Teaching as a Cultural Practice

Whether to pre­pare stu­dents for a study abroad expe­ri­ence or for teach­ing in a diverse class­room, as fac­ul­ty we all can ben­e­fit from learn­ing how our cul­ture informs our teach­ing, our val­ues, our reac­tion to dif­fer­ence. Becom­ing aware of the influ­ences that forged what we believe is true and impor­tant is an asset in all types of inter­cul­tur­al inter­ac­tions. It helps us put our views and val­ues in per­spec­tive; i.e. see them as part of many oth­er ways of think­ing, and not a basic human truth. This sec­tion offers resources on:

  • Under­stand­ing how cul­ture impacts teach­ing and learn­ing
  • Under­stand­ing cul­tur­al intro­spec­tion and how this approach can help us enhance our inter­cul­tur­al flu­en­cy as edu­ca­tors
Culture and Teaching 

Inter­cul­tur­al Teach­ing Com­pe­tence in the Dis­ci­plines: Teach­ing Strate­gies for Inter­cul­tur­al Learn­ing – This arti­cle is, “[b]ased on focus group inter­views with instruc­tors in eigh­teen dis­ci­plines. [I]t pro­vides var­ied and con­crete exam­ples of how instruc­tors mobi­lize inter­cul­tur­al teach­ing com­pe­tence to nav­i­gate diverse class­rooms, pro­mote per­spec­tive-tak­ing and glob­al learn­ing goals among stu­dents, prac­tice cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant teach­ing, and val­i­date dif­fer­ent ways of know­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing among stu­dents through assess­ment prac­tices” (p. 1).

The authors of this arti­cle, Dim­itrov and Haque iden­ti­fy three com­po­nents of Inter­cul­tur­al Teach­ing Com­pe­tence (ITC): Foun­da­tion­al, Facil­i­ta­tion and Cur­ricu­lum Design. A quick sum­ma­ry of each com­pe­tence with sug­ges­tions for devel­op­ing each one, is pro­vid­ed by The Cen­tre for Teach­ing and Learn­ing West­ern Uni­ver­si­ty

Part of Teach­ing as a Cul­tur­al Prac­tice is the idea of teach­ing across cul­tur­al strengths.

In this video, Chávez and Longer­beam dis­cuss Teach­ing Across Cul­tur­al Strengths in an online class­room. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx7jxcqDJh0 or embed­ded below.

 

Deardorff’s (2020) Man­u­al for devel­op­ing inter­cul­tur­al com­pe­ten­cies: Sto­ry cir­cles. UNESCO, avail­able at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000370336. This ‘man­u­al’ out­lines how Sto­ry Cir­cles can be used to pro­mote inter­cul­tur­al dia­logue, “through the strength­en­ing of inter­ac­tion and dia­logue across dif­fer­ences” (x).

 Cultural Introspection

Cul­tur­al intro­spec­tion involves look­ing inside one­self, at the ways in which our cul­ture has shaped every aspect of us; our val­ues, beliefs, behav­iours, assump­tions, and our inter­ac­tions with oth­ers.

Specif­i­cal­ly, cul­tur­al intro­spec­tion facil­i­tates:

  • learn­ing to under­stand our reac­tions to the Oth­er
  • an appre­ci­a­tion that an “inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence” (whether going to study abroad, an inter­na­tion­al exchange or engag­ing with diverse oth­ers in a class­room), can be more than trav­el­ling or work­ing with peo­ple from anoth­er coun­try. It can be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about who we are, where we come from, and ways to under­stand and respect oth­ers who are dif­fer­ent from our­selves
  • under­stand­ing our own lens of the world when prepar­ing stu­dents for inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ences

In Teach­ing across cul­tur­al strengths: A guide to bal­anc­ing inte­grat­ed and indi­vid­u­at­ed cul­tur­al frame­works in col­lege teach­ing (2016, Vir­ginia: Sty­lus Pub­lish­ing), Chávez and Longer­beam (avail­able through Ama­zon), explores how cul­ture influ­ences col­lege teach­ing and learn­ing. It, “offers a com­pre­hen­sive set of guide­lines based on a sound the­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tion, as well as empir­i­cal research that will enable col­lege teach­ers to nar­row the gap in cross-cul­tur­al teach­ing and stu­dent learn­ing and assist teach­ers in trans­form­ing learn­ing for all stu­dents across the many cul­tures that exist in the class­room. By fol­low­ing the steps out­lined in this book, teach­ers can pro­gres­sive­ly learn about the role of cul­ture in learn­ing while trans­form­ing their teach­ing through intro­spec­tion, reflec­tion, prac­tice, and the appli­ca­tion of new teach­ing ped­a­go­gies that deep­en stu­dent learn­ing” (p. xi).