Welcome to Ep 139 of the think UDL podcast: Emotional Capacity and Intercultural Competence with Tara Harvey. Dr. Tara Harvey is the Founder and Chief Intercultural Educator of True North Intercultural. She assists educational institutions in reaching their internationalization goals through consulting, training, and coaching and helps educators develop their capabilities to incorporate intercultural learning into their work with students. I took a course from Tara several years ago and have found so many connections between intercultural learning and UDL over the years. In today’s conversation we discuss the recently updated UDL 3.0 guidelines released in the summer of 2024 and pay particular attention to the section on emotional capacity. Quite a few changes took place in that section of the guidelines and I thought that a discussion about them through the lens of intercultural competence may help listeners to understand what those changes really mean. Even if you are not familiar with the old or new guidelines, this conversation is helpful for anyone –and not just in higher ed. It is helpful in teaching and learning, but it is also very helpful in life in general to think about how we act in the world and how different we may be from each other.
Resources
Find Dr. Tara Harvey on LinkedIn
Read more about the Four-Phase Framework here
Learn more about True North Intercultural on the website
Transcript
55:05
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Universal Design for Learning, emotional capacity, intercultural competence, UDL 3.0 guidelines, learner variability, visual learning, four-phase developmental framework, self-awareness, cultural differences, mindfulness, metacognition, collective reflection, empathy, restorative practices, educational goals.
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, Tara Harvey
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it, and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 139 of the think UDL podcast, emotional capacity and intercultural competence with Tara Harvey. Dr Tara Harvey is the founder and chief intercultural educator of true north intercultural she assists educational institutions in reaching their internationalization goals through consulting, training and coaching, and she helps educators develop their capabilities to incorporate intercultural learning into their work with students I took a course with Tara several years ago, and have found so many connections between intercultural Learning and universal design for learning over the years. In today’s conversation, we discuss the Recently Updated UDL 3.0 guidelines released in the summer of 2024 and we pay particular attention to the section on emotional capacity. Quite a few changes took place in that section of the guidelines, and I thought that a discussion about them through the lens of intercultural competence may help listeners to understand what those changes really mean, even if you are not familiar with the old or new guidelines, this conversation is helpful for anyone, and not just in higher ed. It is helpful in teaching and learning, but it’s also very helpful in life in general, and it’s helpful to think about how we act in the world and how different we may be from each other. So thank you for listening to this conversation on the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor. Text help a global technology company helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood. It has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12 right through to higher education for the last three decades. Discover their impact at text, dot help. Forward, slash, learn more. That’s L, E, A, R, N, M, O, R, E, all right. Welcome Tara to the think UDL podcast. Thanks happy to be here. I am so glad to have you. You. Your name sprang to my mind when I saw the 3.0 redo. And of course, I think it has a lot to do with intercultural learning and intercultural competence. So I wanted to reach out for this conversation. But before we get into that, my first question is, what makes you a different kind of learner?
Tara Harvey 03:25
That’s a great question, and I wish I had like an amazing, unique answer, but I realized I have been involved in higher education for as long as I have, in part because I am the type of learner that education was created for I’ve been very privileged in that education teaches in a way that works well for me, and that’s probably why I did two masters and a PhD. But I have in my old age, older age, I should say,
Lillian Nave 03:58
Wait a second, you’re not old.
Tara Harvey 04:00
I’ve become sort of more self aware about my own learning style and its peculiarities. I guess you could say I do realize I am very visual, like I can remember numbers very well if I see them. And so if somebody tells me a number, I will picture it, and then I can remember it. And that sort of translates to I like things organized, and visual organization helps a lot for me. So I use a lot of post it notes and organizing my ideas. I do a lot of writing. And writing for me is like thinking visually, like I put my thoughts on paper to better understand what it is I’m thinking, and then sort of organize those thoughts to clarify my thinking. But I’m like, actually physically organizing the thoughts, and that helps me me think and learn. So anything visual usually helps me learn better. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 05:00
you make me think too of something that I feel like I do all the time, that visual learning, right? That the thing that helps me is like, well, I will write things, I have post it notes, I move them around, I’ll cross something off, and then I can, like, change and organize that way. But there was an now, it’s an older movie, but you know, it was cool when we were young. Probably, is a Tom Cruise movie called Minority Report, which has, it’s like a futurific movie. And there’s a part where, like, they’re figuring out a case. And instead of having, like, a murder mystery case, where you have a picture and then a string a yarn, you know, that goes into the next subject suspect or something. It’s all this digital like movement board, and you’re kind of moving things up and down and sideways. That’s what I feel like. But like, that is how I need to learn. Like I need to be moving these tiles and shifting things for me to organize. And that it’s, it’s definitely how I think, too, in that visual way.
