1. Teaching and learning across cultural strengths

2. What do you see in this photo?
Expect to see: lake, water, mountains, snow, sky, tufa, rocks, kayaks, people, plants, etc.; some may correctly identify it as Mono Lake
Things to point out/ discuss:
Observation vs interpretation/ inference –(key science process understanding) – make sure they focus on observations
Photo by Dawn Ellner (CC BY 2.0)

3. Artifacts and Behaviors
Beliefs
Values
ELEMENTS OF
CULTURE
Norms
Artifacts and behaviors: Visible behaviors, structures, processes, Symbols, rituals, policies, physical items
Beliefs: What we accept as true and often sets the course for how we teach
Values: The conscious expression of our principles
Norms: Social rules and expectations; often unconscious until one isn’t followed
Underlying Assumptions: unconscious, taken for granted perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, serve as the ultimate source of values
Underlying
Assumptions

4. culture
learned patterns or sets of group behavior and values imprinted on individuals, beginning at birth. These patterns, both conscious and unconscious, frame the “context” for individuals to perceive time and space, to interact and associate with one another, and to establish modes of perceiving and learning about the world. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1977, , 1992) identified populations both here and abroad with similar patterns of cultural context and clustered them on a continuum from “High” to “Low,” signifying the importance or intensity of these patterns within certain ethnic and gender groups.
Culture underlies the way people teach and learn
Cultures include values, beliefs, assumptions and norms and involve shared beliefs
Cultural references create a sense of belonging and iclude cognitive and emotional conjoining that has an influence on our identities, thoughts, feelings, and cognitive processes (69)
Ethnicity is a marker of origin, specific to national populations (Italian, Irish, Nigerian)
Race- reflects groupings of people, in US it is 5 (Black, latino, white, asian, native), social construct; RACE LEADS TO RACISM
Culture is influenced by race as populations adapt cultural elements to changing social influencs

5. Multicontext world (Hall, 1960’s)
National origin cultures that exhibited learned preferences (cultural contexts) that influence how
One interacts and associates with others
Uses living space
Perceives concepts of time
Processes information
Responds to various teaching and learning styles
Performs academically
Achievement Gap
Bowen & Bok – Shape of the River (1998)
Demonstrated Affirmative Action works but even accounting for all variables, gaps in academic performance among various groups still exist.
Average class rank in their graduating class:
African Americans: 23rd percentile;
Hispanics: 36th percentile,
Majority students: 53rd percentile.
Found social/cultural factors that reduce the gaps – people-oriented relationships, family/community engagement, supportive psychological environments, working in groups, collaborative learning environments, etc
The context of higher education in the U.S. is locked into a centuries-old German research model imported from Europe and clamped on a British colonial college system;
 The predominance of a particular and preferred learning environment tends to exclude all others, and thus defines the cultural context of higher education today;
 The outcome is not only a Euro-centric learning community, but also a hidden dimension of cultural context that has been an invisible element of diversity ignored until now.

6. Self survey
Given where you are on each continuum, what are some of your most distinctive values and priorities related to teaching?
From where in your life and identities do these values and priorities originate?
How might a student with a cultural framework dissimilar to yours experience your courses in contrast to a student with a similar cultural framework>
What does this mean for student learning?
Individuated: learn theory first, then components of it that demonstrate it. Integrated: learn components that lead to development of a theory (PT first, or EQ, & volc first, then PT).
Integrated- no debates in class because it breaks down relationships developed in learning environment

