Workshops By Theme

We've organized our workshops into broad themes to guide and inform your decisions. 

The themes are not meant to limit your participation in any way. You may choose to take one, some, or all the workshops under a theme that aligns with your interests and needs, and you may take any workshop under any other theme.

Themes:

screenshot of themes chart
Review themes in a chart format.

Theoretical Foundations for Teaching in Globally Diverse Classes

This set of offerings focuses on why we as educators need to care about integrating global diversity in our learning environments, what the research tells us we can do to create more inclusive learning environments, and how that can impact student learning. While this group of workshops is more theory-based, it also offers practical tools, strategies and frameworks that can be applied as you consider your student learning goals and in your classes.

Facilitating Intercultural Learning in Globally Diverse Classes *

How do we as teachers facilitate intercultural learning that centers on the diverse perspectives students bring to our classrooms? Join us for an interactive online workshop where you will have the opportunity to expand and deepen your teaching strategies to engage the global diversity in your classes. Faculty and instructors from all disciplines face increasing demands to help students develop the intercultural skills necessary to thrive in today’s world. During this workshop, you will learn from leaders in the field of intercultural education and practice strategies to facilitate interactions among students in your globally diverse classrooms.

“[This is] an OUTSTANDING workshop: [The facilitators] do such a wonderful job of modeling the skills they are teaching about as they facilitate deep and meaningful discussions about real situations. Regardless of your experience level with this topic it is really worthwhile attending this workshop." — past workshop participant

Foundations of International Course Design for Preparing Global-Ready Students *

How can we design a course that will deepen international, intercultural, and global learning for our students? Join us for this interactive online workshop where you will have the opportunity to expand your teaching strategies to prepare global-ready students. We suggest you focus on a semester-long course of your choosing to explore learning goals, assessment techniques, and teaching strategies that can help your students develop the skills, knowledge, and perspectives necessary to understand the world and work effectively to improve it.

Leveraging Interactions for Intercultural Learning *

Let’s talk about how we can leverage all interactive classroom activities for deeper content learning and interpersonal and intercultural development. In this webinar, we will share considerations, strategies, scripts, and tools (including a student handout you can adapt) that can help you and your students realize the full potential of classroom interactions. When you facilitate student interactions around content area learning objectives, students are not only engaging with content, they are also engaging with each other. This affords them an additional learning opportunity to practice critical interpersonal and intercultural skills with intention. Naming these skills for students and providing periodic opportunities for reflection are all essential for building students’ global competence. We can’t assume students are aware of or thinking about these competencies. Just as with subject-area learning outcomes, we need to actively and intentionally facilitate this learning.

“I'm so glad to have a concrete framework to give students a way to think about how they engage with each other in class discussions or group work! I hadn't thought about asking them to put this into words, and I'm really glad to have a way to ask them to think about this in addition to the context we cover in my course.” — past workshop participant

Uncovering Perspectives through Visual Thinking Strategy *
Come to this workshop to experience Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a collaborative, student-centered teaching method that fosters inclusive community-building dialogue through facilitated discussions of visual images. VTS is a deceptively simple approach to revealing diverse perspectives, deepening cultural self-awareness, and strengthening critical thinking skills. VTS can be used across the curriculum and does not require any special art training. Using three essential questions and a few specific facilitation techniques, teachers and students alike can learn to observe the world through others’ eyes and develop evidence-based thinking habits.
Cultural Communication Styles

This 30-minute webinar is designed to help you consider the role of cultural communication styles in your classroom, so you can help your students deepen their intercultural communication skills. During the webinar, we will review high-context and low-context communication styles used in different cultures and countries and provide you with an opportunity to reflect on your own communication style. You will also experience a teaching activity that you can do with your students on cultural communication styles.

Strategies for More Inclusive Participation, and a Whip Around Discussion

Join a conversation on class participation to learn and share ideas, resources, and tools for establishing broader and deeper student engagement and interaction. We will facilitate this discussion using an activity that invites all voices, the Whip Around.

