Globally Networked Learning Environments in Professional Communication: Challenging Normalized Ways of Learning, Teaching, and Knowing

Stärke-Meyerring, Doreen

doi:10.1177/1050651910363266

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Theoretical learning imparted in the classroom is insufficient according to Herrington (2008); students must learn how to interact with different cultures through actual experience. According to Starke-Meyerring (2010), students taking part in GVT projects increase their intercultural competencies and thus acquire invaluable skills for their professional as well as personal development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stepping up the game–meeting the needs of global business through virtual team projects

Swartz

Shrivastava

2021

HESWBL

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PurposeVirtual collaboration provides students with an opportunity to develop cultural intelligence while fitting into the team where the members are from diverse cultures. The purpose of this study is to explore whether global virtual team (GVT) projects raise students' understanding of cultural differences. In addition, it is interesting to know how internationally disruptive events such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic influence GVT projects.Design/methodology/approachThe research involved two parts: In the first part, a two-wave longitudinal study was conducted to investigate how intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competence coevolve within a group of international students enrolled in a virtual business professional project. In the second part, using word clouds and topic modelling on the participants' perceptions, the study investigated whether the sudden disruption caused by the pandemic show similar results in performance, focussing primarily on the resilience of virtual teams. Further, the study explored participants' perceptions towards online learning in higher education institutions as well as the attitude of corporate organizations towards remote working in the post-pandemic years.FindingsThe results confirmed that GVT projects, in fact, do raise students' understanding of cultural differences and the need to adjust their behaviour accordingly in order to engage with their culturally different counterparts effectively. Participants reported an increase in their cognitive, behavioural and affective attributes.Research limitations/implicationsAmong the limitations of this study is the relatively small number of student participants. Furthermore, the number of respondents from India dominated the sample. Since the Indian students were disproportionately affected by the shutdown, causing them to return often to rural areas with poor Internet connectivity, responses concerning the disruption caused by the pandemic may be overriding negative. The same could be said of responses from US-American students, who often rely heavily on-campus employment or whose parents became unemployed during the pandemic, and thus were faced with disproportionate economic insecurity.Practical implicationsThis paper provides insights to the educators and international organizations on how such projects provide the skills essential for reducing costs, accessing knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) across borders, maintaining flexible work schedules and arrangements, and taking advantage of multiple time zones to increase productivity.Originality/valueWhile highlighting the significance of cultural intelligence, this paper investigated how the sudden disruption caused by a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts performance, focussing primarily on the resilience of virtual teams.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stepping up the game–meeting the needs of global business through virtual team projects

Swartz

Shrivastava

2021

HESWBL

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“…Starke-Meyerring (2007) noted the difficulty of making students aware of their own cultural limitations regarding knowledge in conventional classroom instruction and stressed the benefits of experiential learning. Through engaging students in collaborative projects involving global classrooms, or GNLEs, instructors aim to impart cross-cultural competencies, which are skills necessary not only for their professional but also for their personal development, such as by reducing ethnocentrism and encouraging civil engagement (Starke-Meyerring, 2010a, 2010b. BUILDING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE ACROSS GLOBAL CLASSROOMS 4 This article describes such a collaborative project and discusses its effectivity in increasing intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competence based on findings from pre-and post-project surveys.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Starke-Meyerring (2007)noted the difficulty of making students aware of their own cultural limitations regarding knowledge in conventional classroom instruction and stressed the benefits of experiential learning. Through engaging students in collaborative projects involving global classrooms, also known as Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), instructors aim to impart cross-cultural competencies, which are skills necessary not only for their professional but also for their personal development, such as by reducing ethnocentrism and encouraging civil engagement (Starke-Meyerring, 2007,2010a,2010b).…”

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confidence: 99%

Building Intercultural Competence Through Virtual Team Collaboration Across Global Classrooms

Swartz

Barbosa

Crawford

2019

Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

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By means of a cross-cultural virtual teams project involving classrooms in Scotland, Germany, and Portugal, students were exposed to the challenges of collaborating internationally with the intention of increasing their intercultural competency. Intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competency were measured using responses to surveys before and after the 6-week project. Students reported, among other aspects, a heightened awareness of the difficulties of intercultural communication. Despite a general appreciation of the project and its outcomes, negative results, such as an increased dislike of intercultural interaction, emerged. Contradictory results warrant further investigation with data from future collaborations.

