As campuses become increasingly international, faculty and administrators need to better understand the influence of culture on classroom dynamics and teaching. In my interactions at the university, I have often noted that many people do not understand the immense impact of culture and naively assume that ITAs are struggling only with language. At Carnegie Mellon, our International Festival (with an audience that included faculty, staff, and students) offered a rare opportunity to allow the ITAs themselves to highlight the profound impact of culture as they discussed the transformation, both personal and cultural, they underwent in order to succeed as ITAs. The students had to transform themselves, find a new identity as “TAs” within the U.S. educational system, redefine learning and teaching, and venture beyond their previous assumptions about education. Their stories reveal subtle cultural differences in even seemingly simple areas like note taking, or the way learners process information.

To orchestrate this project, I invited three “graduates” of our ITA training program (from Italy, Iran, and China) to be presenters. The three were all highly successful as TAs (e.g., recipients of teaching awards, recipients of high student evaluations, good presenters). To create cohesion with the three presenters, I asked them to address the following questions:

• What might surprise U.S. TAs/students about the educational system in your country?
• What were the challenges?
• How did you adapt?
• How do you now view the U.S. classroom?

I worked with them to develop a presentation and held several practice sessions. All three were, at that point, fluent communicators but had had to work hard for a number of semesters to develop the fluency they displayed at the festival.

Despite the differences in their backgrounds, five key themes emerged from all three ITAs. These themes are outlined below, with one or two representative quotes.

1. Classroom culture is a reflection of the larger culture in which it exists.

Cooperation vs. competition

Italy: There are (office hours) once a week and usually there is a huge line, and you don’t know if you can get to talk with the professor. You are happy if you can. Ours is a very cooperative culture, and not competitive. Which means if somebody gets the answer from the professor, then he shares the answer with everybody outside. So somebody may ask, “Did you get the answer for that problem?” and in 10 minutes, everybody knows.

Level of Formality

Iran: We hesitate to ask questions of professors because we are afraid they will think we are stupid.

2. Classroom differences provide a window into how beliefs about teaching and learning can differ among cultures

Note-taking as a window into different modes of thinking

China: What struck me first was the note-taking phenomenon. I was really surprised to see so many people―graduate students or undergraduate―so busily taking notes. What surprised me more was when I was focusing on the material in the classroom and all of a sudden the professor came up to me and said, “Why don’t you take notes?” I gradually realized there is a different way of thinking between Chinese and Americans. In China, we were educated from very, very early age to value the abstract concept rather than the concrete example. So we believe that the intangible, the invisible concepts are the real principles that decide how the things are, and why they have colors and they have shapes. So the task of students in the classroom is suppose to be to focus on the abstract concepts, to catch it, digest it, absorb it―rather than spending so much time on the note-taking.

Using examples

China: So it very, very difficult for me to even imagine how, in the classroom sometimes, the professor can use the daily examples to illustrate the abstract concepts in Chemistry.

3. Being a TA (or having children in the U.S. educational system) can help ITAs better understand the U.S. educational culture

Expressing ideas and presenting even from an early age

Iran:You know, eye contact is something rude in my country, so it was a real challenge for me to have a presentation. (When I visited my daughter’s elementary school), the teacher came to me and said, “Did you see her eye-contact? And I thought, “Oh my god, my daughter knows better than me that you have to have eye-contact when you have a presentation.” So I really learned a lot from my daughter’s elementary school education about what is really going on in the university.

The need for hands-on experience

China: Being a TA helped me (learn) to convey my ideas in an American way.

4. Establishing a new identity as a TA in the U.S. system

Consciously adapting self

Italy: What I had to do to become a good TA for American students was to adapt myself to the way TAs are suppose to interact with their students. One obviously first thing I had to understand was if some student kept interrupting me when I was explaining something, it was not lack of respect. It was because they were really paying attention and wanted to understand something more and better.

Switching TA identity when needed

Italy:I force myself to start with examples when I speak to American students. When I speak with students from Europe or Asia, I don’t pay much attention to the way I present the things. But with American students I always try to use a more practical approach, starting with applications, examples. Even if I think that theory should always come before applications, but this is my personal thinking. I’m supposed to help other people and I know that they are expecting from me some examples to catch them up.

5. Aspects of the U.S. classroom they learned to value, and aspects of their own system they will continue to value

From U.S. system:
Active learning, even in large lectures (highly valued by all three)

Italy: Another thing that surprised me a lot was that professors ask questions of students. . . . And I understood that this way keeps students engaged with the lectures. This is also a tool we could use in Italy with huge classrooms. And this can really be very beneficial in our system, not just the American system.

China: For example, the active mutual play between the students and the professors in the classroom―this is a really, really good thing, to help students excite their learning desire and increase their learning efficiency.

Teamwork approach to learning

Iran: What I learn here is the value of teamwork. They really work on kids from the earliest age, from kindergarten starting in elementary school, how to present themselves. This is a really, really good idea.

China: Another example is the team project. I really see how the students have been motivated to train their leadership and value their collaborative experience.

From ITA’s own system:
Americans try too hard to make learning fun

Iran: I like the way back home that we really think about the class seriously. Here, when I look at my kids, they always try to teach them when they have fun. They teach them math and say you should have fun when you learn this. And if it’s not fun, they don’t try to learn it. But we learn from the beginning, from kindergarten, that math class is a serious thing. And you have to learn. To my opinion, everything is not fun, but you have to learn it. It’s a very big job for teachers to make it fun―for kids or for students in the university.

CONCLUSION

Giving the ITAs a chance to tell their own stories created a rich and emotionally compelling presentation. The session was professionally videotaped, giving us a high-quality video for use both for ITA training and for cross-cultural sessions with faculty and staff. Even after working with ITAs for several decades, I found that I gained a new perspective from participating in this project. It was truly amazing to see these ITAs become the “experts” in taking the audience through their struggle. Giving them a chance to find their own voices brought out many rich stories, and I encourage other ITA training programs to consider a similar project.