Intercultural Teaching Competencies

Intercultural Teaching Competency

Keeping in view that today’s student is studying in a much more diverse and globally connected context, it is important that instructors from all disciplines strive for their students to be globally engaged, interculturally fluent, and be knowledgeable of global perspectives.

Despite interest and encouragement from universities, not all disciplines include “race, diversity, intersectionality, cultural difference, power, or privilege as a focus of their research” (Dimitrov & Haque, 2020, p. 2) and teaching. For those who are interested in exploring intercultural, international, and inclusive teaching, ITC offers strategies and ways to make pedagogy more culturally relevant and responsive.

Dalhousie Core Competencies

Intercultural teaching competency (ITC) and internationalization of curriculum (IoC) can be aligned with Dalhousie Core Competencies. Here are a few suggestions:

• Foster the classroom environment based in Self Awareness and Professionalism
• Incorporate Respect & Inclusion as part of your course work, assessments, assignments, associated rubrics, and grading schemes.
• Use and promote open effective and inclusive Communication stratgies to improve teaching and pedagogy for ALL students in your class.

Two important resources that could work well if you are thinking of developing ITC.

Dimitrov, N., & Haque, A. (2016). Intercultural teaching competence: a multi-disciplinary model for instructor reflection. Intercultural Education, 27(5), 437-456.

Dimitrov, N., & Haque, A. (2020). “Intercultural teaching competence in the disciplines: teaching strategies for intercultural learning”. In Multicultural Instructional Design: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 332-355). IGI Global.