Tara Harvey 06:00
Yes, I remember being in a graduate level class, and we were put together with people with similar learning styles to us, and we had to talk about how we learned. And everyone in my group, in some way, used color coding, like when they were writing things, and when we shared that with other groups. All the other groups thought we were a little bit weird. We were like, of course, doesn’t everyone do that? Of course, goodness,
Lillian Nave 06:26
right? And didn’t you organize your notebooks when you were little as the good students, right? And you had different colors for each notebook. And I’m going to ask you a question. This was not planned, but I’m going to see if you had a color, what would you choose for science What color is your notebook? Green?
Tara Harvey 06:43
Yes,
Lillian Nave 06:45
obviously that
Tara Harvey 06:47
color, I might have answered that, even if you said that. I have
Lillian Nave 06:50
asked so many people and just all right, listeners too, you should go and ask somebody like, if you were a kid and you had your science notebook, you had a bunch of different colors, what color is your science notebook? I’m telling you, it’s green. It’s got anyway, math and English could flip flop between red and blue, I found. But anyway, that was the great minds think alike, I guess. So. Okay, sorry, little tangent there, but it’s, it’s interesting that you said visual. Oh, and by the way, there’s a, there’s a learning myth about learning styles. We’re not saying that there’s particular styles that people have and you can’t veer from them, but there are preferences, and we have this visual preference for sure, and like to organize things that way, especially color coding. And so one of the things that I learned when I took your course about intercultural learning, was about the four phase developmental framework, which was a visual and so I wanted to ask about that, because that I think, has a really huge overlap with in connection to the the 3.0 UDL guidelines, especially in the emotional capacity part. So let me start with that, because I wanted to ask how the four phase developmental framework for intercultural learning that you introduced to me, how did that come about? And can you give a little overview of what those four phases are?
Tara Harvey 08:19
Sure the four phases originated from Dr Michael, or he goes by Mick van de Berg. He was a mentor of mine and a colleague of mine, and so he had kind of laid out these four phases when he and I started to work together. And then we had a lot of conversations about the language and the interrelationship of these but essentially they sprang from his and then also my experience working with students to facilitate their intercultural learning, first before, during and after study abroad programs. But then that expanded to other areas as well. And we also both worked with faculty and staff who wanted to facilitate students intercultural learning, so doing training with them. So we were working with students, faculty and staff to try to help them develop their own intercultural competence, and to help the educators think about how to do that. And these phases sort of evolved from those experiences like, what do we need to focus on to help people become more interculturally competent? And so the four phases are, the first one is increasing understanding and awareness of our own characteristic ways of making meaning and acting in familiar and unfamiliar contexts. So better self awareness, understanding how we experience, see the world based on our own background, experiences, identities, etc,
Lillian Nave 09:49
and understanding that it’s for like it’s a very individual thing. Like you. You are living in this world that is your culture. Other people are in it too. But it’s yours. Yeah, you experience it, and other people, well, we’ll get to them. Yes, yes.
Tara Harvey 10:07
The whole, the whole framework, is based on constructivism, you know, and the fact that we’re all constructing our experiences, constructing our reality, co constructing our reality with others all the time, and so the second phase is very similar to the first, but really the opposite, increasing understanding and awareness of others ways of making meaning and acting in familiar and unfamiliar contexts. So understanding, you know that others might be making meaning of things very differently. Others might be thinking about respect, or have a very different experience around respect compared to what I’ve been socialized to think or how I experience respect.
