U Pacific: What’s Up With Culture? Online Cultural Training Resource

Study Abroad

What’s Up With Culture? Online Cultural Training Resource, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA.

This open access online course offers an opportunity to explore various aspects of intercultural communication and adjustment models to learn what is required to be effective and comfortable while going abroad and living internationally. It is designed to be part of a student’s training rather than to stand alone, but it provides a good start.

This material was developed to support and enhance a student’s ability to make successful cultural adjustments both before going overseas and upon returning home from studying abroad. It was produced primarily for traditional-aged, undergraduate US-American university students. Those preparing to participate in a study abroad program will find the first seven sections useful while those who are about to, or have, returned home from an international program can refer to the final four sections. The focus is generally on the concept of culture and how it impacts one’s ability to understand and function in a new and unfamiliar environment. It concentrates on the skills, attitudes, and behaviors which all study abroad students, regardless of their specific destination, will find useful.

Art, Communication and Contact Zones: Open Online Course (U Pittsburgh)

Art, Communication, and Contact Zones is a free, open online course offered via the University of Pittsburgh now accepting enrollments via Blackboard’s Open Education platform.

Course description:
In a society that steers us to reinforce our existing preferences, it can be illuminating to study public art designed to bring diverse audiences together in “contact zones,” where different worlds and discordant views mix. Join us to explore close readings of monuments, installations, and other artworks that arise from, create, and animate such ‘contact zones.’ This open online course runs parallel with a brick-and-mortar seminar by the same name at the University of Pittsburgh, giving you a chance to connect with Pitt faculty members and students. Workload: view one brief video lesson every other week for five weeks and participate through voluntary written discussions.

For further information, contact Gordon Mitchell.