Cross Cultural Collaborative Project
Participants in Project:
(1) two classes of business students studying at universities in two distinctly different demographic areas of Siberia (Yakutsk and Krasnoyask)
(2) one ESL writing class at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Russian Course Title: Introduction into Cross-cultural Management, an online course
Focus of business course: The topic is Corporate Culture and the focus is on how to work with people from different cultures.
Students: 20 from Yakutsk and 14 from Krasnoyask – all majoring in World Economy; 14 ESL students in Alexandria, VA.
Small Groups: The Russian students have been divided into 8 groups (4 groups in each city).
Yakutsk: Team A, Team B, Team C, Team D
Krasnoyarsk: Team DUNA, Team KEY, Team FORK, Team KoZyrDS
Objective of Russian Collaborative Project: To determine the similarities and differences in corporate culture in the two Siberian cities.
Methodology: Each group chooses a type of corporation as its research focus. Students then visit a corporation of this type in their city.
The teams are in pairs, and each pair collaborates in the wiki to create a comparison/contrast paper.
Final Product: Each pair of small groups produces a comparison/contrast essay.
Deadline for first draft of essay: The Russian students must post their essays to the NOVA class wiki by Thursday, November 8.
Audience for first draft of essay: NOVA students
Role of NOVA class: to edit the essays of the Russian students and to provide constructive feedback
Methodology: All of the essays will be posted to the NOVA class wiki. Each NOVA student will be assigned an essay to edit. Deadline for completing the editing: Friday, November 16. The Russian students will analyze the feedback and then write the final draft of the essay.
Wiki Preparation: The NOVA students will begin using wikis at the beginning of the semester. When they begin this collaborative project with the Russian students, therefore, they will already be familiar with wiki editing conventions.
Benefits for Russian Students: They will be writing for an authentic audience, and they will receive constructive feedback in order to improve and polish their essays.
Benefits for NOVA Students: They will have an opportunity to do peer editing in an authentic setting. Peer editing is known to help writers improve their own writing.
Expectations: The findings in the two cities will differ because the population of Yakutsk is made up primarily of native people while the population of Krasnoyask is made up primarily of Russians.
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