Lillian Nave 10:54
Yeah, so let me just think about an example here to clarify these two. Number one, increasing understanding of how we make our meaning. So if someone were to give me 12 red roses, my meaning and understanding would be that they love me, and that’s really a very wonderful gesture and inexpensive, right, that they care. Somebody cares for me. But if that were the case in another context, let’s say Russia, we’re giving an even number of roses, is akin to a death threat, or, I wish you were dead. That sort of that meaning is way different. And so to recognize that what might what makes meaning to me is really dependent on how I’ve constructed or lived in my world, and it might be very different to somebody else, right? Exactly. Okay, so, like, we’re kind of understanding, I like to use one of the metaphors you introduced to me, which is the fish bowl that we are fish. I’m a fish swimming in my own fish bowl. So I know my own fish bowl, and I’m understanding the water, and I recognize that I’m swimming in the water of my own culture. And then I have to realize there’s somebody else who might be in their own different fish bowl across the room, and that is a different you know, they make meaning differently because of where they grew up, or their family, or that sort of thing. Would that be someone of those metaphors that might work?
Tara Harvey 12:19
Yeah, exactly. And oftentimes we don’t recognize our own water until we are taken out of that water, and then suddenly we realize, like, oh, things are different in a different environment, right? You know, oftentimes I’ve worked with students that say, Oh, well, I don’t really have culture name exercise. I think you did that exercise where we talk about our name and what it means and where it comes from. And I’ve had some students say things like, oh, you know, well, my name is Chris. It’s, yeah, I don’t have any culture to it or anything. My mom just picked the name because she liked it. Well, some people in other places will say your mom just picked a name because she liked it. It like there was no requirement for that name to named after somebody or something or some place or reasoning behind it. So oftentimes we’re unaware of our own culture that we’re swimming in until, until we come in contact. And that’s why the two, these two phases, are oftentimes kind of taught in tandem. As we learn more about how others experience things differently, we become more aware of our own cultural norms, values, beliefs, etc, and vice versa.
Lillian Nave 13:33
Yeah, great. So that’s that’s like fundamental we first have to understand that we have our own culture, yes.
Tara Harvey 13:41
And one of the things that I did when working with Mick on the framework is I’m the one who actually made the visual all intersect, and phases one and two are at the center, at the core, and they kind of back and forth. There’s like an arrow between the two. We call it like ping ponging back and forth. You know, the more you learn about others and how others are experiencing the world, the better understanding and awareness you have of your own ways of making meaning in the world. So those are the core. And then we move out towards phases three and four, but we have to develop at least some foundation in phases one and two in order to start developing out into three and four.
Lillian Nave 14:24
Okay, so what’s number three? So three is responding
Tara Harvey 14:27
mindfully in context that disorient or challenge us. So oftentimes, based on that kind of socialization that we’ve gone through, we make meaning of the world. So we react kind of on autopilot based on the cultural water we’re swimming in, without even realizing that that is what we’re doing. And so responding mindfully means slowing down sort of that tendency to automatically react and bringing that awareness of how we’re. Making meaning how others might be making meaning differently into the equation, and then being more choiceful or mindful about how we respond, rather than just that automatic reaction. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 15:13
And in that first phase, something that we, you and I have talked about before and understand, is that when we’re figuring out that fish bowl water we’re swimming in that’s really uncovering those assumptions that we make, we didn’t realize those were the assumptions that were being made. So that mindfulness part is when we start to uncover what is driving that decision, or, Oh, that’s my assumption here, that respect is gained by looking someone directly in the eye, and here’s somebody who is averting their eyes, and my assumption is they aren’t being very respectful to me. But it’s quite possible, if I investigate that assumption, I’m kind of thinking about it. Could there be another really reason than then showing disrespect, it might be that their fish bowl water tells them that in order to show respect to an elder or to a teacher, they need to keep their eyes down. They need to not make eye contact, which would be aggressive, right, or something like that. So mindfully thinking about, wait a second, in that instance, everything in me is telling me that this is disrespectful. But let me take a take a beat here and think, could there be another option? Is this what we’re talking about, exactly?
Tara Harvey 16:30
But the tendency is not, normally, to go through that whole thought process. No, the tendency is to go, what a jerk or more disrespectful? You know, we respond to things that go against what we consider the norms or right or appropriate. We respond with emotion, yes, and so we’ll get to you know why emotional capacity has a lot to do with this, but that responding mindfully, kind of acknowledges the emotion that is tied up in the way we make meaning, and what happens when the expectations we have are not met by others? Yeah,
Lillian Nave 17:14
yeah. This is really big. This is something I’ve talked to with many of my colleagues, is about those assumptions that we make. And by the way, I know we started talking about this and your research started with study abroad, but intercultural situations don’t have to be study abroad at all. You don’t have to go to another country. You just have to have a group of people sitting in the same classroom or on the same online Zoom meeting, and you’ve got an intercultural situation, right?
