Sitting and enjoying my evening tea, I couldn’t help but think of the amazing class that I had with my Organizational Behavior students this morning. The class I had with my students today took off from the previous lesson in which our discussions had ended to a new term “Multiculturalism”. Since that class last week, my students have been tweeting their findings and sharing their opinions on this topic with their classmates and me. Before today’s class began I was amused that to find out that my students and I had contributed to nearly 156 tweets, watched 8 very interesting videos and listened to 5 podcasts while going about our daily chores. It was amusing because I was thinking about past where I was the information provider to the class. I was then solely responsible of finding and sharing information with students. Now I’m learning from them. How times have changed! Now with the help of technology my students are always learning and collaborating with each other. Learning is not confined to the classroom.
So getting back to my amazing class this morning… today’s class was scheduled at one of our Virtual-Tech, state of the art multipurpose learning rooms of our college. I was looking forward to this class, since I had spent quite some time last week organizing a virtual class with our global educational partner institutions in other countries to have a shared session where my students could interact with students from other cultures and share cultural experiences.
As my students gathered for their class I explained to them the objectives of today’s lesson and the format in which it would be conducted. I could see the excitement on their faces. We formed three groups, and each took their place in front of the three huge plasma screens spread in the corners of the room. We connected with three different classes studying Organizational Behaviour in different countries – one evening class in Virginia, United States, one in Mumbai, India and the last in Sweden. Within their groups my students interacted with students of these countries and learnt about their culture and also their own. Each group spent about 20-30 minutes with one country and then moved on to the next. At the end of the class the students had not only learnt about the cultures of these places but were also beginning to appreciate these differences. They also exchanged their facebook details and made new friends!
After the session ended we expressed our appreciation and said our farewell to our partner institutions. I then had a brief discussion with my students. The students were keen to explore different topics on cultural differences in a workplace, cultural intelligence and so on. So I left it for them to choose a topic to investigate it further and we would take it from there in the next class. I was happy that the students would be learning things that they wanted to.
That was my amazing lesson today.. I have to go now, some tweets are awaiting my attention
So getting back to my amazing class this morning… today’s class was scheduled at one of our Virtual-Tech, state of the art multipurpose learning rooms of our college. I was looking forward to this class, since I had spent quite some time last week organizing a virtual class with our global educational partner institutions in other countries to have a shared session where my students could interact with students from other cultures and share cultural experiences.
As my students gathered for their class I explained to them the objectives of today’s lesson and the format in which it would be conducted. I could see the excitement on their faces. We formed three groups, and each took their place in front of the three huge plasma screens spread in the corners of the room. We connected with three different classes studying Organizational Behaviour in different countries – one evening class in Virginia, United States, one in Mumbai, India and the last in Sweden. Within their groups my students interacted with students of these countries and learnt about their culture and also their own. Each group spent about 20-30 minutes with one country and then moved on to the next. At the end of the class the students had not only learnt about the cultures of these places but were also beginning to appreciate these differences. They also exchanged their facebook details and made new friends!
After the session ended we expressed our appreciation and said our farewell to our partner institutions. I then had a brief discussion with my students. The students were keen to explore different topics on cultural differences in a workplace, cultural intelligence and so on. So I left it for them to choose a topic to investigate it further and we would take it from there in the next class. I was happy that the students would be learning things that they wanted to.
That was my amazing lesson today.. I have to go now, some tweets are awaiting my attention
Your description is so vivid that it makes me want to jump head first into your world right away! I especially like the idea of your students interacting with students from other countries and establishing FB friendships with them! What a wonderful way to increase tolerance and acceptance of differences as well as acknowledgement of similarities among people from different cultural backgrounds. Thank you for sharing your vision Ghazala! - Donna
ReplyDeleteThanks Ghazala. Sounds like such a great learning experience. Would also be great to connect with organizations in the rural areas all over the world. That would give students a complete global perspective. Meanwhile have fun tweeting...
ReplyDeleteYour description of the future classroom is so vivid and full of details. What I really liked is that you didn't delete the face-to-face communication. Yes we are heading towards a complete digital education but we will still need the human factor or else we won't be humans.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the value of face-to-face interaction can never beat other forms of communication. However, we need to blend it with several other methods to enhance learning and engage students.
DeleteExcellent story Ghazala. You mentioned an amazing point where anyone can travel these days around the world while sitting at home in front the proper tools. Meeting different people, sharing information and see the world it self.
ReplyDeleteThe technology these days turn the impossible to be possible ..
Thanks Ghazala ..
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWow, thank you Ghazala for sharing this! It's a wonderful example of meaningful and authentic learning: the technology is used to create a real-life context and task for the students where they were clearly learning with technology, not just learning from it. Technology enables the communicating, sharing and connecting with others as well as learning about cultural diversity. And as for the face-to-face and human contact aspect; in this model there is actually _more_ human contact, as there are students from 3 other countries also involved, which wouldn't be possible without technology.
ReplyDeleteI also liked that you saw students as co-creators of content and being involved in choosing topics.