O'Dowd, R. (2019). A transnational model of virtual exchange for global citizenship education. Language Teaching, 1-14. doi:10.1017/S0261444819000077

This paper begins by reviewing e-tandem and telecollaborative approaches to virtual exchange which are currently being used extensively in foreign language (FL) education and presents two case studies which illustrate the common learning outcomes and limitations of such approaches. The author then proposes an alternative model of virtual exchange which maintains many of the key characteristics of earlier approaches but which incorporates the principles of global citizenship education and which moves away from bilingual–bicultural approaches. The author concludes by outlining the main characteristics of this model and presenting some examples of how this approach could be put into practice.

In this episode, Dr. Shalyse Iseminger discusses the difference that identity makes in online versus face to face classes. Dr. Iseminger presents comparative data from the BEVI (the Beliefs, Events, and Values Inventory) collected at the beginning and end of several semesters of AGR 201: Communicating Across Cultures, a course designed by Dr. Pamala Morris, Assistant Dean in the College of Agriculture. These data illustrate that the identity of students matters to their educational experiences and provide insights into how students from different environments may thrive or struggle more in different classroom modalities.

This post contains a link to the complete video of the webinar with Q&A, the syllabus for AGR 201, a previous presentation on the same course that occurred before the pandemic, the Transformative Learning Collection on the HubICL, and the website for the BEVI. 

Vurdien, R., & Puranen, P. (2020). Intercultural Learning via Videoconferencing: Students' Attitudes and Experiences. In Management Association, I. (Ed.), Multicultural Instructional Design: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 626-645). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-9279-2.ch029

Although asynchronous communication tools have traditionally been used in online interactions, recently increasing popularity has been noted in the application of synchronous communication tools to facilitate intercultural learning. This chapter will explore and report on a study of how students from two countries, Spain and Finland, developed intercultural competence through the use of a video-conferencing platform, Adobe Connect, as a learning context. English was the lingua franca and the exchange of information was aimed at helping the students to learn about different aspects of each other's culture to develop intercultural competence. 

Hyett, N., Lee, K. M., Knevel, R., Fortune, T., Yau, M. K., & Borkovic, S. (2019). Trialing Virtual Intercultural Learning With Australian and Hong Kong Allied Health Students to Improve Cultural Competency. Journal of Studies in International Education, 23(3), 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315318786442

The purpose of this study was to trial a virtual intercultural learning activity with Australian and Hong Kong undergraduate occupational therapy and oral health students to explore cultural competency learning. The authors utilized a mixed methods study design with quantitative pre- and postsurveys and qualitative group interviews. Study findings illustrate how the activity enabled students to practice and learn intercultural communication skills, gain greater awareness and appreciation for diversity at home and abroad, and engage in global citizenship learning. 

From their "What We Do" page: "Launched in 2016, Better Angels is a national citizens’ movement to bring liberals and conservatives together at the grassroots level — not to find centrist compromise, but to find one another as citizens. Through workshops, debates, and campus engagement, Better Angels helps Americans understand each other beyond stereotypes, form community alliances, and reduce the vitriol that poisons our civic culture."

From Matthew: "Both of my grandparents voted for Trump. That doesn't make them any less my grandparents, like I may disagree with them on some political things...We just have to talk to folks like they are people."

In this episode of Clear + Vivid, Alan Alda interviews Christian Picciolini, a former member of a neo-Nazi group who now works to disengage people from extremist hate movements. During the interview, Picciolini describes his process for getting individuals to leave hateful ideologies behind: He first listens to them and engages them on a personal level. Then, when they're ready, he takes them to meet people who they thought they had hated. He says, "I can tell you that every single time I've done that, I've never had a bad experience and everybody's always walked away different."

UNESCO and Darla Deardorff collaborated on a concrete method for developing intercultural competence. The method is designed so that facilitators with varying levels of experience and resources can successfully lead the activity. 

Powerful conversations over a potluck dinner, centering on the question, "What needs healing here?"

From the DDI homepage: "The Division of Diversity and Inclusion is introducing a programmatic theme for 2020: Democracy, Civility, and Freedom of Expression. Throughout the spring semester, students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members are invited to engage in conversations about and consider the importance of each element of the theme. Activities and events will include interactive workshops, inspiring performances, high-impact public speakers, and innovative conversational gatherings."

The power of (1) looking someone in the eye and (2) listening

Disagree Better: Empathy Gym is a tool that can be used to facilitate conversation between people across party lines. In this activity based on Jamil Zaki's concept of the empathy gym, participants will have a conversation with someone who has a different view than them. Instead of arguing, they will ask each other how they came to develop that opinion and simply listen to each other's point of view.

WeThePurple is a bipartisan coalition aiming to restore U.S. citizens' faith in the country's democratic values and promote civic engagement. The coalition publishes a podcast that discusses issues facing the American democratic system, and they encourage dialogue across party lines.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) talk about their participation in the reality TV show - Rival Survival, in which the two of them need to fight to survive on a deserted island.

From the transcript: "You know, this idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly. The world, the world is messy. There are ambiguities. 00:00:16.440 —> 00:00:22.450 People who do really good stuff have flaws. Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the word – wrong verb or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, 'Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.' I get on TV. Watch my show. Watch 'Grown-ish.' You know, that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change."