Thirty-Five: An Interactive Negotiations Activity

This is an activity that includes movement, sharing insights, negotiation, critical thinking, decision making, evaluation, anonymity...and a tiny bit of math. It can be used as a form of review and gathering key takeaways from discussions, lessons, articles, etc.

Support for Group Work: Supporting Long-Term or High-Stakes Student Groups

This set of offerings supports instructors in courses where students are asked to engage in group work that is long-term and/or high stakes. The offerings in this cluster provide ideas and strategies instructors can use to help students create effective, inclusive, and meaningful group experiences.

Leveraging Interactions for Intercultural Learning *

Let’s talk about how we can leverage all interactive classroom activities for deeper content learning and interpersonal and intercultural development. In this webinar, we will share considerations, strategies, scripts, and tools (including a student handout you can adapt) that can help you and your students realize the full potential of classroom interactions. When you facilitate student interactions around content area learning objectives, students are not only engaging with content, they are also engaging with each other. This affords them an additional learning opportunity to practice critical interpersonal and intercultural skills with intention. Naming these skills for students and providing periodic opportunities for reflection are all essential for building students’ global competence. We can’t assume students are aware of or thinking about these competencies. Just as with subject-area learning outcomes, we need to actively and intentionally facilitate this learning.

“I'm so glad to have a concrete framework to give students a way to think about how they engage with each other in class discussions or group work! I hadn't thought about asking them to put this into words, and I'm really glad to have a way to ask them to think about this in addition to the context we cover in my course.” — past workshop participant

7-Word Story and Other Student Check-in Activities

You will experience one quick and easy “check-in’ activity, the 7-Word Story, and discuss others that can be integrated into your course design in order to 1) build and strengthen a sense of community among learners, 2) broaden participation, 3) provide frequent and brief opportunities for students to engage content and practice and develop interpersonal and intercultural skills, and, very importantly, 4) for you to gather valuable information from students about the students themselves and/or about what and how they are processing class content.

Birds of a Feather: Supporting and Leveraging Class and Team Diversity

This is a fun activity that demonstrates our human tendency to gravitate to the familiar—people who look, think, and act like us, as well as the limitations of this tendency. We observe this in our classrooms all the time. Students self-segregate into their same social or cultural groups, and in doing so miss out on valuable opportunities to grow their networks, broaden their perspectives, and practice intercultural skills needed in our interconnected world.

Cultural Communication Styles

This 30-minute webinar is designed to help you consider the role of cultural communication styles in your classroom, so you can help your students deepen their intercultural communication skills. During the webinar, we will review high-context and low-context communication styles used in different cultures and countries and provide you with an opportunity to reflect on your own communication style. You will also experience a teaching activity that you can do with your students on cultural communication styles.

Establishing Class and Group Agreements and Expectations

Learn one approach for establishing class or group agreements and expectations. Establishing class or group agreements and expectations sets a tone for the course that reinforces intentionality and collaborative decision-making processes, and the idea that the classroom learning environment is something we all contribute to, are responsible for, and can influence. Making these explicit and clear for yourself and for students is important for all members of the class, and even more so for students who may be new to U.S. classrooms and educational practices in higher education.

Finding Common Ground: A Community Building Activity

Experience an activity that is especially valuable for fostering rapport among students from diverse cultural backgrounds. During this 30-minute webinar, we will model and discuss effective facilitation strategies for how you can help your students "find common ground."

Jigsaw: A Collaborative Learning Activity

One challenge that many instructors face is a concern about fitting in all the required course content while also engaging students in active learning. A jigsaw activity is a way to do both by partially shifting the onus of teaching content onto the students. Come experience the Jigsaw activity with your colleagues, and consider/discuss course content that lends itself to the jigsaw approach.

Strategies for More Inclusive Participation, and a Whip Around Discussion

Join a conversation on class participation to learn and share ideas, resources, and tools for establishing broader and deeper student engagement and interaction. We will facilitate this discussion using an activity that invites all voices, the Whip Around.

Thirty-Five: An Interactive Negotiations Activity

This is an activity that includes movement, sharing insights, negotiation, critical thinking, decision making, evaluation, anonymity...and a tiny bit of math. It can be used as a form of review and gathering key takeaways from discussions, lessons, articles, etc.

