Imagine that you students in your multicultural PBL group are not working together. What do you do?

In the PISH toolkit, tools 10 to 12 may help your students develop collaboration skills. However, before introducing these tools, you will have to deal with the underlying intercultural communication problems in the group. If these challenges are not dealt with, then introducing tools that promote collaboration will not be helpful.

We recommend that you devote time to training intercultural awareness, attitude and skills at the start of the semester. This way, you will prepare your groups to collaborate. Therefore if collaboration challenges occur, the students will have a stronger foundation to implement the collaborative tools.

The PISH toolki features a tool called “our city”. It is useful in the development of the collaborative skills of your multicultural PBL student groups. The tool promotes experiential learning and enables students to step out of their comfort zone, and collaborate to play. The key part of the activity is a discussion after the activity has been completed. Students must reflect on how they were able to collaborate with each other. After all, collaboration requires goodwill and stepping out of one’s comfort Zone. 

We hope that with these tips, you will ensure that the PBL experience helps develop your students’ collaboration skills.