Recreating Cultural Immersion in an On-Line Environment

• Main Author: Tatiana A Kolovou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Indiana University Office of Scholarly Publishing 2021-04-01
• Series: Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jotlt/article/view/31236

The Covid19 Pandemic threw a curve ball into everyone’s Spring teaching schedule. But for those of us who were a week away from taking their students overseas, it was a game changer. How do you create make up material for 1.5 credit hours while staying true to the course objective of “understanding another culture through immersion and interaction?” My course (C272 Business Culture of Greece) is a 3 credit hour course which includes an in-classroom 8 week component, followed by a weeklong trip in Athens during Spring Break. Find out what activities faculty can incorporate that inform and engage students even when they cannot travel. Ideas shared can apply to domestic travel and irrelevant to country specific content. This submission includes a list of activities faculty can use to replicate in-country experiences designed to meet learning outcomes. Activities such as expert Q&A discussions that normally occur face to face; meetings with local students their same age to discuss current topics; watching a native language film and debriefing with a film expert; and a final presentation of their course project to their local business client that occurred on Zoom. Preparation discussion questions, student highlight quotes, and lessons learned will be used to help faculty plan for future courses.