What’s in a Name?

Learning and using students’ names, and encouraging students to do the same with each other, is essential for building community in your class. There are many creative ways to encourage students to learn and use names. In this 30-minute session, we will experience two simple activities and discuss others.

Inclusive Learning Communities: Integration, Inclusion and Community Building in the Classroom

This set of offerings focuses on creating a welcoming, supportive and inclusive learning environment in any classroom, regardless of whether students are asked to engage in group work. The proposed workshops provide a variety of different ways for students to engage with course content and with each other. Actively and intentionally establishing an inclusive learning space where students feel known, seen, heard and valued is critical for effective learning to take place. Casey and Murphy Robinson write in their book, Neuroscience of Inclusion, “A feeling of belonging and being a valued member of the group is not just nice to have; it is a brain requirement for survival and to feel and operate at our best.” (2017, p. 12)

Facilitating Intercultural Learning in Globally Diverse Classes *

How do we as teachers facilitate intercultural learning that centers on the diverse perspectives students bring to our classrooms? Join us for an interactive online workshop where you will have the opportunity to expand and deepen your teaching strategies to engage the global diversity in your classes. Faculty and instructors from all disciplines face increasing demands to help students develop the intercultural skills necessary to thrive in today’s world. During this workshop, you will learn from leaders in the field of intercultural education and practice strategies to facilitate interactions among students in your globally diverse classrooms.

“[This is] an OUTSTANDING workshop: [The facilitators] do such a wonderful job of modeling the skills they are teaching about as they facilitate deep and meaningful discussions about real situations. Regardless of your experience level with this topic it is really worthwhile attending this workshop." — past workshop participant

Leveraging Interactions for Intercultural Learning *

Let’s talk about how we can leverage all interactive classroom activities for deeper content learning and interpersonal and intercultural development. In this webinar, we will share considerations, strategies, scripts, and tools (including a student handout you can adapt) that can help you and your students realize the full potential of classroom interactions. When you facilitate student interactions around content area learning objectives, students are not only engaging with content, they are also engaging with each other. This affords them an additional learning opportunity to practice critical interpersonal and intercultural skills with intention. Naming these skills for students and providing periodic opportunities for reflection are all essential for building students’ global competence. We can’t assume students are aware of or thinking about these competencies. Just as with subject-area learning outcomes, we need to actively and intentionally facilitate this learning.

“I'm so glad to have a concrete framework to give students a way to think about how they engage with each other in class discussions or group work! I hadn't thought about asking them to put this into words, and I'm really glad to have a way to ask them to think about this in addition to the context we cover in my course.” — past workshop participant

3-2-1 Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT)

Join us to learn about this versatile and easy classroom assessment technique (CAT). This activity serves to provide instructors with valuable mid-term information on how students are doing.  We will share several ways this activity can be implemented to demonstrate its versatility.

7-Word Story and Other Student Check-in Activities

You will experience one quick and easy “check-in’ activity, the 7-Word Story, and discuss others that can be integrated into your course design in order to 1) build and strengthen a sense of community among learners, 2) broaden participation, 3) provide frequent and brief opportunities for students to engage content and practice and develop interpersonal and intercultural skills, and, very importantly, 4) for you to gather valuable information from students about the students themselves and/or about what and how they are processing class content.

Birds of a Feather: Supporting and Leveraging Class and Team Diversity

This is a fun activity that demonstrates our human tendency to gravitate to the familiar—people who look, think, and act like us, as well as the limitations of this tendency. We observe this in our classrooms all the time. Students self-segregate into their same social or cultural groups, and in doing so miss out on valuable opportunities to grow their networks, broaden their perspectives, and practice intercultural skills needed in our interconnected world.

Cultural Communication Styles

This 30-minute webinar is designed to help you consider the role of cultural communication styles in your classroom, so you can help your students deepen their intercultural communication skills. During the webinar, we will review high-context and low-context communication styles used in different cultures and countries and provide you with an opportunity to reflect on your own communication style. You will also experience a teaching activity that you can do with your students on cultural communication styles.

