Abstract:

The Department of Agricultural Education and the College of Human Sciences at Oklahoma State University are offering an online course to Masters and PhD Students called Cultural Competency for Working in Agricultural and Extension Education/Working in a Diverse Society. The goal of the course is to reflect the importance of achieving intercultural competence, understanding the importance of developing intercultural skills to succeed in international and multicultural environments, and to better serve people from other cultures in agriculture educational and extension programs. The learning objectives include: To describe the importance of cultural competency, cultural values and stereotypes, and differentiate among multicultural, diverse and global societies; interpret and analyze the importance of inclusive global societies, managing diversity, and cultural intelligence; and to develop effective strategies and intercultural training strategies to successfully approach and serve people from other cultures in international and national experiences/opportunities in government agencies or transnational multicultural companies (in or outside the United States). The course is designed to be taught during a 16-week period (one academic semester) using the Desire to Learn (D2L) platform. The course includes five main assignments: self-introduction, description of students’ culture, interview of a person from a different culture, book report and a reflective final paper. In addition to the main assignments the students are required to be engaged in a weekly discussion board (an average of 10 posts per student per week). In order to participate in the discussion board the students are required to review the goal of the lesson and read the weekly material, including chapters in the text books journal and newspaper articles. In addition to the D2L platform, this course uses YouTube videos and recording options, Wiki pages, and other online tools. The success of the course is reflected in the students’ positive evaluations and in high demand of enrollment.

Keywords:

Online, intercultural competence.