ePortfolio Prompt: For a faculty or staff member who is
unfamiliar with this concept, explain what it means to be an intercultural
facilitator at UCBA? What can you expect students to be responsible for? What
is expected for the instructor? Synthesize these ideas to present why this
apparently non-curricular concern is important for our classrooms and student
services?
Intercultural facilitation is important because we need to
build a bridge between the culture of the home setting (or previous setting)
and UCBA culture. We cannot assume that the norms, values and practices are
clear. When I looked at the reading and the
reference to providing challenge, the notion of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD) or the distance between what a learner can do independently
or what can be done with assistance came to mind. If someone can do something
independently he or she should have the opportunity to. When it is too easy he
or she may become bored. When it is too difficult it becomes frustrating and he
or she might quit.
We need to make learning challenging, but achievable. We
discussed the portion of the text that explained approaches we all experienced
in graduate school that were equated with hazing. “If I suffered others should
suffer. ““Figure it out.” Rather than creating a disaster and waiting for
students to fail, why not provide needed supports? We provide the content and
skills needed for classes or using student services. Why not provide the tools
and dispositions to successfully interact in the UCBA culture and with the “other.”
The role of the faculty or staff member is to create an environment where learning
about interacting with those who are different and learning the content from a
course or activity can occur. Those things cannot be separated. The beginning,
middle and end must be designed by the instructor as an intercultural facilitator.
How will you welcome all students? How will you engage them? How can they
debrief and reflect? What happens when some students come in the middle of the process?
How are they welcomed? Not all students are in the same place at the same time,
but they all need the same opportunities to go through the process. Having the
tools is not enough. We need to show students how to use them. We need to be
able to show we are willing to learn alongside them. The way I survived
graduate school was to partner with peers. We didn’t really just “figure it out.”
We had the assistance of each other.
