Design+-+Meeting+educational+cultural+needs

 **Design - Meeting educational cultural needs** An eLearning course that is designed for Japanese learners will need to be highly structured with clear indications of the expectations for the students. This can take the form of course outlines with clearly defined weekly expectations and the use of a calendar on the eLearning webpage that reminds students that an assignment is due through the use of highlighted colouring. The examples below are taken from Moodle based eLearning that was designed with Japanese learners in mind.  Figure 10: Examples of directed learning (Source: 10.713 BPercy Moodle page, 2011).

To enhance the learning experience, communications and links to others within the course should be encouraged. Due to the high level of uncertainty avoidance that many Japanese students experience it would also be necessary for the teacher of the course to be highly visible via synchronous mediated communication such as videoconferencing or Skype. This would provide the learners with the support and teacher to student relationship that is valued in Japanese educational culture. Forum discussions would be a better option for Japanese learners as they would be given time to respond to questioning and as such the level of anxiety experienced by the learner will be reduced. Forums will also be appropriate with New Zealand students who are willing to enter into discussion. Instant messaging through programs such as Skype or Google Chat may be considered for synchronous discussion and support.

 Japanese and New Zealand students are comfortable working in small groups. As such eLearning group work should be encouraged although New Zealand learners will have a greater tendency to want individual assessment grades for group projects.

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