International Center University of Florida

A module was designed to give students direct access to what cultural differences in values and cultural orientation mean for effectiveness in intercultural communication. Normally, these distinctions remain conceptual for students, who are not able to apply them to navigating situations and conflicts they encounter in everyday life, typically in the area of personal relationships and business communication. Tools for information sharing, such as Flipgrid and Padlet, allowed students to share their insights and experience in these domains, linking students studying the same subject matter at the ITESO in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the University of Florida in Gainesville in the United States.

• Students will recognize some concepts of culture and its functions in our lives.  
• Students will reflect on the dimension of their own identity.
• Students will recognize cultural plurality as a fact in our social world and in our everyday reality.  
• Students will distinguish between pluriculturalism, multiculturalism and interculturalism as a response towards the different ways of thinking behaving and living in diversity.
• Students will be able to develop critical thinking from the ethical perspective of interculturalism, in order to analyze the present and facilitate future projects.
• Students will recognize the influence of their own culture on their intercultural interactions.
• Students will be able to reflexively examine their personal willingness to interact with others, based on the concept of culture in order to develop an open and critical attitude required in multicultural contexts.
• Students will become more willing, self-reflective, flexible, and open communicators in intercultural interactions.
• Students will be able to acknowledge and respect different cultural approaches to problem solving.
• Students will be able to listen to others actively and respond in culturally appropriate ways.