Establishing Class and Group Agreements and Expectations

Learn one approach for establishing class or group agreements and expectations. Establishing class or group agreements and expectations sets a tone for the course that reinforces intentionality and collaborative decision-making processes, and the idea that the classroom learning environment is something we all contribute to, are responsible for, and can influence. Making these explicit and clear for yourself and for students is important for all members of the class, and even more so for students who may be new to U.S. classrooms and educational practices in higher education.

Finding Common Ground: A Community Building Activity

Experience an activity that is especially valuable for fostering rapport among students from diverse cultural backgrounds. During this 30-minute webinar, we will model and discuss effective facilitation strategies for how you can help your students "find common ground."

Give One, Get One (GOGO): A Review and Community-Building Activity

Come experience a fun, interactive review activity. Give one, get one (GOGO) is a great way to get students up and moving and talking to each other while assessing their understanding. Through this activity students can share key takeaways from a lesson, and based on what they come up with and share, you can learn what students are gaining from the lesson and if there are any underrepresented areas of content that you can address in a future class or exam review session. We will demonstrate the GOGO activity’s versatility, as well.

Jigsaw: A Collaborative Learning Activity

One challenge that many instructors face is a concern about fitting in all the required course content while also engaging students in active learning. A jigsaw activity is a way to do both by partially shifting the onus of teaching content onto the students. Come experience the Jigsaw activity with your colleagues, and consider/discuss course content that lends itself to the jigsaw approach.

Snowball: A Playful Review Activity

An often-cited reason students choose not to ask questions or contribute to large- or small-group discussions is they are afraid they will “say something stupid.” Come learn a new activity that involves anonymity, and other concrete strategies to alleviate these fears and promote increased participation from all students.

Strategies for More Inclusive Participation, and a Whip Around Discussion

Join a conversation on class participation to learn and share ideas, resources, and tools for establishing broader and deeper student engagement and interaction. We will facilitate this discussion using an activity that invites all voices, the Whip Around.

Thirty-Five: An Interactive Negotiations Activity

This is an activity that includes movement, sharing insights, negotiation, critical thinking, decision making, evaluation, anonymity...and a tiny bit of math. It can be used as a form of review and gathering key takeaways from discussions, lessons, articles, etc.

What’s in a Name?

Learning and using students’ names, and encouraging students to do the same with each other, is essential for building community in your class. There are many creative ways to encourage students to learn and use names. In this 30-minute session, we will experience two simple activities and discuss others.

Becoming Global Citizens: Deepening Global, International, and Intercultural Perspectives

This set of offerings will help instructors from all disciplines internationalize their courses by focusing on students' global, international, and intercultural perspectives. Instructors will gain concrete strategies on how to help students cultivate these perspectives, sharpen students’ comparative thinking, and deepen their sense of global interdependence. They also focus on developing awareness of and concern for global issues, global diversity, and interdependence between the local and the global. Note: If interested in going more in-depth for this theme, consider the Internationalizing Course Design cohort program.

Foundations of International Course Design for Preparing Global-Ready Students *

How can we design a course that will deepen international, intercultural, and global learning for our students? Join us for this interactive online workshop where you will have the opportunity to expand your teaching strategies to prepare global-ready students. We suggest you focus on a semester-long course of your choosing to explore learning goals, assessment techniques, and teaching strategies that can help your students develop the skills, knowledge, and perspectives necessary to understand the world and work effectively to improve it.

Leveraging Interactions for Intercultural Learning *

Let’s talk about how we can leverage all interactive classroom activities for deeper content learning and interpersonal and intercultural development. In this webinar, we will share considerations, strategies, scripts, and tools (including a student handout you can adapt) that can help you and your students realize the full potential of classroom interactions. When you facilitate student interactions around content area learning objectives, students are not only engaging with content, they are also engaging with each other. This affords them an additional learning opportunity to practice critical interpersonal and intercultural skills with intention. Naming these skills for students and providing periodic opportunities for reflection are all essential for building students’ global competence. We can’t assume students are aware of or thinking about these competencies. Just as with subject-area learning outcomes, we need to actively and intentionally facilitate this learning.

