I really enjoyed reading about the dimensions of learning framework (Parrish and Linder-VanBerschot, 2010) and much of it resonated with my teaching and experience. For example, when looking at individualism and collectivism, I see times for both. We as teachers are forced to report on individual learning, so assessment and tasks are sure to have that embedded and have specific content in it, but many tasks can be designed as a collective challenge to a group, working on communication skills, rather than content skills. While I encourage students to share their thinking, it is not forced upon them. However, the two areas that really struck me were the time dimensions. In my educational setting, we are forced to have instructional activities start and stop, however, my colleagues and I have now merely looked at these ‘subject blocks’ as blocks of time. The instructional activity can continue as far as we want, and the only thing stopping it would be scheduled break times of the school. As for linear/cyclical time, our curriculum is designed to be cyclical in that the same concepts come up in later years and are built upon, but we do work in a linear model with reports and deadlines. However, opportunities to show learning in my classes are plentiful. I do feel like having some repetition in learning is comforting and helpful to students, but it should never be so specific with everything that it becomes a rut. I found the contrast between these two time dimensions to be vast. I have included an image of a few dimensions of the framework to consider.
Parrish, P. & Linder-VanBerschot, J. A. (2010). Cultural dimensions of learning: Addressing the challenges of multicultural instruction. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 11(2), 1-19.