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Breaking Cultural & Communication Barrier
Accomplishment
We suggest faculties to try utilizing our deliverable “Conversation Cards” in class, especially group assignments. It is for creating a cultural integration within U Arts community.
Throughout our process (Hosting design workshop, Wish Box & Wish Cards, class observation, Brainstorming Activity) and with our interventions specifically with “Conversation Cards”, there were a few things that we have accomplished;
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We tested and verified a list of classroom behavior traits common to the interactions between many international and American students. Through research we connected these common traits to cultural norms unknown by many American faculty and students. Finally we created simple tools for the communication of these culture norms, as a way to break down misunderstandings and open up communication in classrooms with international students.
Having “Conversation Cards” present within group sessions raised cultural awareness in the classroom and brought it to student’s attention. However, due to the lack of testing, we were not able to fully test the edited version of Communication Card. It still remain as a question as to how effective it could help students to remove language and culture barriers and help students communicate well during group session between American students and international students (specifically, Korean & Chinese). Reflecting back to our process, we have made some revealing mistakes with our first prototype “Wish Box and Wish Cards”. We came to the realization that inviting indirect communication through a “Wish Box” and “Wish Cards” was ineffective because it provided a substitute for more direct interaction and discussion. We later thought that the mistake was revealing of our own cultural proclivity (as S. Koreans) for indirect and discrete forms of communication.