Curriculum

Together with you, we will develop a customized training for your students, staff and faculty, including online content, handouts, discussion questions, reflection questions and communities of practice for reflection and application.

Part 1

Core models and frameworks

Intercultural Competencies

Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Communication Styles: Understanding different communication styles helps individuals adapt their approach to effectively connect, collaborate, and resolve misunderstandings in diverse settings.

Conflict Styles: People respond to conflict in various ways. Recognizing these styles can lead to more constructive resolutions.

Your Comfort Zone: Boundaries and Moving into the Learning Zone – Stepping beyond one’s comfort zone while respecting personal boundaries fosters growth, adaptability, and new skill development in a supportive environment.

Empathy and Listening Skills: Active listening and empathy are essential for building trust, understanding perspectives, and fostering meaningful relationships in both personal and professional interactions.

Cultural Value Dimensions: Cultural values shape how individuals perceive relationships, time, and decision-making, influencing interactions in global and diverse environments.

Us Versus Them: Stepping Out of the Polarization: Overcoming “us vs. them” thinking requires recognizing biases, fostering dialogue, and seeking common ground to bridge divides and build inclusive communities.

Bias: We approach bias through exploring the cycle of socialization.

Allyhood: We examine allyhood and what it means to be an ally; and ways to challenge discrimination and empower marginalized groups.

Personal leadership: We focus on internal processes when something happens around us, “a something is up moment,” that causes us to react. How do we respond to these moments?

Coping strategies: What coping strategies are available: How can we effectively deal with challenging situations?

Part 2

Specific identities and their historical context

Anti-semitism and islamophobia

Race: Starting with the 1400s through post -civil rights, we offer a U.S. historical context to the issue of racism, systemic racism and structural inequities that continue to exist today.

Religion: Religion is sometimes an overlooked aspect of diversity on campus, and educators might feel uneasy discussing it in class. We bring some context to support those conversations.

Gender, sexuality and intersectionality: We go through the history of the acronym LGBTQI2SA+. We further discuss intersectionality in terms of how people with various (marginalized) identities experience the world. Finally, we explore saliency, or how some identities rise more to the surface based on context.

Identity traits that can change over time: We explore the following three identities: age, class, disability and health.

Part For Faculty

Intercultural Pedagogy

Inclusive syllabus and backwards design: We start at the very beginning: how can we design courses in a way that fosters student success.

Creating norms: We learn about the hidden norms that often govern our learning spaces and that create division. We explore the idea of “group norms” as a tool to foster an environment for student success and increase ownership of the learning environment among students.

Intercultural pedagogy and student-centered teaching: How can student-centered teaching help reduce stereotype threat while providing practical tips on intercultural pedagogy?

Difficult dialogues: We explore how challenging situations can be turned into “teachable moments”. We further talk about and share existing alternatives to open up a classroom conversation on a difficult topic.

Online Teaching: We learn through Aliyah’s experience how online teaching can enhance differences. How do we structure courses online and connect with students from afar.