The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion Online

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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Table of Contents

How would you describe your cultural background? Explain how you came to your understanding of your own culture. (Max. 300 words)

Answer:

Culture is a broad term, having various meanings according to the situation it’s being used for but majorly it’s used for the set of beliefs, values, knowledge, social understandings and customs of a society. Sometimes, culture refers to a very big group of people who have their own separate identity such as a race, professional body, age group, territory, etc. So, in short people with same type of behaviors and values are said to be sharing a culture. People are categorized into different culture according to the place they are born and raised or sometimes the place they live in. Every one of us represents some culture (TAFE NSW, 2008).

It would be much more easy to understand my culture if I looked at it from other culture’s perspective and keep in mind all the above factors. I belong to a company in Australia, which is said to be a multicultural region, as people living here are from all over the world, representing culture variety of all sorts. We majorly live in non-aboriginal style means that our culture is not "family-focused" but it is based on individualistic aspects. Moreover, there is an obsession of accumulating material wealth among the people belonging to my culture. There are some indications that in our culture we are concerned with equality and fairness, as we use phrases such as "fair go" and "she’ll be alright" often, these phrases also refer to our relaxed attitude towards life. Our culture icons are sports people, ANZACS and surf lifesavers. For the people belonging to my culture, we are a firm believer in loyalty and mate-ship. We give freedom and a right to live in one’s own way to every individual unless it is not contradictory to the law of the region. Generally, our lifestyle is very casual and sporty (TAFE NSW, 2008).

Question 2:

What abilities do you think are important for intercultural success? To what extent did you develop these abilities? Why or why not? (Max. 300 words)

Answer:

No doubt that culture has an impact on nearly every aspect of our lives, starting right from the way we dress all the way to the way we carry out our business, so if are going to achieve intercultural success anywhere then we must develop some abilities in ourselves. These abilities not only help us to interact effectively but also aid us to be accepted across diverse cultures. Most essential of these abilities are behavioral flexibility, tolerance to ambiguity, knowledge discovery, communicative awareness, empathy and respect for otherness (Gabriela Dorn and Alexandra Cavalieri-Koch, 2005).

I have couple of abilities that can be very useful for my intercultural success such as open-mindedness, got good sense of humor, I am positive & got realistic expectations, I am willing to communicate, got good temperament for tolerance, I am flexible & can adapt according to circumstances, I have ability to cope with failures, I have got good sense of self and lastly I have positive regard for others (Susanne, 2011). I enjoy while communicating to people unlike me as much as the people like me. Moreover, I always find myself sensitive towards the concerns of various groups in my domain, irrespective of the culture they belong to. I can quickly notice the fact when the person I am talking to does not understands me or if my actions confuse the person. I am not fearful while communicating to people from dominant group or feel any superiority while interacting with people from minority group; in fact I treat them fairly. I understand the fact that the people from culture different to mine have a right to be angry at any member of the group they are working in and I understand the fact that if an individual is not participating in a dialogue, debate or conversation actively then it may be because of their culture regulations (McGraw, 2006).

Question 3:

Give an example of how you have contributed to an on-line discussion? What specific challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? (Max. 300 words)

Answer:

I have worked as a moderator of the adult literacy professional development discussion online. People from around the world participated in a number of forums that gave lot of opportunities to researchers and practitioners to discuss critical issues in their area, share their visions & experiences, communicate ideas, post questions seeking guidance of the experts and stay up-to-date on the literacy issues. The main aim of the online discussion lists was to increase access of adult educators to the electronic information, a platform for discussion where adult-literacy policy could be shaped and give access to a link where the work of my organization could be connected to the practical field (Jackie Taylor, 2008).

During my tenure as the online moderator I had quite a list of the challenges which were quite routine in the line such as problem resolving, requesting or receiving information plus its confirmation, providing proper guidance to other’s experiences of teaching & learning, introduction of topics, projects & resources, initiating the discussion sometimes along with discussing as well as developing it, finding & introducing field experts and encouraging the dialogues, creating & spreading awareness, highlighting key points in debates, planning, previewing & reporting the sessions, identifying knowledge gaps, determining the more knowledgeable & experienced field experts, etc. (Jackie Taylor, 2008).

I used to overcome such challenges by answering some straightforward questions such as how will a certain discussion forum advances an individual’s learning. What type of knowledge is relevant and must be shared? What is the best possible way of documenting the learning? What are the shared interests of the people on that specific forum? What is the best possible way to connect them? How could be trust developed and interaction eased among the discussion participants? What could be the future directions for the learning activities? What are the projects required to enhance the learning capabilities of discussion forum? And the most important question of all what source of expertise should be tapped? (Jackie Taylor, 2008).

Skill 1: Active Listening

Active listening is one of the most important skills an individual could possess, as there is a major impact of how well we listen on our job effectiveness and quality of relationship with others around us. When we listen we understand and obtain information and thus could lead to better productivity of an individual, giving us the power to influence, negotiate and persuade. This skill is very important when we have to avoid conflicts and eradicate any type of misunderstandings, especially when we need workplace success.

Action plan: I need to develop active listening by practice and for that I have an action plan. My action plan involves five steps; paying attention, showing that I am listening, providing feedback, defer judgment and responding appropriately.

First step involves paying my undivided attention to speaker, acknowledging the message. I would not allow myself to be distracted by putting aside my thoughts, not going over a rebuttal mentally, avoiding doing anything alongside and listening and observing the body language. Second step involves my gestures and body language to be conveying the message that I am listening. For example I can nod at appropriate moments, smile or give some face expressions, use one word verbal comment that can encourage the speaker to go on, etc. Third step involves my personal filters, judgments, assumptions and beliefs to be put aside so that I can understand what I hear. In order to do so some questions can be raised to the speaker in order to clarify and provide a summarizing comment to speaker’s say. Fourth and fifth step involves no interruptions and providing with prompt & honest replies and by treating the speaker with respect, a manner the speaker wants to be treated (Mind Tools).

Skill 2: Online Group Work

Although it is not easy to overcome the task of diversity management when you are dealing with the group work online still there are some strategies that compensate or at least fill in the gaps for you. I have an action plan by which I can muster the skill of online group work even when I encounter some difficulty in comprehending the cultural background (Mayumi YAMASAKI, 2010).

Action Plan: I need to muster the skill of online group work and for that my action plan is as follows. First of all I would determine the goals or purpose of the group work. Then work out a series of steps indicating my plan of what to do next. Then I would go through the group work and start predicting the contents of both, i.e.; total group work and the section of group work. Then I would check the predictions and pose a series of questions about the group work. Then I would find answers to my posed questions while connecting the group work to the background knowledge. Then I would move on to summarizing information and after that I would make inferences. After that I would start connecting one part of group work to another along giving my full attention to the structure of the group work. Then I would go over rereading and finding out the meanings of the group work (where necessary or explanation needed). Then I would highlight the discourse of the group work indicating the progress according to the goals, while checking comprehension and identifying the difficulties or reporting onto the issues. Then I would take standard steps or given procedures to resolves issues. Final step of my action plan includes how well the purpose of group work was fulfilled and what was the lesson learned (Mayumi YAMASAKI, 2010).