"If everything else were equal then there is some truth to what you say, because one of the big findings in personality research on politics … What’s different about the personalities of people on the left and the right is that people who have one of the big five traits, the five main personality traits, one of them is openness to experience. Kids who are born … It is partly heritable. People who are born and raised … When they’re kids they just like trying different things, they like exploring different things, they’re more open to new foods and experiences, it’s a fairly stable personality trait. Such people tend to be more attracted to progressive or left-wing causes. People who like order, predictability, stability, routine, they do tend to be attracted more to conservative parties, and that’s true around the world."

WeThePurple is a bipartisan coalition aiming to restore U.S. citizens' faith in the country's democratic values and promote civic engagement. The coalition publishes a podcast that discusses issues facing the American democratic system, and they encourage dialogue across party lines.

In this episode, diversity, equity, and inclusion leadership from Purdue University's cultural and disability centers answer questions about inclusive online teaching practices that they recommend, the learning outcomes they have for their students, how they measure learning in their programs, and how faculty and staff can support their educational mission. Nastasha Johnson, assistant professor of Library Sciences and a mathematics and physics information specialist at Purdue University, guest hosts this webinar. 

This post contains a link to the complete video of the webinar with Q&A and a PowerPoint that includes a more detailed version of the Asian American and Asian Resource and Cultural Center (AAARCC) portion of this webinar. 

This episode features a panel of Purdue students who describe the issues they face in and outside the classroom that affect their performance in courses, both face-to-face and online. This panel was organized by Natasha Harris, Assistant Director of Science Diversity in Purdue's College of Science. 

This post includes a link to the recorded presentation with Q&A, as well as links to the following materials referenced during the presentation:

• Dark Girls documentary
• Light Girls documentary
• "Study: Lighter-Skinned Black and Hispanic People Look Smarter to White People"
• "Why Black People Discriminate Among Ourselves: The Toxic Legacy of Colorism"
• "Colorism in the Classroom: How Skin Tone Stratifies African American and Latina/o Students" 
• "Hyphen-Nation"
• "Colorism and School-to-Work and School-to-College Transitions of African American Adolescents"
• Good Hair movie
• "Race, Skin Tone, and Educational Achievement"
• "Recognizing and Addressing Colorism in School"

In Human Values Continuum, participants are asked to move to particular sides of the room depending on how they feel about statements read by the facilitator. This activity can be adapted for online learning using Jack Calabrese's Fist of Five Voting technique. Instead of having participants move about the room as they would if they were performing this activity in-person, the facilitator can instead ask participants to hold up 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 fingers depending on how they feel about the statement. 

This episode features Dr. Tatjana Babic Williams, Director of Italian Studies and Senior Lecturer, and Dr. Annalisa Mosca, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of Italian 101-202 at Purdue University. They discuss the Italian program's efforts to redesign the curriculum to incorporate intercultural learning at all levels. In particular, they discuss their use of backwards design to embed intercultural learning outcomes into several of their courses. 

This post includes links to the episode recording, the presentation slides, and the following resources/tools referenced in the presentation:

• ASKS2+ assessment
• Name Story, aka The Name Game
• D-I-E
• Bridging Behaviors
• Iceberg
• Who Am I? Identity Dialogue
• Flower's Point of View
• Scenery, Machinery, People
• Final ICC Reflection
• Voices from the Past (Name Tags)
• Cultural Autobiography
• Pacing
• Direct-Indirect Communication
• Say My Name
• "Black sounding" names and their surprising history
• Hofstede Value Dimensions Online Country Comparison Tool
• Intercultural Knowledge and Competence AAC&U VALUE Rubric
• Pyramid Model of Intercultural Competence
• Interpretive-Interpersonal-Presentational Model
• Dollar Street
• Purposeful, Interactive Foreign Language Teaching
• Global Education Benchmark Group (BEBG) for Intercultural Learning in K-12
• TESOL Intercultural Interest Section (ICIS)
• Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)
• Growing Intercultural Leaders program

This episode features Dr. Svitlana Buko, researcher and consultant from Russia, and Dr. Eithne Knappitsch, professor and director of the Intercultural Management program at Carinthia University of Applied Sciences in Austria. In their presentation, Dr. Buko and Dr. Knappitsch describe how they adapted their 24-hour Cross Border Challenge into a hackathon in light of COVID-19. The 24-hour Cross Border Challenge involved a group of students traveling between Villach, Austria; Udine, Italy; and Nova Gorica, Slovenia—all of which are border cities. During their 24-hour journey between these three countries, students experienced how transportation, language, business, and government operate in these intercultural, border areas. 

This post contains links to the recorded episode (with Q&A), the presentation slides, and the following supplementary resources:

• LinkedIn article on the program: "Developing key competencies for working across cultures: case for Austrian-Italian-Slovenian border" 
• Video introduction to the 2019 24-Hour Cross Borders Challenge
• An overview of the hackathon
• An example of a final hackathon project and reflection

This activity enables participants to articulate relationships between components of metaphor theory, such as targets and sources; analyze common underlying cultural metaphors for abstract concepts (e.g., love, friendship, time); and Compare and contrast metaphorical understandings of the same concepts from different cultural perspectives.

This activity enables participants to interrogate the tone and common tropes used in the United States media and reflect on how that media may cause them to view other cultures in a particular way. They will also identify examples in mainstream media that negatively portray groups and people and apply what they learned when they consume media in the future. 

In this activity, participants listen to an episode of the podcast Gravy in order to help them define intersectionality and recognize why it's an important concept to understand. They also discuss how intersecting or overlapping identities can lead to internal and/or familial conflict as well as discrimination and disadvantage.