Session Information
20 SES 07 A, Use of Diversity Icebreaker and Learning Styles in Multicultural Teaching Settings
Research Workshop
Contribution
In an increasingly internationalized educational environment, awareness of differences in both learning styles on an individual level and learning beliefs influenced from a cultural level becomes important when dealing with multicultural student bodies. Therefore, we will present research on both a tool for unveiling individual learning styles, taking into consideration the cultural dimensions, as well as discussing culturally based learning beliefs and how both influence the classroom environment. Diversity Icebreaker is a psychological test tool that divides and describes people into three different preferences; Red, Blue and Green. First developed in a focus group where the question was "What type of communication would influence people?" the first questionnaire was created to identify respondents’ preferences for the 3 categories that emerged. The seminar use of Diversity Icebreaker has been used in post-graduate training as well as in business schools and universities in order to develop awareness of differences in preferences for interaction and behavior based on learning style. In spite of the influences from Gardner's work on 7 IQ the use of Diversity Icebreaker has mainly lost track of the issue of learning styles. In multicultural learning situations this comes up as an important component, if one has the idea to develop student responsibility for forming their own learning processes fitted to their own preferences, beliefs and cultural influences. Having teachers sharing concepts and varying different strategies in line conceptual models could create a shared understanding of learning preferences among teachers and students, despite cultural differences in learning beliefs, resulting in a more explicit learning environment where classroom behaviors are actively discussed and reflected upon rather than leading to prejudice and misunderstanding in grading, treatment and performance. Therefore, having students and teachers becoming aware of and learning to cope with individual learning styles, which are influenced by learning beliefs and culture, will hopefully lead to a more tolerant and fair classroom environment. Initial research on learning beliefs at a multicultural university has shown that there is a large discrepancy between teacher and learner expectations and the ability of students to perform expected classroom behaviors, resulting in lower performance and satisfaction of learners whose beliefs do not match those of the teacher. The culturally based foundation of mind and virtue orientation in learning beliefs has also been tested in German and Chinese student samples. The research question is to revisit the learning style components of the three preferences of Diversity Icebreaker, and see how informed conference participants would precisely delineate teaching and learning activities along these preferences and link them to cultural differences (Ekelund, Shneor & Gehrke, 2008. Ekelund, Iversen & Davcheva, 2009). Further information regarding research on the cultural differences related to learning beliefs, conducted in multicultural and monocultural educational environments will also be presented and links between the two concepts will be discussed. Additionally, discussion will include if these concepts can be applied in multicultural student groups to increase student personal responsibility for learning and teacher awareness of learning styles - and if so, practical applications will also be mentioned.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bjørn Z. Ekelund, Leah Davcheva & Jan Viggo Iversen: Diversity Icebreaker: Developing shared understanding of cooperation. Accepted for publication in Bulgarian Journal of Psychology, Dec 2009. Bjørn Z. Ekelund og Martha L. Maznevski: Diversity Training: Are We on the Right Track? Presented at California, USA, Academy of Management annual conference 9 august 2008, published in Ekelund, B.Z. & Langvik, E.: Diversity Icebreaker. How to manage diversity processes. Oslo: Human Factors Publ, 2008. Bjørn Z. Ekelund, Rotem Shneor og Bettina Gehrke: Diversity Icebreaker in cross-cultural training. Presented at Milano, Italy, Academy of International Business, 3-5 july 2008, published in Ekelund, B.Z. & Langvik, E.: Diversity Icebreaker. How to manage diversity processes. Oslo: Human Factors Publ, 2008. Rossi, A., Kühnen, U., & van Egmond, M.C. (forthcoming). The diversity of learning beliefs and its implications for globalizing universities. In Maierhofer, R. Penz, H., & Kriebernegg, U. (Eds.). Interculturality and Education. Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. Li, J. (2003). U.S. and Chinese cultural beliefs about learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95 (2), 258-267.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.