“I'm so glad to have a concrete framework to give students a way to think about how they engage with each other in class discussions or group work! I hadn't thought about asking them to put this into words, and I'm really glad to have a way to ask them to think about this in addition to the context we cover in my course.” — past workshop participant

Uncovering Perspectives through Visual Thinking Strategy *
Come to this workshop to experience Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a collaborative, student-centered teaching method that fosters inclusive community-building dialogue through facilitated discussions of visual images. VTS is a deceptively simple approach to revealing diverse perspectives, deepening cultural self-awareness, and strengthening critical thinking skills. VTS can be used across the curriculum and does not require any special art training. Using three essential questions and a few specific facilitation techniques, teachers and students alike can learn to observe the world through others’ eyes and develop evidence-based thinking habits.
Birds of a Feather: Supporting and Leveraging Class and Team Diversity

This is a fun activity that demonstrates our human tendency to gravitate to the familiar—people who look, think, and act like us, as well as the limitations of this tendency. We observe this in our classrooms all the time. Students self-segregate into their same social or cultural groups, and in doing so miss out on valuable opportunities to grow their networks, broaden their perspectives, and practice intercultural skills needed in our interconnected world.

Collaborative Online International Learning

What if you could take your class anywhere in the world right now, with almost no carbon or financial cost, and not just experience the amazing sights and sounds of destinations across the globe, but develop relationships with academic partners, and engage in substantive conversations with your students' peers? With Collaborative Online International Learning, you can. Join this one-hour session on Collaborative Online International Learning, or COIL, if you want to: understand the core principles of COIL pedagogy; discuss guidelines for targeting efficient, fun, and successful project development; review innovative example projects; and prepare for developing a COIL partnership with an international faculty member by reviewing partnership resources and guidelines.

Cultural Communication Styles

This 30-minute webinar is designed to help you consider the role of cultural communication styles in your classroom, so you can help your students deepen their intercultural communication skills. During the webinar, we will review high-context and low-context communication styles used in different cultures and countries and provide you with an opportunity to reflect on your own communication style. You will also experience a teaching activity that you can do with your students on cultural communication styles.

Cultural Self-Awareness in Teaching

This one-hour webinar is designed to help you reflect on your cultural identity in teaching. You will have an opportunity to think about how the culture(s) you grew up in and lived in for an extended period of time influence your teaching. We will also discuss several strategies on how you can effectively share your intercultural experiences and lessons learned with your students and what you can do to help your students realize that their culture(s) have influenced their perspectives on self, others, and the world.

Teaching with Sustainable Development Goals: Strategies and Resources

This 30-minute webinar is designed to help you integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals into your courses. Integrating the goals can help your students build awareness of global issues and learn about concrete steps they could take to address them on both global and local levels. We will review several methods for and examples of integrating the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals that address various global challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, peace, and justice that you can include in your classroom discussions.

Intercultural Interaction: Developing Important Skills and Attitudes

This set of offerings will support instructors who want to help students cultivate and advance their interpersonal and intercultural skills. The emphasis is on learning to recognize ourselves and others as cultural beings and on moving forward in our interpersonal interactions with respect, humility and curiosity. These skills and attitudes are essential for preparing students to work in diverse and interactive social environments. Industry leaders (students’ future employers) have expressed that recent graduates have the technical skills they require, but are lacking in skills for working effectively on diverse teams and organizations. All instructors have an opportunity and responsibility to help students develop in these areas as well.

Facilitating Intercultural Learning in Globally Diverse Classes *

How do we as teachers facilitate intercultural learning that centers on the diverse perspectives students bring to our classrooms? Join us for an interactive online workshop where you will have the opportunity to expand and deepen your teaching strategies to engage the global diversity in your classes. Faculty and instructors from all disciplines face increasing demands to help students develop the intercultural skills necessary to thrive in today’s world. During this workshop, you will learn from leaders in the field of intercultural education and practice strategies to facilitate interactions among students in your globally diverse classrooms.

