Education Commons^™

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Communication

2011

University of Rhode Island

In Scarino, Crichton, and Woods (2007) article they spend considerable time highlighting the intercultural process that the teacher went through as she recognizes herself as part of the learning process. The authors highlighted the personal challenges met by the teacher’s ethno-centric assumptions about how teachers should teach materials, and how the students should learn it. These results demonstrate that ethno-centric assumptions are present and the expectation of both teacher and student is inevitably communicated to each other. Yet communication of any social cue cannot be guaranteed that it may be met with understanding. Implicit western cultural understandings and its associated assumptions do not always translate easily and can guide locally inappropriate knowledge Running head: Distance Education Linked by Culture 9 9 assessments and applications of knowledge if teachers and learners do not end up educating each other (Winschiers, & Fendler, 2007). Since perspective taking encourages students to talk about culture along with the information being discussed, it can help provide an intellectual foundation for questioning the status quo that will inevitably build a more just society by educating people to recognize what people need. By utilizing examples of social identity and culture as a place of identity construction students could compare themselves and others as living examples of diversity (Kearney, & Andrew, 2009). By educating students on culture students were more skilled at identifying diversity as part of their own lives and not something that was impersonally shaping it. In utilizing sociocultural education through topical and personal narratives students begin to have the potential to construct cultures incompatible with violence and threats, and this is the most important information conveyed from teacher to student (Erickson, C., Mattaini, M., & McGuire, M. (2004). As distance education begins to develop global curriculums CLNs are well suited to provide a democratic voice for the populace it is comprised of so that individuals, industries, and nations, might fully endorse international cooperation and collaboration to benefit all parties (Scarino, Crichton, and Woods, 2007). Most state and federal correctional agencies have used CLNs to assist in training staff and inmates as an increasing amount of evidence indicates that increasing education and job specific skills are significant factors in reducing recidivism for Incarcerated individuals (N.A., 2005). By utilizing CLNs with distance education, Gardner’s theory of MI will easily come through community standards of assessments because individuals practical use of their talents will be seen and demonstrated throughout their community everyday (Rippel, 2003). Running head: Distance Education Linked by Culture 10 10 Critical Analysis Since a multicultural society is a reality for the majority of people in the U.S. today, it is crucial to reach individuals who may feel threatened by globalization in hopes that they will begin to see how contradictory cultural assumptions can create multicultural conflicts that cost time, money, peace of mind, and missed opportunities for everyone. Yet today many people at home and abroad do not have access to technology or the internet for a variety of reasons. The causes of this digital divide amongst individuals are as numerous as the divides themselves (Johnson, 2008). Internet use, teacher training in areas of technology, school funding, federal aid, students socioeconomic status (SES), rural vs. urban standards, developing nation vs. developed nation, etc., all these and many more issues may create moral dilemmas for teachers and students who interact in these informational/cultural contact zones (Garland, & Wotton, 2002). While the content agreed upon by the host and provider countries can be thought of as informational contact zones that connect international partnerships with the knowledge thought of as safe to debate, communicate through, collaborate on, and strive for innovation in (Singh, & Doherty, 2004).