7. Contextuality “High Context Cultures” (HC)
predominantly ethnic minorities
Females
focus on streams of information that surround an event, situation or interaction in order to determine meaning from the context in which it occurs.
High use of non-verbal signals to contextualize meaning
Indirect communication
 “Low Context Cultures” (LC)
predominantly northern European ethnic groups
Males
filter out conditions surrounding an event or interaction
focus as much as possible on words and objective facts.
Emphasis on words to supply meaning
Direct communication
Cultures towards the high end of the continuum tended to look at the big picture and look for meaning, whereas cultures on the low end focused on facts and words His studies showed that High Context Cultures, (HC), were mostly women and ethnic minorities whereas Low Context Cultures (LC), tended to be male and of Northern European descent. Ibarra (2006) further clarifies this point illuminating prevailing models of graduate education are Germanic in nature and fit a low context culture, which causes conflict for students and faculty of high context cultures.
For instance, German national cultures, according to Edward Hall (1959), are the epitome of Low Context cultures throughout the world. Northern European populations, such as English, German, Swiss, and Scandinavian people exhibited Specific or Low Context tendencies,
Low Context” (LC) cultures because they required little contextualization to communicate, interact, and interpret the world around them.
while Asians, Arabs, Africans, Latin Americans, North American Indian groups and people from other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean based-countries, exhibited Generalized or High Context tendencies (Ibarra, 2006) High Context” (HC) cultures because they required more social and cultural contextualization to communicate, interact and interpret the world around them.
Cultural context translates behavior into meaning – why do people do what they do and how that affects everything around us both consciously and unconsciously.
Diverse populations in the U.S. higher education are not necessarily predominantly HC or LC but instead are MULTICONTEXTUAL – a learned ability to survive in LC academic culture while maintaining HC characteristics in other aspects of life.
hat higher education is predominantly a LC culture derived from the 19th century German research institute model that grounded graduate and professional training over the last century. The resulting conflict between LC academic culture and HC cultural preferences causes the dissonance we note among underrepresented groups.
Read vignettes p 18
Integrated: interweave ideas showing connections and depth across a strand of thought
Individuated: present things as discrete components in a step-by-step manner

8. Steps to becoming culturally sensitive
Write you own cultural autobiography
Learn about other cultures
Learn how to be sensitive to other cultures in your classes and teach to your students cultural strengths. improving achievement by teaching diverse students through their own cultural filters
Low context / individuated
High context / integrated
Multicontext

9. Brainstorming pedagogies
Take a moment for some cultural reflection
Open to a blank sheet of paper, and create 2 columns, label one ‘Individuated’ or ‘Low context” and label the other column “integrated” or “High context”.
Brainstorm as many pedagogies you can think of for each column
How do the columns compare? Does one have more activities? What does that mean for you? For your students?
Find someone with the other cultural context, and compare your lists. If you are multicontextural, find another MC
By teaching mostly within only one cultural framework, we are not reaching in ways that incorporate a diversity of cultural strengths. Subsequently, we create learning environments that privilege some kinds of learning and underserve or even repress others. This is one of the reasons some cultural groups have greater success and retention rates in college than others (p 129)

10. Gallery walk On each easel is an assignment
Decide if this assignment is best for an integrated student (HC), an individuated student (LC) or in between (MC).
Then provide suggestions on how this assignment can be better designed to reach all?

11. In a small group: Discuss and evaluate:
This exercise in terms of Context Diversity; and
how would you revised it to broaden the Multicontextual framework.
Critique the evaluations relative contextual framework with each other.
Offer suggestions for improvement
See the Learning Community Questions page to help in this exercise.

12. Sharing your Revisions
Now, share how your group evaluated this exercise and how you revised it to broaden the Multicontextual framework.
Critique the evaluations relative contextual framework with each other.
Offer suggestions for improvement
See the Learning Community Questions page to help in this exercise.

13. By teaching mostly within only one cultural framework, we are not reaching in ways that incorporate a diversity of cultural strengths. Subsequently, we create learning environments that privilege some kinds of learning and underserve or even repress others. This is one of the reasons some cultural groups have greater success and retention rates in college than others (p 129)

14. Facilitating learning across cultures has to do in great part with developing pedagogies, relational dynamics, and assignments that promote a healthy balance of resonance and dissonance with a diversity of learners (p 130)

15. Final thought
Where would you place the geosciences, as a whole, in this continuum?
What are some of the most distinctive qualities of the geosciences in relation to teaching and learning?
Do the cultural norms of the geosciences center primarily in an integrated, individuated, or balanced framework?
How might students from different cultural framworkes experience the geosciences?
How might your own teaching within the geosciences evolve toward a more balanced foundation of cultural frameworks?

16. Many faculty still teach from a content-driven framework, yet for most students, learning happens more from a process-driven framework (p 131)