This presentation was given at NAFSA Regional Conference VI and VII in Fall 2019.

This presentation was given at NAFSA Regional Conferences V, VI, and VII in Fall 2019.

Source: Lehto, W.Y., Cai, L.A., Fu, X., & Chen, Y. (2014). Intercultural interactions outside the classroom: Narratives on a US campus. Journal of College Student Development, 55, 837-853.

Through 9 focus group sessions, the study examines how domestic and international students connected or disconnected outside the classroom and demonstrates the barriers to intercultural learning. In addition, the study suggests a number of practical implications, such as systematic interventions, community visits, and credit-based outdoor interactive activity.

D-I-E stands for describe, interpret, and evaluate. The facilitator will show participants a picture and ask them to describe what they see. Many participants will automatically jump to interpreting or evaluating the picture, so the facilitator will have to guide them back to description. The lesson to be learned is that we should not begin evaluating people or situations based on our gut reactions. 

This activity asks users to quickly identify patterns in sets of numbers. Ultimately, the facilitator relates their automatic responses to stereotypes, beliefs, and perceptions. 

Working in Unfamiliar Surroundings enables participants to understand what it's like to work in another culture, think in a second language, or start a new job where the rules are unfamiliar. Therefore, it ultimately creates awareness for co-workers as to what it is like to work in or learn a second language.

This activity, created for Purdue's Semester Abroad Intercultural Learning (SAIL) course, asks participants to consider the qualities that they believe are most important for success in professions related to their chosen field. 

In this activity, participants visit different types of grocery stores and note their patterns and differences in order to understand how cultural values inform the setup and organization of everyday spaces. 

This activity enables participants to observe and operate in a strange situation, discuss cultural values based on behavioral observations, and gain a different perspective on "normal" cultural behaviors.

In this activity, participants articulate and connect aspects of culture that visible and invisible in relation to the analogy of an iceberg.

This activity helps participants analyze dominant and non-dominant cultural backgrounds, asssess their own cultural background, consider the process of cross-cultural adjustment, and develop positive relationships in a new culture or with culturally different individuals. 

This activity allows participants to examine cultural identity and self-awareness, assess how their beliefs and cultural attitudes have changed from childhood to adulthood, and analyze and describe their current cultural beliefs and values.

This activity shows participants how values (specifically those related to time) are embedded in cultural sayings and idioms. 

This activity helps participants establish connections between needs, well-being, and human rights. It also enables them to reflect and analyze on their own and other's needs.

A true life example of having to choose which people would live or die on a sinking ship and lifeboat

Another elimination simulation which requires people to choose whom they would like to sit with on a train

This inventory assesses participants' willingness to try new and unfamiliar foods.

Many COIL experiences use English as the medium of instruction, with a mix of native and non-native English speakers participating. In some cases, it's a good idea to prepare the native English-speakers for these interactions by helping them to understand what non-native speakers may be experiencing. Redundancia is a very effective (though not free) empathy-building activity that is a great way to make native speakers more aware of the power dynamics that privilege their own contributions to discussions and more willing to be accommodating listeners in COIL/international virtual education interactions with non-native speakers. Another option - and this can be done with the whole group, not just the native speakers - is to watch a relevant film clip from the Crossing Borders Education film, "The Dialogue" (#3 of the list of clips linked above - "On speaking a foreign language") and extract lessons from it in a debriefing discussion.

CILMAR Intercultural Learning Specialist Florence Adibu has recommended this reading to prep students for interacting with others whose names they may perceive to be "hard". She writes (in a review of the Name Game activity):

Consider reading this article about the importance of having an attitude of curiosity when learning unfamiliar names. "Names That Are Unfamiliar to You Aren't "Hard," They're "Unpracticed": "It's time to change the conversation around 'difficult' names."

Imaginative discussion activities such as "If I woke up tomorrow" make great reflective tools for empathy building and the development of capacity for perspective taking. I can see this particular activity being useful before a COIL/international virtual education experience (or in preparation for study abroad), during a program or course - for example when a critical incident occurs that students need help processing - or after an experience such as in a reentry course or debriefing. For COIL, you should probably tailor the activity so that students are perspective taking relevant to other cultural groups involved in the program. For study abroad, target various subgroups of the host culture.

This set of questions might be a good way for pairs or small groups to get to know each other in a COIL/international virtual education experience. I would encourage the use of synchronous meeting platforms so students can talk through their responses with each other. Note that there is the original version with 25 questions and a "mini" activity with only 5, so you have some options in terms of how much time you want to devote to the activity. If asynchronous communication is your only option, consider choosing 1-2 questions a week to jumpstart other discussions, so that group relationships deepen over time.

"Pacing" is a great activity for diverse teams to increase the effectiveness of communication and improve team dynamics. We use it often at Purdue both for on-campus courses and in preparation for study abroad (for example with students who prefer turn-taking but will be immersed in a host culture that uses overlapping). When you have a COIL/international virtual education program that will involve students from different communication styles, this activity would be very good preparation for students. I recommend doing with with all groups of students involved in a program in person before the experience begins rather than trying to adapt it to an online medium. 

We use this often on Purdue's campus in classes and programs that include a good mix of domestic and international students. If you are looking for an activity to encourage deep conversation about cultural values in diverse groups of students, this is a good pick. For this reason, I think it would work well with COIL/international virtual education (though I have never personally tried it in this context). Because it requires coming to a consensus as a group in multiple "rounds" of conversation, I think it would work much better with synchronous online discussions than spread over a longer time period asynchronously. Regardless of if you do this in person or online, pay close attention to the Notes tab, since there are multiple versions of the activity available for download and each has its advantages/disadvantages.

I think the assignments in this course are of particular interest to COIL instructors and international virtual education program developers because they are already adapted or were even originally designed for online use in distance learning. However, keep in mind that many of them are currently meant for individual use by students. If you want to use them with small groups, you'll need to alter some of the instructions. Big thanks to Dr. Dan Jones of CILMAR for collecting these resources together for easy access by  HubICL users.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities have created over the past decade or more a set of 16 rubrics referred to as the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) - yes, higher education does love its acronyms. These rubrics are great tools both for choosing concrete learning outcomes and for measuring growth or achievement related to those outcomes. The two rubrics in the set that are most relevant to intercultural learning are: Intercultural Knowledge and Competence and Global Learning. The HubICL Toolbox is of course searchable by the 6 elements of the first of these two rubrics (the intercultural one): self-awareness, worldview frameworks, verbal/nonverbal communication skills, empathy, openness, and curiosity.