Tara Harvey 17:42
Right? Intercultural is across cultures. In culture can mean, you know, different nationalities, different ethnicities, different religions, different socioeconomic status, different abilities. So essentially, intercultural competence can be useful when we’re engaging with anyone who’s different from us, even if it is just a personality difference, because the same skills and mindset apply when engaging across any type of difference, whether you want to call it cultural or not,
Lillian Nave 18:15
yes, and that’s why I think this is so so important. It is so useful. And I see I use it all the time in my teaching, whether or not I’m doing specifically an intercultural class or not. It’s so, so helpful. Okay, so we’ve got, first part, increasing understanding of our own culture, how we make meaning, the second one, understanding of how others are making meaning in their own ways, which may be different than ours. And the third is responding mindfully when things challenge us, when when they aren’t the norm, and we responding mindfully All right? Well, what’s the last part?
Tara Harvey 19:00
The last part, essentially is bringing it all together. So the fourth phase is bridging cultural gaps in those contexts, shifting perspective, attuning emotions, and adapting our behavior in effective and appropriate ways. So this is why I said the first two are foundational and kind of at the core. And then we move out to develop our capacity to respond more mindfully. And then from there, can move out to bridging. But it’s not like a sequence, sequential or lock step. It’s not like, okay, I can check off one and two. I have those, and now I focus on three and four. You can’t really get to four without practicing the others, but they are all really a practice. It’s not something we we got done, and now, you know, we checked off 123, and four. Now we’re interculturally competent, and all situations of engaging with people who are different come easily and naturally. These are all. All things that we need to continue to practice and develop further and do every day when we’re engaging across difference,
Lillian Nave 20:10
right? So it’s like, okay, you’re meeting new people. Anytime you have a classroom with students, anytime you’re in a group, it’s it’s more intercultural work, more practice that we get to do. Yes, yeah. So okay, so then come along the UDL 3.0 guidelines in the summer of 2024 and the most revised section of that new guidelines are the multiple options for emotional capacity that I think are very closely related to the four phase developmental framework for intercultural learning that we just talked about. And so can we talk about the first two phases? So the my own meaning making and others meaning making as they relate to the UDL considerations, these are 9.1 and 9.2 and now we call them considerations, no longer checkpoints, by the way, and they are emotional capacity section. 9.1 is recognize expectations, beliefs and motivations, and 9.2 is develop awareness of self and others. Hmm, let’s look at those two through the lens of intercultural learning. What do you think?
Tara Harvey 21:33
Sure? Well, before I talk specifically about 9.1 and 9.2 I just wanted to point out when you go to sort of the explanation of emotional capacity. The first sentence is a critical aspect of human development is attending to one’s ability to recognize emotions, manage thoughts and behaviors and empathize with others. To me, that is kind of a summary of all four of these phases together. So I just wanted to highlight that. But then looking at at 9.1 recognize expectations, beliefs and motivations, and then the sub sentence of that, or whatever, is set goals that inspire confidence and ownership of learning. So it does focus a little bit more on goals, but to me, the broader idea of recognize expectations, beliefs and motivations really connects to both phases one and two, depending on whose motivations beliefs you’re talking about. You know, the explanation seems to focus on self, your own motivations and beliefs. So those are really aspects of phase one, when we’re understanding how we’re making meaning. A part of that is how we’re motivated, what we believe, what our expectations are in any particular situation, and where those come from.
Lillian Nave 23:00
Yeah, and what might, what might motivate me might not motivate you, right? And what might motivate the traditional student who does well in school, who likes to be lectured at, and who’s great at taking tests and quizzes, you know, might not be the motivator to someone else, who’s really used to doing and trying out things and in an iterative process and right? That’s not very motivating. And they’re not going to be motivated to do well in that course, if they’re really from a different place than than somebody else, exactly.
Tara Harvey 23:34
Yeah. And then, with 9.2 develop awareness of self and others. Awareness of self and others, to me, ties directly to both phases one and two. That’s essentially how I would summarize phases one and two. Now the subheading of 9.2 and UDL says develop and manage healthy emotional responses and interactions. To me, that sounds like then it’s also getting into phase three, mindfulness, more mindfully, you need to be aware of your own natural tendencies to respond in certain ways and so and the description also focuses on managing frustration, developing internal controls and coping skills. All of those, to me, are something that comes with practicing mindfulness and developing that ability to respond more mindfully. So phase three. So a lot of overlap here.
