2 Activities for student interculturality development
Activities for the first day of class
Student Survey
Consider using a student experience survey early on in the course — perhaps even prior to the course starting. Here are some questions you might consider asking:
- Name:
- Name you prefer to be called:
- Current program/major:
- Where did you study prior to coming to KPU?
- Do you have work or volunteer experience? Describe this briefly.
- What place do you consider to be your hometown? Have you lived anywhere else?
- What languages are you able to use? Which do you consider to be your primary language?
- What do you hope to learn in this class?
- How do you prefer to learn? (e.g. lectures, videos, reading, visual images, alone, in groups)
- What do you do to study outside of class?
- What could I do that would help you learn well in this class?
- Is there anything else you would like me to know about you or your learning?
Activities to develop students’ intercultural skills
Maps and Perspective Taking
This activity demonstrates the way the images we are exposed to colour our perception of the world. In this exercise, students review three world maps, and then reflect on how these maps have shaped their thinking. This exercise is a relatively low-risk way to introduce the idea of exploring concepts from multiple perspectives.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often presented in the context of introductory psychology courses. A little-known fact is that Maslow took this idea (without attribution) from Blackfoot thought.[6]. However, the hierarchy was both secularized and adjusted to fit Western ideals about the role of the individual.
Description/Analysis/Evaluation Framework
This exercise creates an environment for pausing and considering multiple explanations for ambiguous behaviour in cross-cultural situations.
Exercise Description
- Stanford Graduate School of Business Video Case Studies
- Free teaching cases from the Copenhagen Business School (Note: includes cases that may be useful in multiple academic disciplines)
Note: The links below direct you to the ebook version of Building Cultural Competence[3] held by the KPU Library.
Co-create class materials that represent diverse perspectives
Explore the possibilities offered by Open Pedagogies to create new educational resources that incorporate your students’ own cultural knowledges. For example, students could:
- Add content to an existing open textbook that incorporates knowledge from their own cultural contexts.
- Provide an English language summary of key articles published in other languages they use.
- Collaboratively create an educational resource to be used by future students that includes the application of key course concepts to multiple cultural contexts.
Privilege Beads Activity
To begin, the facilitator gives each participant a cup. In this exercise, stations are set up around the room, with each station having a bowl of coloured beads; each station also has a list of statements to which learners can identify “yes, this is true of me”, or “no, this is not generally true of me”. When a participant responds “yes” to a statement, they take one bead and place it in their cup. Learners complete this exercise without talking, and move from station to station until they have responded to every statement.
Awareness of Difference
This activity asks students to carefully consider the first time they were aware of cultural difference, and to reflect on the responses given by their peers
Identity Wheels
- The personal identity wheel encourages students to describe who they are. It includes categories such as birth order and hidden talents and provides a relatively low-risk way for students to begin discussing their identity with their classmates.
- The personal identity wheel activity is followed up by the social identity wheel. The social identity wheel asks students to consider their identity in terms of group membership: for example, language community, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Students are also asked to reflect on which aspects of their identity they think most and least about.
Activities to support an inclusive classroom environment
Think-Pair-Share
This activity provides an alternative to asking individuals to answer questions verbally immediately after they are given, and allows students to process individually or in smaller groups before sharing in the class. First, ask students to think silently about the question, perhaps writing a few notes (think). Then, students discuss the question with 1-2 partners (pair). Finally, partners share the highlights of their discussion with the larger group (share).
Live Polling
Use poll or quiz apps that allow students to participate in a discussion or answer questions non-verbally. Options include Kahoot, Plickers, or Mentimeter.
- Kahoot: Allows you to create online quizzes and polls. You can use these to assess student learning throught the class, or to allow students to share their thoughts non-verbally.
- Plickers: Allows you to create a set of “paper clickers” that students can hold up to share their answers to questions. With this tool, your cell phone serves as the tool that collects student responses so that they can be seen by you and/or the class.
- Mentimeter: Allows you to create a variety of interactive polls and gather responses to questions creatively (e.g. with word clouds)
