Implementing Multicultural Team Work
Introduction
Team work can be one of the most difficult activities to facilitate within the classroom.
In this film students and staff share their practice and experiences and highlight the benefits of participants being able to bring their own cultural experiences and viewpoints to group projects.
Student Perspectives
Based on students’ feedback, here are some ways you could implement this idea within the classroom:
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Encourage students to not only work together, but to have healthy debates and discussion in their group (Robin T George)
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Support students who find it difficult to engage with people they don’t know (Leanne)
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Set up groups mixing students with different cultural background to learn about differences, and go beyond in order to find common grounds (Yanhui)
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Include activities that do not only have one right answer, but allow students to benefit from sharing ideas and perspectives from their own lived experiences (Kris Kewish)
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Additional Resources
A 2019 Monash-Warwick Alliance funded project, Education Across Borders: Developing a Global Mindset in Business ..., involves the creation of teams across business schools, where students will collaborate in virtually professional contexts. The second component will comprise face-to-face meetings during an international study abroad experience in Italy. Throughout the program, students will work together virtually and physically to solve a real-world business problem sourced from industry and alumni.
A 2018 Monash-Warwick Alliance funded project, the TeaMWork virtual international internship programme ..., enables students from Warwick and Monash (Australia and Malaysia) to work in teams of 6 on a project for an international organisation. Prior to the project, the students attend an in-depth induction programme including team working, communication skills and intercultural training. Learn more about the programme here: TeamWork Virtual International Programme (warwick.ac.uk) and read student experiences here: Student testimonials - Monash University.
The Monash-Warwick Alliance Intensive Study Programme (AISP) offers ... 12 joint modules. As part of the programme, students are connected through a three-part Intercultural Training Programme run by World at Warwick. This focuses on global teamwork and culminates in a peer-led workshop which brings together all students to reflect on their experience and learning achievement.
Cross-cultural activity between Monash Caulfield and Monash Malaysia
An online, cross-cultural activity was developed involving 600 business capstone students ... from Monash Caulfield and the Monash Malaysia campus. The students were allocated into cross-campus teams and were required to find a solution to an ethics-based problem relevant to the curriculum of both units using MS Teams. This allowed students to genuinely collaborate across Monash campuses while developing cross-cultural awareness, teamwork and technology skills. Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Student Voices: Domestic cohort engagement with international students through COVID-19 (International Education Association of Australia)
The Student Voices report, jointly published with Education New Zealand, is a landmark trans-Tasman ... study exploring how domestic students’ attitudes and behaviour towards international students have shifted during the COVID-19 crisis.
This task puts students from culturally diverse backgrounds into teams to undertake a field trip ... (virtual or actual) to an art gallery. Students select a work or works of art that interest them and develop a presentation that takes into account each team member’s different response to the selected work. The goal here is for students to appreciate how their own culture and background will inform the way they view the world around them and to find a common language to share each other’s responses.