USING CANVAS DISCUSSIONS TO FOSTER INTERCULTURAL
CONVERSATIONS
By Anne Tuominen, Lindsay Custer, Brandy Long
Senior Assoc. Faculty (Sociology), Full-time Faculty (Sociology), Asst. Director of
eLearning
Cascadia College
Building a
HOW to do this?
◦ Through organized study abroad
◦ Through engaging students’ private
experiences abroad
◦ Through cross-cultural online conversations,
the COIL model (Collaborative Online
International Learning):
◦Between students in two different societies
◦Between domestic and international
students
Cross—
cultural
bridge
Considerations for the cultural online exchange
◦Use Canvas, since U.S. students already in a Canvas
course
◦Choose topic that was familiar to the Japanese
students as the discussion would be in English
◦ Include opportunity to share both visual images and
discussion
◦ Structure discussion points
◦Model the exchange exercise with the two professors
Technological set-up
◦Create new section in US Canvas course
◦Manually add 113 foreign student names
and emails
◦SIS Import feature
◦Manual adjustments
◦Locking quizzes and sensitive course items
Professors model the exchange
Hi everyone! I’m Lindsay Custer…in Tokyo,
Japan…..The Japanese have borrowed
many Western holidays including
Christmas, Halloween…
Hi Professor Custer and students…I’m Anne
Tuominen…at Cascadia College…What I see
in Prof. Custer’s selected images is a mixing of
cultural symbols….
Rich exchanges, despite the
numbers and small glitches
ResultsParticipation:
◦ 4 active Japanese participants, out of 28 who ultimately accepted invitation to the course (113 invitations sent)
◦ 16 out of 32 U.S. participants, including 2 International students
Problems:
◦ Bugs/glitch: Non US native computers some times have translation challenges in Canvas where files don’t upload properly or lock when uploading.
◦ Files not in students’ accounts, so couldn’t troubleshoot if it was Canvas or network
◦ Time difference/linguistic differences created challenges in mediating problems
Hello, my name is Tina*, U.S. STUDENT, and I am a student at Cascadia College…….I decided to use a photo that recently came across my Facebook feed (below). It is an appropriated by many Americans in today' society. The…photo is basically making fun of the fact that Americans always get tattoos of Chinese words or quotes, yet the Chinese culture never gets tattoos of words or quotes in English.
I thought this photo was interesting because I had never thought of using it as a reflection of appropriation in this class, but I believe that it is fitting.
*pseudonyms used in student examples
Hi everybody, I’m Lisa, U.S. student,The picture I chose for this was one of singer Keshawearing a feathered headdress like those of the Native American culture would. ….[It] is being appropriated in this example through United States pop culture.
Hi, my name is Calvin, International Student at U.S. institution….….and I am majoring in bussiness transfer in Cascadia.
I really like your example. Honesty, I alwasy thought that pizza is
orginal from US. I was quite shock that the pizza was from Italy.
(italians alwasy made delicious food, no doubt.) …… I dont really
expect that the US pizza is just a bigger version of Italy pizza. it more
likely suit to be here. Everyone…accetped this type of food. As
same as many Asian restaurant, it is unfortunately that they lost their
orgenal taste, but they have second chance to live in this land,
serve….here, and amuse here. it is a great example, and reminded
my a lot!! Thanks for share.
What did our Bridge accomplish?
√An online cultural exchange using a tool available in many institutions
√Increased access to cultural competency opportunities for community college students and women’s university students
√A lively exchange of images and discussion between students across societies on a topic of sociological importance
√An opportunity for International Students in U.S. to participate in a conversation in English comfortably