent or talkative with teachers? If they were both, in what circumstances?
- What place, if any, did gifts play?
- How were disagreements or differences of views between students and teachers managed?
- How general an issue could a student expect a teacher to be concerned about: the whole student or just academic issues? Would the teacher act as an advisor or as practical helper via referral, intervention etc?
- Was an on-going, personal mentoring role expected from teachers, perhaps extending beyond graduation?
- How available were teachers? When could they be contacted? How?
- How amenable were teachers to persuasion to change decisions, to use their influence on students’ behalf?
On writing they have done before travel
- When were students required to write? In examinations only or independently, perhaps for coursework or reflections?
- What was writing designed to show: students’ knowledge only? Students personal ‘take’ on a context, problem or question? Putting an issue or question into the wider social, historical and political context? And so on.
- What did the student draw upon when writing: deep knowledge of a single text or extracts from a wide number? A shared knowledge of context with the reader? Personal opinions, supported by evidence?
- Was the expected structure inductive, with the main point at the end or deductive with the case stated at the beginning then underpinned, step by step, with evidence and examples? Or both?
- Was the writing mainly ‘writer responsible’, that is leaving it up to the writer to make everything clear and explicit; or was it ‘reader responsible’ where the writer can assume the reader is an expert who will make an effort to connect points together, draw upon their own knowledge etc? Was telling the reader what he/she already knew common or was it seen as rude?
- Was writing designed to persuade or to inform?
- How was use of others’ work signaled? By citation? By bibliography? By assumed shared knowledge? By informal reference to experts as in ‘…as Uncle Ho says’?
On reading they have done before travel
- What were students reading? How wide a range of sources? Was it a set text or other materials?
- How were sources beyond any set texts chosen? By the teacher? By students? Who helped them find new resources, if any?
- Did students have access to a library? What sort was it? Could they search open stacks or how did they get hold of texts? Any electronic use?
- When reading, were students expected to gain full text mastery? Or to use selected bits? To skim for useful bits?
- How many times did students read important texts? What was the repetition supposed to achieve?
- When set a task, were students responsible for finding sources relevant to the task or were the supporting materials specified?
- When reading, were students expected to make notes and use them in later tasks? Were the notes a verbatim copy or the student’s own ‘take’ on the contents?
On supervision before travel
- How were supervisors chosen: on personal expertise, by availability? According to a rota? On student’s preference? Etc
- Was a supervisor proactive, giving instructions setting deadlines, identifying areas for research etc or was the role more facilitative, discussing, asking for students’ interests, waiting to see what the student did etc? Was it something in between?
- How clearly were expectations and roles discussed? Was there any negotiation between student and supervisor?
- How often did student and supervisor meet? For how long? To do what? Who initiated the meeting?
- Were records kept on meetings, progress, agreements etc?
- If arrangements or focus or goals changed, who initiated the changes and how were changes managed?
- Were there any arrangements for dealing with problems, misunderstandings, personality clashes etc? If so, what?
- How was written work managed? How often was it reviewed and what feedback did supervisors provide on drafts?
- What support did students have on oral examinations, final submission, any examinations of results along the way, etc?
- Who examined and judged a student’s final thesis or dissertation?