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“…While globalization itself may be a contested term, Starke-Meyerring (2010) provides a useful working definition: "the increasing interdependence and integration of social, political, cultural, and economic processes across local, national, regional, and global levels" (p. 261). In a GNLE, students are linked in meaningful ways to peers, instructors, industry professionals, and to communities from diverse contexts in order to share knowledge making practices across borders (Starke-Meyerring, 2010). Rather than an export model of learning, GNLEs tend to be multi-faceted environments in which "a constellation of social and cultural factors" creates not only opportunities for research, education and collaboration but also opportunities for language and literacy development (Hawisher, Selfe, Guo & Liu, 2006).…”

Section: Teaching Writing In a Globally Networked Learning Environment (Gnle): Diverse Students At A Distance Jennifer Lynn Craig Massachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreword: Multilinguality Across the Curriculum

Hall

2014

WAC and Second-Language Writers: Research Towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Practices

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Johns, A. M. (2001). ESL students and WAC programs: Varied populations and diverse needs. In S. H. McLeod, E. Miraglia, M. Soven, & C. Thaiss (Eds.), WAC for the new millennium: Strategies for continuing writing-acrossthe-curriculum programs (pp. 141-164). Urbana, IL: NCTE. Lancaster, Z. (2011). Interpersonal stance in L1 and L2 students' argumentative writing in economics. Across the Disciplines, 8(4). Retrieved from http:// wac.colostate.edu/atd/ell/lancaster.cfm Leki, I. (2003). A challenge to second language writing professionals: Is writing overrated? In B. Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (pp. 315-332). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Leki, I., & Carson, J. G. (1994). Students' perceptions of EAP writing instruction and writing needs across the disciplines. TESOL Quarterly, 28(1), 81-101. Lindsey, P., & Crusan, D. (2011). How faculty attitudes and expectations toward student nationality affect writing assessment. Across the Disciplines, 8(4). Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/ell/lindsey-crusan.cfm Matsuda, P. K., & Jablonksi, J. (2000). Beyond the L2 metaphor: Towards a mutually transformative model of ESL/WAC collaboration. Academic.Writing, 1. Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/articles/matsuda_jablon-ski2000.htm LINGUISTICALLY AND CULTURALLY INCLUSIVE WRITING PROGRAMS, COURSES, ASSIGNMENTS, ACTIVITIES, AND ASSESSMENTSRelated to the second bullet point in our list of expanded WAC/L2 principles, we turn now to another strand of research in SLW that has focused on the writing experiences of L2 students as they write in courses and contexts across the curriculum. Michelle Cox's (2011) review of this longitudinal research revealed that second language writers often struggle due to writing assignments that "assume deep cultural and historical knowledge of the US" (para. 9), the lack of scaffolding of assignments, the lack of time for completing the heavy reading and writing required by a project, and evaluation methods that focus too heavily on standard written English. There's also an abundance of SLW literature on developing linguistically and culturally inclusive assignments and writing curricula, noting especially the contributions made by Dana Ferris on teaching L2 writing (2004, 2009) and, in WAC contexts, Leki's pedagogical recommendations in her extensive body of work on L2 writers across disciplines. Also related to WAC contexts, Joy Reid and Barbara analyze eleven assignment descriptions from across the curriculum for accessibility and equity to L2 students, and then make recommendations for creating assignments that are more conducive for L2 student success. In their scholarship, SLW practitioners also address other faculty who work with L2 students, including composition instructors (such examples include work already cited, particularly

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Globally Networked Learning Environments in Professional Communication: Challenging Normalized Ways of Learning, Teaching, and Knowing

Cited by 15 publications

References 25 publications

Stepping up the game–meeting the needs of global business through virtual team projects

Stepping up the game–meeting the needs of global business through virtual team projects

Building Intercultural Competence Through Virtual Team Collaboration Across Global Classrooms

Foreword: Multilinguality Across the Curriculum

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