In the last few blogs, I have been showing how the learning objectives for Texas A&M undergraduates (as described on the Undergraduate Studies website) can be achieved and enhanced by assignments in speaking and writing. The objective to “Demonstrate social, cultural, and global competence” stresses that students should learn to “articulate the value of a diverse and global perspective” and be able to “recognize diverse economic, political, cultural and religious opinions and practices.” Writing and speaking can help students demonstrate “social, cultural and global competence,” whether through writing reports or essays or giving speeches. However, they can also help students develop these competencies. In this entry, I want to focus specifically on how we can develop students’ awareness of other perspectives and give them the opportunity to practice communicating across cultures by (1) assigning reflective writing and (2) using on one-to-one or small group communication.
Assigning reflective writing
By keeping journals or creating blogs (I would include video blogs, students can reflect on experiences that inculcate awareness of other cultures and perspectives—whether through travel, a project, or plain old research. In journals, students can state and then explore their own cultural assumptions. For example, I sometimes speak to students preparing for travel abroad about keeping a journal of their trip; I initiate a class discussion of the expectations they have of their destination. Perhaps they are going to France and expect everyone to be rude to Americans, or they expect superior food and wine with every meal. Then, I ask them to write their first journal entry about their expectations of the country they will visit. I ask them to revisit this first entry shortly after they arrive at their destination and to write about how what they find lives up to their expectations, or not, and then to repeat this again once the trip ends. Some classes encourage reflective writing as a way to engage with course reading. Reading logs or journals assignments can ask students to prepare questions and reactions to reading that will guide subsequent class discussion.
However, reflective writing can simply reinforce old ways of thinking unless we push students to exercise their critical sides. An effective way to do this is to react to the content of their writing—where can you challenge and expose assumptions or fallacies? Another is to show them examples of well-thought out reflections.
Using one-to-one or small group communication
One-to-one or small group discussion is another means by which students can learn to operate better in a global environment, whether through writing or talk. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is provided by a class in Computer Science. Recently described in The TAMU Times, the course paired College Station students with Indonesian students for the purpose of designing software for restaurants. To complete this collaborative project, students communicated via computer. According to the TAMU Times, “The students shared 5,475 messages with each other via email, Google Talk, eLearning, Facebook and Google Groups. Over half of their communications were relative to the project. The remaining 1,386 messages were spent on socialization, learning and understanding their cultural similarities and differences.”
While travel and study abroad are always desirable for students, alone they may not result in better global awareness of cultural sensitivity. Adding a communication component to the experience can make a world of difference.