Hi Sylvia and Terri,
Draft of a possible experiential learning activity for Week 2 of a facilitated 4-week online faculty dev course focused on intercultural teaching and learning competencies.
Group Learning Scenario: RRU faculty - who may know each other well, have slight acquaintance, or be brand new associate faculty from various locations in Canada (and occasionally the US).
Preamble: In Week 1, participants are invited to engage in a scaffolded set of intro activities focused on developing awareness of one's own cultural and disciplinary identities, as they affect positionality in the classroom. Trust and relationship building activities include sharing culturally responsive intros, memorable intercultural experiences, and pedagogical values, as well as familiarizing with foundational intercultural research. In Week 2, the focus shifts to modelling and encouraging non-judgemental attitudes/openness towards 'other' values, perspectives, and positions in classroom dialogues and teamwork. Again, participants are offered curated resources on the why, what, how, and when of various intercultural teaching and learning competencies... before being invited to engage in this activity.
Heard, Seen, Respected (HSR) - Why and What?
Issue: Instructor Preparation to Negotiate Common Intercultural Teaching Challenges:
- Domestic students often resist teamwork with ESL international students
- Dominant culture emotional reactivity to Indigenization/reconciliation topics & activities
Confusion
Proposing HSR activity as a bridge to guiding critical conversations and intercultural teamwork in classrooms and as a possible model for a student classroom learning activity.
Draft Invitation: The learning aim of this activity is to develop empathy about 'walking in the shoes of other,' by connecting with both your own and your colleagues' intercultural learning challenges before you have to 'go live' with your students.
Steps:
1. View the video Why Does Privilege Make People So Angry? (4:10). Listen to some thoughts on how misunderstanding and emotional reactions arise, and how to transcend that. Then post a short story about a time you felt you were not heard, seen, or respected that you feel AT EASE about sharing in this learning context. You can choose to share your story in video (up to 3 min) or written text (up to 250 words). You can also add lyrics, music, art, or other graphic elements to your story if you like
2. Next, briefly respond in the same way to at least one other persons's story - preferably one that does not yet have another response. To practice listening online, without trying to fix anything or make any judgements, please only comment on what it felt like to listen to another person's story and any pattern connections you notice revealed in other stories. Tip: When you are 'listening,' notice when you form a right/wrong judgement, and let it go!
3. At the end of the week, we plan to harvest all feedback and suggestions to improve future iterations of this activity.
Looking forward to feedback on what we might stop, start, and/or continue in this activity to make it both effective and supportive.
Warm regards, Donna