26.11.2020  International virtual teams completed the course on cross-cultural business communication

Yesterday, on November 25, the participants of the international online course "Cross-Cultural Business Communication" had their final class. The course was implemented by three universities - Novgorod University, Appalachian State (USA), and the University of the Free State (South Africa).

During the course, students had a dramatic transition from a commonplace, sometimes naive perception of the phenomenon of "Culture"* to a deep, expert understanding of cultural differences that determine the scales of the "Great Cultural Divide“.

During the final class, the participants presented the results of research on their target cultures and demonstrated how they can apply the knowledge and experience gained in practice. The results were presented in the format of a consultation - a simulation of the following situation: members of the project teams (Italy, Chile and Japan) acted as consultants in cross-cultural communication, and the rest of the participants, teachers and guests played the roles of people planning to cooperate with representatives of the target culture. The consultants taught their “clients” what they need to know about the culture in order to build effective partnership relations and avoid cultural mistakes. All recommendations were illustrated with vivid examples.  More information about the course.

Presentation on Italian business culture peculiarities 

The teacher of the course Dr. Natalia Ilyashenko noted: “The success of the online course and the achievement of the planned learning results were made possible by the use of the principles of instructional design in the development of the course. These principles allowed us to form an integral system of student-oriented objectives, teaching materials, learning activities, and available tools for transferring knowledge, to build the logic of the course so that it was clear and understandable to students. I will be glad to share my personal experience and the experience of my American colleagues who have been successfully engaged in online education for more than a decade with the NovSU faculty members, and, taking this opportunity, I invite them to my re-training course "Using the Principles of Instructional Design in Creating an E-course."

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* Here is a sample of one of images of Culture the participants created in the very beginning of the course:

English