Lillian Nave 24:38
Yeah, so much. I mean, all of these bells were ringing when I in my head, when I’m when I’m reading these and it is, it’s so much I think about our own let’s say, as the the instructor, right, the person who’s setting the goals is understanding that we’re dealing with every learner. Every brain, every student is different. And so what are the options that we might have for motivation? What might motivate some students might not motivate others, right? So thinking about knowing that we have, I have my own educational fish bowl I’ve been swimming in, right? And what has worked? And usually it’s what has worked in the discipline that I learned. You know, we do what we were taught how, and we teach the way we were taught. And investigating that in trying to figure out, well, what is, what’s going to work, really, for everybody. It might have worked for me, but it may not work for everybody. I think is, as you said, it’s like now bleeding into that third part, that mindfulness and kind of investigating those assumptions and really just knowing that everybody is different, we have to be foundational, that that is our foundation, and to how can we reach all of them? Yeah,
Tara Harvey 25:54
and I saw this a lot when I was working as an international student advisor for many years, and it seemed like there was oftentimes sort of an assumption on the part of educators that are US institutions, that everyone was coming to the learning experience with a similar educational background or experience. I mean, they didn’t state that. But when you hand out a syllabus, you know, that is designed in a certain way, that has certain expectations written on it, certain things in general, on the syllabus, and other things not you’re kind of making assumptions when what my experience was is a lot of international students were coming from educational systems that had kind of trained them to have very different expectations around, you know, participation, how much information is or isn’t outlined ahead of time. So those were some of my first kind of the areas where I become became aware of different expectations and beliefs around education,
Lillian Nave 27:05
yeah, so thinking about even just how students engage, like our participation, right? So if you have in your syllabus, 30% is participation based, right? Or whatever your percentage, 10% How do you define participation? And will some students come in and think, oh, participation means I raise my hand and I speak in class. Is that the definition? If so, is that written in your syllabus? Who’s supposed to know that? And how is it quantified, versus somebody might read that and think participation, okay, well, I’m going to be actively taking notes, because that’s how I remember things. And I’m I am fully participating. I’m reading over it, I’m doing all of the work that is stated in the syllabus. That’s 100% participation. It’s not necessarily interacting, you know, asking questions. It’s just a different expectation, right?
Tara Harvey 28:04
Exactly? And many students come from educational systems where, in the past, they have not been expected to offer their opinion. Yeah, the idea oftentimes of education in many places is there is an expert, and the students are there to absorb the knowledge of the expert. And so if they walk into a classroom where the students are the ones talking the majority of the time and the expert is not sharing as much, they might not only not speak up, but they might feel like this is a poor learning environment. They’re not getting what they came for, right?
Lillian Nave 28:43
Yeah, that or that speaking up or asking a question is disrespectful, like we said, like you’re not even supposed to do that. So in order to, you know, be the best student, they better keep their mouth shut. I mean, that’s that could be one of the expectations that goes in. So again, like stating one’s goal, like if, as the instructor in the syllabus say, Here’s what I mean by participation, and here are the options. We can have a, you know, back channel on Discord, or on some sort of electronic notes taking document and that you’re writing there. Or you could be asking a question, like, what are those? We just have to make that hidden curriculum. Sometimes it’s called the things that we don’t say, make it visible or or unhide that hidden curriculum, right? So, okay, so we, so I’m seeing already huge overlaps right with our first part, and we’ve already started talking about the third section, and actually both of these, but let’s turn our attention to the UDL emotional capacity consideration 9.3 which is promote individual and collective reflection. Hmm, and consider its relationship to the third phase of intercultural learning, which is that mindfulness practice responding mindfully when things challenge us. And how, how can we talk about that? How might it relate to the idea of individual and or collective reflection?
