Fostering Intercultural Competence Through Virtual Museum Experiences: A Collaborative Approach

Presenter: Christine Angel, Associate Professor, St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Division of Library & Information Science

The vExchange project's success relies on fostering intercultural competence alongside subject matter learning. Assessment aligns with learning outcomes, integrated into project-based pedagogy addressing real-world issues. The presentation outlines vExchange workshop context, student outcomes, and Intercultural Communication scenario. Six assessment activities are mapped to learning outcomes, culminating in an online museum brochure showcasing intercultural communication proficiency.

Engaging Critical Digital Literacies to Push Back on Traditional Models of Intercultural Communication: A U.S. - Ukraine GOLE Partnership

Presenters:
Ekaterina Midgette, Associate Professor of Literacy, School of Education, Education Specialties
Olivia Stewart, Assistant Professor of Literacy, School of Education, Education Specialties
Jordan Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of TESOL & Bilingual Education, School of Education, Education Specialties

This presentation will discuss a 7-week, asynchronous, cross-disciplinary virtual exchange between two graduate courses (Literacy and TESOL) at SJU and graduate students in a Teaching English as a Foreign Language program at Dnipro State University in Ukraine. In heterogenous groups, students critically engaged multimodal texts to interrogate cultural underpinnings of modes and politics of representation across five online Modules housed in Google Classroom. The exchange culminated in individual reinventions of multimodal texts, an essential tenet of criticality. Reflective student survey and interview feedback suggests that critical media literacy projects may offer unique affordances in promoting intercultural competence and push back on previously held biases. Recommendations for designing a virtual exchange from the perspective of educational equity will be provided.  

The meeting link will be sent to registrants prior to the event, so please look for an email from CFSD@stjohns.edu.