“[This is] an OUTSTANDING workshop: [The facilitators] do such a wonderful job of modeling the skills they are teaching about as they facilitate deep and meaningful discussions about real situations. Regardless of your experience level with this topic it is really worthwhile attending this workshop." — past workshop participant

Leveraging Interactions for Intercultural Learning *

Let’s talk about how we can leverage all interactive classroom activities for deeper content learning and interpersonal and intercultural development. In this webinar, we will share considerations, strategies, scripts, and tools (including a student handout you can adapt) that can help you and your students realize the full potential of classroom interactions. When you facilitate student interactions around content area learning objectives, students are not only engaging with content, they are also engaging with each other. This affords them an additional learning opportunity to practice critical interpersonal and intercultural skills with intention. Naming these skills for students and providing periodic opportunities for reflection are all essential for building students’ global competence. We can’t assume students are aware of or thinking about these competencies. Just as with subject-area learning outcomes, we need to actively and intentionally facilitate this learning.

“I'm so glad to have a concrete framework to give students a way to think about how they engage with each other in class discussions or group work! I hadn't thought about asking them to put this into words, and I'm really glad to have a way to ask them to think about this in addition to the context we cover in my course.” — past workshop participant

Uncovering Perspectives through Visual Thinking Strategy *
Come to this workshop to experience Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a collaborative, student-centered teaching method that fosters inclusive community-building dialogue through facilitated discussions of visual images. VTS is a deceptively simple approach to revealing diverse perspectives, deepening cultural self-awareness, and strengthening critical thinking skills. VTS can be used across the curriculum and does not require any special art training. Using three essential questions and a few specific facilitation techniques, teachers and students alike can learn to observe the world through others’ eyes and develop evidence-based thinking habits.
Birds of a Feather: Supporting and Leveraging Class and Team Diversity

This is a fun activity that demonstrates our human tendency to gravitate to the familiar—people who look, think, and act like us, as well as the limitations of this tendency. We observe this in our classrooms all the time. Students self-segregate into their same social or cultural groups, and in doing so miss out on valuable opportunities to grow their networks, broaden their perspectives, and practice intercultural skills needed in our interconnected world.

Collaborative Online International Learning

What if you could take your class anywhere in the world right now, with almost no carbon or financial cost, and not just experience the amazing sights and sounds of destinations across the globe, but develop relationships with academic partners, and engage in substantive conversations with your students' peers? With Collaborative Online International Learning, you can. Join this one-hour session on Collaborative Online International Learning, or COIL, if you want to: understand the core principles of COIL pedagogy; discuss guidelines for targeting efficient, fun, and successful project development; review innovative example projects; and prepare for developing a COIL partnership with an international faculty member by reviewing partnership resources and guidelines.

Cultural Communication Styles

This 30-minute webinar is designed to help you consider the role of cultural communication styles in your classroom, so you can help your students deepen their intercultural communication skills. During the webinar, we will review high-context and low-context communication styles used in different cultures and countries and provide you with an opportunity to reflect on your own communication style. You will also experience a teaching activity that you can do with your students on cultural communication styles.

Cultural Self-Awareness in Teaching

This one-hour webinar is designed to help you reflect on your cultural identity in teaching. You will have an opportunity to think about how the culture(s) you grew up in and lived in for an extended period of time influence your teaching. We will also discuss several strategies on how you can effectively share your intercultural experiences and lessons learned with your students and what you can do to help your students realize that their culture(s) have influenced their perspectives on self, others, and the world.

Finding Common Ground: A Community Building Activity

Experience an activity that is especially valuable for fostering rapport among students from diverse cultural backgrounds. During this 30-minute webinar, we will model and discuss effective facilitation strategies for how you can help your students "find common ground."

Strategies for More Inclusive Participation, and a Whip Around Discussion

Join a conversation on class participation to learn and share ideas, resources, and tools for establishing broader and deeper student engagement and interaction. We will facilitate this discussion using an activity that invites all voices, the Whip Around.

Thirty-Five: An Interactive Negotiations Activity

This is an activity that includes movement, sharing insights, negotiation, critical thinking, decision making, evaluation, anonymity...and a tiny bit of math. It can be used as a form of review and gathering key takeaways from discussions, lessons, articles, etc.