Intercultural Module Guidelines

Centenary Plan Committee - Objectives and rubric to assess intercultural component of Centenary Plan

Recognizing that learning should not be bound by the narrow confines of the classroom, Centenary College has instituted an intercultural component as part of the Centenary Plan. To meet this requirement, students will interact with a living culture that is geographically isolated from the United States or culturally isolated from mainstream U.S. society. The committee provides the following definition of “intercultural” as agreed upon by the faculty in 1994:

We understand intercultural to include a relationship with societies geographically separated from the United States as well as with subcultures within our own society. While it is relatively easy to recognize investigation of another country as intercultural, it is more difficult to define subculture. We can say, however, that a subculture is a group of people existing within the mainstream of society that is distinctly separate from the larger culture by virtue of a different system of thinking, feeling, and behaving to which the members of the subculture subscribe. This is a broad definition and would include racial and ethnic minorities that maintain a separate identity as well as socially or economically-defined groups.

The specific objectives of the intercultural component of the Centenary Plan are:

As a result of the intercultural interaction, the student will demonstrate his/her understanding of the differences and similarities between his/her culture and the culture under study.
As a consequence of this interaction, the student will examine and explain his or her culturally-defined mores and habits.

To help ensure that these objectives are met, faculty applying for intercultural credit should answer the following on the module proposal form:

With what living culture will the students interact? How will this experience provide students with intercultural experience? (The committee expects students to engage in intercultural interactions, which we describe as a personal interaction between individuals of different cultures that highlights different culturally-defined viewpoints, beliefs, and/or behaviors.)
How will the instructor prepare the students to interact with this culture?
In what ways and how frequently will the students interact with this culture?
According to the guidelines voted on by the Centenary faculty, the module must last for a duration comparable to that of a typical May module. How will this be achieved? (In the past, the committee has assumed that fulfilling this guideline would require a minimum of 14 days in the target culture, including travel time. On-campus modules require 45 hours of interaction with the target culture).
How will this intercultural experience encourage the students to think critically about their own culture and the culture under study?
How will the instructor gauge the ways in which this experience will affect the students’ conceptions of their own culture?

In order to determine if the intercultural credit objectives are being met, the committee will ask students who have participated in a module receiving intercultural credit the following six questions:

With what living culture did you interact?
In what ways did the professor prepare you to interact with this culture?
Briefly describe 3 encounters with different individuals from the target culture.
In what ways is this culture distinct from mainstream U.S. society? In what ways is it similar?
What insights about the target culture do you now have that you did not have before the module experience?
How did this interaction make you think critically about your culture?

The committee will evaluate student responses relevant to objective 1 with the following rubric:

0 points: Student exhibits no ability to demonstrate his/her understanding of differences between his/her culture and the culture under study.
1 point: Student exhibits some ability to demonstrate his/her understanding of these differences, but significant shortcomings are evident in his/her assessment.
2 points: Student exhibits a well-developed ability to demonstrate his/her understanding of differences between her/her culture and the culture under study.

The committee will evaluate student responses relevant to objective 2 with the following rubric:

0 points: Student shows no ability to examine and explain his/her own culturally defined mores and habits or evidence of synthesis resulting in greater self-awareness.
1 point: Student shows some ability to examine and explain his/her own culturally defined mores and habits and some evidence of synthesis resulting in greater self-awareness.
2 points: Student can examine and explain his/her own culturally defined mores and habits and show synthesis of this experience such that there is evidence of greater self-awareness.

Procedures for assessment:

Assessment questions will be given to the students separately from student/faculty evaluations and their completion is required for a student to receive intercultural credit.

To promote consistent evaluation of student responses, the Centenary Plan Committee will meet the week before school begins to discuss use of the rubric. This discussion will include examples of responses that should receive scores of 0, 1, and 2. Following this discussion, student responses will be distributed for evaluation. The committee will complete the evaluation process and return the evaluations and suggestions to module leaders at least one week before module applications for the upcoming year are due.

To further ensure consistent assessment, student responses for each module will be evaluated by two readers. Specifically, half of the responses for each module will be evaluated by one reader, while the other half will be evaluated by a second reader. If either reader recommends that the module not receive approval for intercultural credit in future applications, all committee members will consider the student responses to make a final recommendation.