building intercultural competences: an innovative model under the lens maria giovanna onorati furio...

Building intercultural competences: an innovative model under the lens

Maria Giovanna ONORATIFurio BEDNARZ

Intercultural Counselling and Education in the Global World

Educazione e Counselling interculturale nel mondo globale

Verona, 15-18 April 2013

LLP – IP “Interdisciplinary Course on Intercultural Competences - ICIC”

Duration: 2007 – 2010

Consortium: University of Aosta Valley - Italy (international coordinator)

ECAP Switzerland (partner)

Artvelde University College – Belgium (partner)

Metropolia University College – Finnland (partner)

Semmelweis University – Hungary (partner)

University of Salento – Italy (partner)

Dokuz Eylul Unversity – Turkey (partner)

IUFFP Switzerland (partner)

Aims: Developing intercultural competences in future professionals in Education, Social Work, Health Care

Target group: Undergraduate students of the involved institutions

Priority:Tuning two different Educational Systems:

Academic higher education and Vocational higher education

>> a close interlace between theory and practice >> INNOVATIVE LEARNING MODEL LARGELY BASED IN EXPERIENCE


Overview

Building intercultural competencies, in an ever changing world: a transformative and reflective learning process

Conceptual / theoretical background: Aims, theoretical framework and methods of a good practice

First results: Evidences in a multidimensional perspective: a learning process under the lens

Hints for the discussion and final remarks

The context:

What:•A transfer of innovation Leonardo project (INCOM-VET), drawing on an Erasmus initiative (Intensive Program ICIC)

Who:•From ICIC Consortium to INCOM-VET Consortium:

VET institutions and Academic Institutions together

What about:•From initial education (undergraduate students) to continuous vocational training (professionals)

Aims:•enhancing VET practitioners’ competences in managing intercultural dynamics, according to an innovative methodological approach based on experiential learning in the framework of lifelong learning perspective.


From ICIC to INCOM-VET: Emerging challenges and theoretical

background

Theories of social change, risk and reflexive modernity (Giddens, Beck)

Theories of deliberative democracy (Baiocchi) and participative education: make citizens able to “learn” how to cope with intercultural dynamics by participating (Morgan and Streb)

Theories of Human Capital (Becker), re-thought in the light of bridging vs. bonding social capitals (Putnam)

Change and experience >> re-embedding competency into social experience >> refund trust on trustiness (Jedlowski, Giddens)

Theories of transformative and experiential learning: a holistic and multidimensional approach to learning, that transforms experience in stable knowledge (Illeris, Jarvis, Reggio)

Intercultural competency

A key asset for professionals and individuals in the globalized ever changing world

Culturally aware mobilization of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that enables people o cope with unfamiliar situations and ever changing problems arising (in work as in life) from the encounter with people socialized in a different culture, with a view to find new and shared solutions.

(see Onorati – Bednarz, 2010)

LEARNING AS A TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESS (ILLERIS, JARVIS, REGGIO)

EXPERIENCE

KNOWLEDGE

TRANSFORMATION

ENCOUNTER

REFLECTION

APPRECIATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

NARRATION

OBSERVATION

LISTENINGREFORMULATION

REFRAMING

A holistic, situated and multidimensional approach to learning, enhancing the relevance of personal experiences, relational and physical contexts within which people move and meet.

TRANSFORMATION OF EXPERIENCE INTO STABLE KNOWLEDGE

REFLECTION AS A TRANSFORMATIVE DEVICE IN EXPERIENCIAL LEARNING (REGGIO, 2010)

4 BASIC COGNITIVE MOVEMENTS OF EXPERIENCIAL LEARNING• NOTICE>> look out carefully over the world >> didactical situations that arise

curiosity to “note” and “annotate” something• ADDRESS>> movement outwads: researching, asking, opening to the

unknown, discovery• TRANSFORM >> re-living experience through forms that make it sharable• GENERATE >> new ideas (solutions)

BACK-UP MOVEMENTS• ACTION and PAUSE: enactment and lingering into action• QUESTIONING and IMAGINATION: facing the world in a problematic way

and production of metaphors, images, intuition

ICIC learning model focuses on:

• the emotional-relational dimensions of learning: living disjunctural experiences (Jarvis), re-working and reflecting on them in a group

• critical incidents and case studies as learning triggers: learners are asked to look for solutions coherent with theoretical frameworks elaborated or inferred by applying Cognitive structures to External experiences

• Scaffolding techniques, and the use of reflective tools, intended as classifiers of the experience for a systematization in terms of knowledge.


