My colleague, Dr. Danielle Schoon, and I discussed intercultural learning, principles for implementing intercultural content and methods in curriculum and instruction, and examples of what Dr. Schoon is teaching in her Turkish studies classes, as part of our presentation "Implicit Bias in American Classrooms and the East/West Dichotomy" for the 2021 Innovate Conference Hosted Virtually by Ohio State University. Our presentation included initial findings from our research project with Dr. Cindy Jiang, "ePortfolios for Online Global Competency and Intercultural Learning." We are assessing students' intercultural learning outcomes. Specifically, students who have completed one or more of Dr. Schoon's Turkish culture courses.

My portion of the presentation focused on intercultural learning. and how students gain intercultural awareness and develop cultural competence. A critical part of this is teaching students that culture is not a trait, but an experience that is ongoing and evolving. Intercultural pedagogy builds the capacity to learn multiple cultural frames of reference, similar to learning languages. When you go to another country, you fully expect you're going to have to learn another language or at least a few words. Students learn to expect the same kind of learning with regard to culture.

I emphasized that global educators use experiential learning and practical applications in addition to teaching the culture, history and geography of different world areas and cultures. Students learn how to interact with people, how to be successful with people in another country or in another cultural community in their local area. They learn that each culture has its own norms, shared values. Students learn ways of connecting with people and building rapport across similarities and differences.

It may be more comfortable to focus on the similarities. But both similarities and differences are critical for gaining cultural awareness. Engaging respectfully and meaningfully with cultural differences is a critical skill and understanding the importance of cultural differences is necessary for a mindset of intercultural learning and growth. Likewise, it's part of openmindedness in conversation that allows one to respectfully express curiosity. It allows one to overcome their assumptions and take responsibility for misguided beliefs while also building trust.

Intercultural learning entails an exploration self and other as they are represented in texts and images, also; not only in "real world" conversations. Learners can learn to perceive the effects of culture on their own and other communities by engaging with culturally bound meanings in texts and images. If they do this while also acknowledging the way culture has shaped their own personal worldview, the learning can be even more impactful. Then they can go on to actually talk with people in Turkey who are living this culture every day, which is the real-world implication of the learning.

The reflection on self/other is central in intercultural learning and perhaps to any kind of learning which focuses on global interconnectedness and universal human values and ways to improve human lives. It is possible to take learning to a much higher level of both intercultural awareness and critical thought about global issues we are facing today, if students ask themselves "How does this change the way I understand my worldview, or what became clear to me about my own worldview from learning about this new perspective that I'm engaging with online or in the text."

You can see a video of our presentation on Youtube, read the transcript, or download our powerpoint, in order to get the full presentation and to learn about what Dr. Schoon taught and how she taught it in detail.