6 Facilitate team development in culturally diverse teams

Group work in the context of an internationalizing university facilitates the development of intercultural skills for both domestic and international students. The KPU 2023 Academic plan includes a mandate to “foster a culturally and globally aware curriculum, being prepared to meet the needs of an international workplace, whether in Canada or internationally”.  This mandate, combined with course and program learning outcomes that include intercultural team skills, adds an additional layer to the team development process.

Culturally diverse teams support creative thinking and the development of strong solutions, as team members can bring a wider range of experiences and perspectives to the task than is possible on a monocultural team (Tadmor et al., 2012).  However, culturally diverse teams can also struggle with miscommunication and misundrestandings that hinder a successful team process.  Intercultural teams have the potential to be most successful when intercultural skills are explicitly discussed and scaffolded in the course and project design.

Considerations for intercultural teamwork

Consider the relationship of intercultural teamwork with your course learning outcomes, and the ways in which the process skills involved in intercultural teams might be evaluated as a part of the group project. Nederveen Pieterse et al., (2013) found that intercultural teams with stronger learning orientations engaged with each other more effectively, whereas a focus on task performance can undermine intercultural communication in teams. In other words, if students are primarily focused on being graded on the product they submit, they may be less motivated to move through the challenging process of building intercultural team relationships.  Consider including a process component in the overall assignment grade, for example, a reflective activity on intercultural skills development within the context of the team project.

Consider what specific training in intercultural skills might be needed for students. Students may need support in cultivating an intercultural mindset that includes recognition and respect for differences. An intercultural mindset also includes recognition of one’s own biases, and how these impact interactions with others. Students may need support in understanding that the ways in which we communicate, organize time, work with others, and provide feedback may be shaped by prior experiences and culturally-influenced values.  In the resources section of this chapter, you will find an example lesson that includes content and learning activities that support students in developing self-reflective, cognitive, and interpersonal skills for working in intercultural teams.

Arkoudis et al. (2013) recommend six practices for facilitating intercultural interaction throughout courses; these practices can support students in developing the skills and relationships that will support their success in group projects.

Consider students’ present abilities teamwork abilities.  Working in an intercultural team is more complex than working in a monocultural team.  If intercultural team development is not an outcome of the assignment, monocultural teams might improve student comfort. Consider the rubric below from Chao and Pardy (2017) when evaluating students’ broader competency in teamwork and how it might affect assignment design.  This may involve scaffolding team assignments in a single course, or even across courses, to facilitate a structured movement from monocultural to more intentionally culturally diverse teams.

Ensure that the assignment design facilitates authentic intercultural collaboration.  Many group projects ask students to submit a single report with a single author voice, which may lead to a product-oriented focus, and a “divide and conquer” approach to the assignment.  Chao and Pardy (2017) recommend creating assignments that require analysis from multiple perspectives, such as the analysis of a case through the perspective of multiple stakeholders. Another approach is to require the submission of a portfolio with team members submitting various integrated components, rather than a report-style assignment.

Provide a team-building activity that facilitates reflection on values and practices that may be influenced by culture.  Encourage team members to share their reflections and note similarities and differences; a next step may be for the team to explicitly outline their desired team culture.

Build mentoring into the team process.  Gunawardena et al. (2019) suggest that intercultural learning communities benefit from mentoring at a variety of levels.  Mentors that support the team project can come from within the team, and be external to the team.  For example:

• As team members share their strengths and skills, they may identify areas in which they can provide peer mentoring to one another internally in the team.
• Team members may require technical mentoring early in the process to use their communications and learning technologies well.  Connecting with a peer tutor is one strategy for providing technical mentoring external to the team.
• Team members may also benefit from pedagogical mentoring, or mentoring on their collaborative strategies.  This type of mentoring could be instructor-provided, in scheduled office hour meetings, or achieved by connecting teams with group learning strategist sessions early in their project process.

Consider building a reflection session into the course after the group assignment, where students are offered the opportunity to integrate their intercultural learning in the project.

Supporting the Process

Reid and Garson (2017) provide an example of a scaffolded group work process that enhanced student satisfaction with group work, and positively shifted student attitudes towards intercultural collaborations.  Their process includes the following steps, which incorporate the principles discussed above.

1. Provide an initial orientation session where students identify the characteristics of successful teams.
2. Ask students to identify key strengths and skills that they can contribute to a team project.
3. Use information about student strengths to strategically form teams (Reid and Garson allowed students to choose one team member, but otherwise strategically formed the groups).
4. Use a class session to provide instruction on intercultural communication and working in diverse teams.
5. Ensure that the assignment grading reflects a focus on process (such as peer evaluation and self reflection).
6. Conclude the assignment by asking students to reflect on their experience working in a diverse team.

References

Attribution Statement: The quotations at the beginning of this chapter, and the Pedagogical Considerations for Diversity in Team Composition are both borrowed without changes from Chao, I. T., & Pardy, M. (2017). Your way or my way? Integrating cultural diversity into team-based learning at Royal Roads University. In S. L. Grundy, D. Hamilton, G. Veletsianos, N. Agger-Gupta, P. Márquez, V. Forssman, & M. Legault (Eds.), Engaging students in life-changing learning: Royal Roads University’s learning and teaching model in practice. Royal Roads University. https://learningandteachingmodel.pressbooks.com/ and used under a CC-BY 4.0 International License.