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SISU | Online Learning towards IC Competence


21 February 2020 | By Intercultural Institute | Copyedited by Li Lei

English
  • SISU “Intercultural Course”

    Come and join us!

    T

    his time of adhering to the wisely recommended measures to contain the spread of the Corona virus provides a unique opportunity to advance and access online education. Since 2015, SISU and FutureLearn have partnered to offer the “Intercultural Course” twice a year. To serve those needing online resources for their course planning during this time, we are offering the 10th run from the start of this new term:

    https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/intercultural-communication/10

    Our latest course launches internationally on March 2, 2020! We hope this helps all who want to learn with us, whether you incorporate it at the beginning of this term or later. We’ll keep the course open up to July in case you want to use it in the middle or towards the end of this semester. But do keep in mind that FREE access to the course continues for just 7 weeks from the time that you or your students enroll (plan your enrollment start accordingly).

     

    Course Contents and Suggestions for Use

    If you have visited the course before, you know that it offers a “learning step” design, easy to incorporate into your class lessons. The 15 or so steps included in each week usually take leaners about 4 hours to complete. But we encourage students to spend more time to read the many comments posted and make their own, enriching social learning on each step.

    Each week’s content begins with several introductory steps, awareness-awakening videos or articles on IC constructs, learning activities, relevant case studies, questions for response and reflection, and weekly review steps. The five topics included in this IC course include:

    WEEK 1

    Comprehending Intercultural Communication

    We introduce the course topic via definitions, metaphors, explanatory articles, an applied case and invite participants to reflect on possible sources of culture differences. Topics include:

    Outlining Learning Objectives

    Sharing Cultural Highlights

    Defining Intercultural Communication

    Exploring IC Metaphors (“Fish out of Water,” “Cultural Baggage”)

    Accounting for Subjective Culture

    Considering an Intercultural Incident (Case Study Learning)

    Highlighting Goals of Intercultural Learning

    Considering Degrees of Interculturalness

    WEEK 2

    Contextualizing

    Cultural Identities

    We provide ways to get to know others by focusing on cultural identity and begin to adjust our perceptions of and communications with each other. Topics include:

    Exploring “Who am I?” and “Who are You?”

    Listing your Identities

    Understanding Levels of Identity in Interaction

    Identifying Differences in Interaction

    Understanding Social Identity Theory

    Representing Identity (Onion levels, Perception, Descriptions)

    Responding to Diverse Identities

    Describing Identities in “Your Cultural Story” and Learning from Others’ Stories

    WEEK 3

    Comparing Cultural Communication Styles

    We introduce taxonomies that describe how ways of interaction vary across cultures, helping you notice differences in how social contexts, personality, space, and time might be perceived. Topics include:

    Considering Communication and Context

    Linking Culture and Communication

    Adjusting High- and Low-Context Styles

    Introducing Time and Space

    Observing Cultural Communication Styles

    Reporting Proxemic Observations

    Considering the Nature of Silence

    Introducing Monochronic and Polychronic Time

    Understanding Mindfulness

    Considering Your Time Planning, Scheduling

    WEEK 4

    Clarifying and Contrasting Values

    We explore how values often underlie deeper cultural differences, examine ways to contrast variations of values, and consider how they help us analyze cross-cultural misunderstandings. Topics include:

    Defining Values

    Exploring Your Values

    Introducing IC Values Studies

    Describing Your Culture- and Individual-Level Values

    Debriefing Value Expectations

    Studying Values: History and Concepts

    Considering Values Frameworks

    Dimensionalizing Individualism, Power, and Time

    Understanding Individualism and Collectivism

    Speaking Cross-culturally

    WEEK 5

    Cultivating Intercultural Adaptation

    We show how adaptation processes underlie all culture learning and interaction, and how engaging in the culture shock, stress, and adjustment process helps develop intercultural competence. Topics include:

    Introducing Culture Shock and Adaption

    Experiencing Situational Culture Shock

    Explaining and Understanding Culture Shock

    Learning from Culture Shock Experiences

    Engaging in Intercultural Adaptation Processes

    Going through Waves of Cultural Adaptation

    Coming Back to Re-Entry Shock

    Creatively Expressing Adaptation towards ICC

    Adopting Strategies for Personal Development

    Reflecting Questions to Evaluate your IC Progress

     

    History & Status

    SISU and FutureLearn have been partnering in online education since signing a cooperative agreement in 2014. The SISU “Intercultural Course,” launched in November of 2015 was China’s first course on the FutureLearn platform.

    54,000 have enrolled from 200+ countries and regions in the previous 9 runs and 30,000+ have engaged in the learning steps (each run so far generating from 6,500-22,800 rich text comments)!

    Besides providing helpful foundational contents on the subject of IC, the course encourages active learning with others and responses from each to indicate what they “like,” make comments, offer replies to other learners (to engage in social learning), and provide reflective learning summaries. You and your students can benefit greatly from seeing the thousands of comments offered by learners from this wide variety of ages, educational, work, and travel experiences, as well as the diverse national and cultural backgrounds. Please enroll and engage in this active intercultural learning experience! To get started just copy this link: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/intercultural-communication/10

     

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    Press Contact

    SISU News Center, Office of Communications and Public Affairs

    Tel : +86 (21) 3537 2378

    Email : news@shisu.edu.cn

    Address :550 Dalian Road (W), Shanghai 200083, China

    Further Reading