Virtual Exchange: Practices for Engaging Diverse Students

ABSTRACT:

This article examines practices for engaging diverse participants in a virtual exchange (VE) program. Facilitators underwent comprehensive cross-cultural training to lead VE sessions between Moroccan, Iraqi, and American students. The VE focused on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and bi-national teams addressed local issues related to responsible consumption, climate action, and more. Cultural dimensions, power distance, language proficiency, and gender/age dynamics affected group dynamics. Inclusive practices included encouraging diverse voices, assigning leaders to facilitate discussions, and reaching out to absent participants. Creating alternative communication platforms helped maintain engagement. These practices foster inclusivity and empower students from diverse backgrounds to participate meaningfully in VE programs.

Authors:

• Oumaima Elghazali, PhD | Adjunct Faculty, Mohammed V University – Morocco
• Melinda L. Cain, PhD | Managing Director, Real World Solutions, LLC – Colorado, USA

Identity

One of the well-known dimensions of Hofstede’s model of Cultural Dimensions (1980) is Identity. Hofstede conceptualizes identity to have two dichotomies, Individualism and Collectivism. In individualist cultures people value independence, self-reliance, and empowerment to make individual decisions. In collectivist cultures people prioritize attention to group and make decisions as part of an entity. In this VE, American students were regarded as individualist participants, while Iraqi and Moroccan students were seen as collectivists. Facilitators noticed that American students had a more ‘let’s get this done’ attitude than their other cultural counterparts. While their collectivist counterparts took much more time to make decisions that reflected group consensus

Power Distance

Power distance in this VE was observed in the way students approached their facilitators. Moroccan and Iraqi students tended to use titles like Mr. and Mrs. to address their facilitators, and it was hard for them when more informal ways of addressing them were suggested. Facilitators noticed that American students were open to discussing and exchanging thoughts with facilitators, unlike the Iraqi students, who seemed shy to request assistance from the opposite culture’s facilitators.

Gender and Age

In both Iraqi and Moroccan cultures facilitators noticed dominance of male voices over female voices, especially in breakout room discussions. The variable of age influenced bi-national team dynamics and participation. Some of the Moroccan and Iraqi students who participated in the VE were high school students, while the American students were in middle school. This difference in age, according to the facilitators, created a reluctance in American students to participate in decision making and in taking the lead for different parts of the project.

Language Proficiency

One of the reasons VE organizers selected high school students from Morocco and Iraq instead of middle schoolers was due to their English language proficiency. Though Moroccans and Iraqis were older in age, their English proficiency was adequate to handle project conversations with their younger American peers. The facilitators noticed that the American students did not use an empathic approach in their communication when they addressed Moroccan and Iraqi students, which would require a slow speaking pace and a careful articulation of words.

Connectivity

Internet connectivity remains a problem for most students in the MENA region. This caused an issue in keeping up with the online session and on other occasions not being able to join the weekly virtual session.

INCLUSIVE AND EQUITABLE PRACTICES

1. Encouraging diverse voices: To ensure students of different ages, genders, and language backgrounds were heard and could contribute to decision making, the facilitators intervened to encourage participation. The two practices they used were calling participants by their name and applauding their participation. Facilitators often prompted silent students by asking follow-up questions. In helping boost the self-confidence of students with lower language proficiency, the facilitators would occasionally have American students repeat or type what they said in the chat to ensure linguistic understanding. Also, when students from collectivist communities tended to take more time to decide on future actions, and their individualist counterparts would usually agree with what was suggested, the facilitators would navigate these dynamics by prompting decisions and asking follow-up questions to ensure everyone was heard and included in the decision making.
2. Assigning leaders to facilitate discussions: To encourage students from diverse backgrounds to take the lead in discussions, especially students from high power-distance cultures, the facilitators created a system of leadership to facilitate group discussions. Using this strategy students would take turns in facilitating group discussions and practicing inclusive practices. They also had to be mindful that everyone’s voice was included, and group ownership of decisions was necessary.
3. Reaching out to participants: There were instances where students would miss a session for different reasons. To ensure that everyone had ownership of the project development in every step of the decision making, facilitators reached out to the participants who did not attend and left them a message saying that they were missed during the session. This strategy boosted the self-confidence of students and made them feel that their voice mattered. It also worked effectively especially with students who doubted their English language proficiency.
4. Creating alternative communication platforms: To continue the participants’ discussions as a group, the facilitators encouraged the creation of WhatsApp groups. WhatsApp is accessible to everyone and does not need a strong internet connection to operate. This allowed students to continue the conversation around projects outside of their VE session times, and those who had internet connection issues managed to still engage with their group. This had one drawback, however; students were on different time zones, which hindered the reception of instant responses.

Conclusion

The shared practices in this article could be used by future VEs to foster inclusivity among diverse participants. The practices could be used with the same diversity variables this program had, or they could be extended to cater for other individual characteristics like disability identification, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity (Lopez-McGee, 2019). Encouraging diverse voices in a group discussion, for example, could be used to encourage students from marginalized groups to participate in decision making .

References:

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture and organizations. International Studies of Management & Organization, 10(4), 15–41.

Stevens Initiative. (2023). 2023 virtual exchange impact and learning report. https://www.stevensinitiative.org/resource/2023-virtual-exchange-impact-and-learning-report/

Cohen, E. (2021). The UN Sustainable Development Goals as a bridge between global learning and local action. Diversity Abroad. https://www.diversitynetwork.org/

Lopez-McGee, L. (2019). 2019 Survey of diversity & inclusion among international educators. Diversity Abroad. https://www.diversitynetwork.org/Diversity_Inclusion_InternationalEducators_Survey