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A university provides opportunities for interaction with individuals from many cultural backgrounds. Different learning opportunities and obstacles may arise from this contact.
The blending of cultures in the classroom can have a variety of consequences on student learning effectiveness, depending on the factors such as language, ideals, and customs.
According to Gordana Lazic, an assistant professor of communication studies, people must realize that culture is a multifaceted concept. She claimed that learning obstacles do arise when studying with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
It’s common for college students to hang out, spend time with people who are similar to them, and form these communities, according to Lazic. “We need to work very hard to diversify the demographics that we come into contact with.”
According to Lazic, in order to understand other cultures, people must accept that there are cultural obstacles and actively interact with those who are different from them.
According to Beau Pihlaja, an assistant professor in the English department at Texas Tech, culture is made up of the customs and patterns that individuals adopt.
“Just because we’ve learned social norms, culture can still have an impact on learning,” he stated. Many teachers instruct us in a certain subject. It is not taught to us how to teach.
Pihlaja stated that in order to successfully instruct someone, it is important to take into account how that individual learns, regardless of whether they are dealing with someone from the same culture or one that is not.
According to educational psychology associate professor Dave Louis, a person’s identity is influenced by their culture.
“Language is probably one of the biggest things when it comes to culture,” he stated. “Culture influences communication, and culture influences expectations.”
Louis noted that although intellectual interaction is valued in today’s academic setting, cultural differences can still influence how a student approaches a problem in the classroom. He stated that certain cultures may serve as learning obstacles for international students studying in the United States, such as a lack of questioning or asking for assistance from the lecturer.
The chance it gives us to transcend who we are and comprehend something greater is, in my opinion, the greatest benefit and feature of culture, according to Louis. “We have the chance to incorporate other cultures into our learning when we interact with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds as faculty, students, and teachers.”
Louis mentioned that having a diverse group of students and teachers in the classroom will give everyone a more nuanced understanding of the world and enable them to expand on their knowledge.
He declared, “We are a very multi-cultural state and nation, the United States and I would say Texas as well.” “We have the chance to learn from a variety of individuals, locations, ethnic groups, and religious perspectives. To be honest, it helps us understand the world a little better.
Although learning usually takes place in the context of a lecture, it can also happen when students collaborate with one another.
Assistant professor Patriann Smith of the Tech College of Education noted that her area of expertise is encounters that span linguistic and cultural boundaries.
According to her, peers “have quite a bit of influence on how they perceive each other.” “I frequently observe that the international students in my classes—one or two of them most of the time—tend to become isolated.”
According to Smith, this isolation happens when people don’t reply to live online remarks or postings made by international students on online class boards. The task of facilitating the connection between American students and international students falls to the instructor and occasionally the university.
“The course itself needs to take a more deliberate approach to diversity,” Smith stated. “I actually provide explicit guidelines in my courses about why I include people from different backgrounds in group settings.”
Regardless of whether the kid is an international or monolingual American, Smith expressed her hope that students will gain knowledge from exposure to a variety of backgrounds. Even Nevertheless, cultural differences may initially cause problems for students collaborating in groups.
According to Smith, “that helps them to start thinking about things differently.” “Even if they don’t change by the end of the course, they will have the chance to apply the same tactic in another course.”