First evidences of an ongoing action-research

•Researching with the learners: researchers act as mentors and tutors, fostering peer and cooperative learning•Participative and formative monitoring and evaluation: different surveys about social experiences of the learners and their perception of the learning experience, integrated by focus groups during the training sessions•Valuing written and oral production of the learners: a qualitative study on 150 Learning Journals (ICIC, students 2008-2010)


Reflection as a double step process: we always reflect on memories of our experience, on a raw material embedding our previous knowledge

Peter Jarvis, 1994, 1997, 2009…


Situated experienceFull immersion in the contexts

Informal learning

emotional-relational dimensions

of learning , disjuncture

Foreign country

Living together

Field visits

Town exploration

Situated experienceInteractive reworking of expereince

formal learning

Cooperation Pair or group work

Communication English speaking

Effective and appropriate communication,

Use of media

Interaction Active and participative roles

Simulation Intercultural games, role plays

Cooperative assignments can play a fundamental role in mediating and accompanying learning from experience


From “ICIC” Edition 2010 in Aosta

Rethink reflective «circles» in term of «movements», articulating a not sequential process, made of pauses and actions…

Reggio’s experiential learning movements

NOTICE ADDRESS TRANSFORM GENERATE

What did you noticed?

What does it mean for you?

What did you learned and how…(reflective pause)

How this may affect your practice…

Good to provide services for illegal

migrants as well (or could this cause

problems?)

The use of mediators is very interesting, … we don’t have at least

not systematically in Finland

Mediators are an important bridge between different

cultures – it’s (also) important to

remember and honor the original roots and cultures of immigrants

I think it would immigrants feel

more at home if they have this mediating

process in use…It’s safe for them to

get used to the culture with the help of someone familiar

and step by step

This could be useful to develop in Finland.

Although the normal thinking seems to be

that earlier they integrate to their new society, the better…


Learning Journals as powerful sources: surprise, comparing, questioning, generating new ideas…

… it really made me sad. The way I felt really affected the

way I reflected afterwards, and it was really surprising for

me

How can it affects my practice in a daily life?

…because we learned at school that we couldn’t let our

feelings affect the way we help clients

I really should be more careful and try to

canalize my feelings before I start helping

someone, this in order to be able to be more

professional

I was surprised how many volunteers they have in the language

school It was nice to see Ludobus in action for example in the language school

I wonder how could we transfer the

voluntary work in Finland as well

It was nice to see that they had day for mental

disease (…) It’s really important to

give information to people … in order to decrease prejudices

It’s important to adapt the methodology with

the group you’re working with…


Experiential learning implies disjuncture and feed-back processes, in order to produce new mental frames, awareness, transformation…


Scaffolds (i.e. structured Diaries) are important, but there’s no size fitting all! Learners represent the interaction between External and Internal experience in totally different ways…


Summing up: some hints for the discussion

•Experiencing disjuncture (falsifying what we take for granted) and activating (re)constructive reflection processes play a key role in intercultural learning•Experiential learning is an individual and relational process, in any case complex and original; open mind is a requirement•As far as we reflect on “memories of experiences”, the quality of this “raw material”, and the awareness of influences engendered by our cultural imprinting, beliefs and values, is of the utmost importance for the result of reflective learning processes•Writing or visualizing help a lot produce effective and aware raw material for reflection•Memorization and reflection can be supported by didactical means: a•rtifacts, scaffolds, peer learning settings


building intercultural competences: an innovative model under the lens maria giovanna onorati furio...

Documents

intercultural competency

intercultural dynamics

intercultural competencies

experience slide

global world slide

participative education

experiential learning

vocational higher education