Intercultural Facilitation

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.