Tara Harvey 30:21
Yeah, obviously individual reflection, to me, immediately jumped out as kind of being in line with with phase one, understanding how we make meaning of the world. But then when I dove deeper into the description, the description talks quite a bit about metacognition, which is something that we’re really focusing on developing in all four phases, particularly phase one and three, because in phase one, you’re becoming, you know, more aware of your own ways of making meaning, so kind of revealing, like how you communicate to yourself, how to make sense of things to yourself. But then also phase three, by practicing mindfulness, we start to become more aware of our emotions, our judgments, our physical sensations. The description does talk more about progress towards goals, specifically metacognition, about progress towards goals. But I think metacognition is addressed just in a broader way in the the four phase framework, and a little bit in each of each of the phases. So
Lillian Nave 31:31
metacognition, short definition would be just thinking about your own thinking. Is that pretty good
Tara Harvey 31:38
understanding? Yeah, thinking about your own thinking. And then we talk about meta communication too. In the intercultural world, communicating about the way you communicate. First, you have to be aware of your own communication style and preferences and share that with others. But then, yeah, absolutely like understanding how I’m responding to things based on how I’m thinking about them, making sense of what just happened, etc. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 32:05
so, yeah, thinking about, like, one of the things we already said that being quiet might is thinking about how that is a way of communicating that might be showing respect, right? I’m listening, and I’m not going to interrupt the teacher because I am showing respect, and I’m very engaged that I don’t want to interrupt them. And so that’s a way of communicating one’s feelings or or respect or their engagement and and the other person might not know that. They might think, well, what am I boring? Are you not interested? You’re not asking any questions. Or, you know, are you just totally staring off into space? Because you know that being able to make that visible in essence, or just talk about it, or the idea about totally explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing, or just having general like, here’s the way this classroom is going to work. It may be different than the other classrooms I would like us to, you know, communicate with each other more, and I’m a facilitator rather than the sage on the stage. And so, yeah, but, but some people don’t make that well known, so students are confused.
Tara Harvey 33:24
Yeah, and you bring up a good point, which is that in intercultural learning, it’s not about what I as the facilitator, know, we all have culture. We’re all engaging in culture, upholding culture, and creating it at all times when we’re engaging with other people. So facilitating intercultural learning is really about kind of promoting metacognition, helping people become more self aware, reflective, both individually and collectively. So, yeah, I see a lot of overlaps here, for sure,
Lillian Nave 34:07
yeah. So yeah, like that collective reflection that was interesting to me too, because I think that might be where we get that, that ping ponging back between one and two, the understanding of your own culture and then understanding other people’s culture. So if we can, let’s say, reflect out loud and hear each other’s reflections, then we are understanding, I think, a richer and more nuanced discussion, right? So if there’s a chance for a class to let’s say, let’s reflect on that last reading and see, well, what did this person say, and what did it mean by that, versus, well, I read it differently, right? Or I’m reflecting on it differently, and I’ve kind of moved in my thinking in this way. And we’re, I’m. Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t think about responding to it that way, right? That’s what we love about a Socratic, sorry, a Socratic classroom, right? We have lots of questions and kind of moving through that. And we really do learn, I think, from hearing each other’s reflections on what happened.
Tara Harvey 35:19
And I think that collective reflection can also set us up for success in Phase four, which is bridging the cultural differences and the cultural gaps. So we have to be able to have that conversation and not think, oh, this person is a jerk. This person is leaving be having that dialog of we may have different communication styles. Here’s you know what I’m saying and what that means to me, or how I’m acting and why, and then reflect with another person. Well, here is how I am making meaning of that. Here is you know what I meant when I said this. Then we’re we’re deepening our empathy and our respect for somebody else, because we better understand, Oh, they’re not a jerk. They were thinking this. And you know, if we are approaching communication differently or time differently, or thinking differently about this class and participation, what next? How do we bridge that gap? So I think that collective reflection is is a fundamental piece to be able to to bridge,
Lillian Nave 36:30
wow, the the more we know about our own communication, right and and that reflection helps us to understand that, I think helps us so much to understand and to to understand what the class is about, like the the actual learning that’s really happening, because you can memorize and put it back on a test a number of times and forget it later. But it’s that digesting, right, that really solidifies, I think, the learning and we need to have time to do that.
Tara Harvey 37:08
I’ll just share, share a story. I had a student once I was teaching a upper level writing intensive course that was focused on intercultural communication, but everyone had to have an a significant intercultural experience. And I had a young woman come to my office earlier, early in the semester, and she said she wanted to go to law school, but her writing was not very good. She struggled a lot with her writing, she said, and she wanted help. And I said, Well, you know, start bringing your drafts in early to me. Let’s look at them together. And as we looked at them, I realized she’s not a bad writer, but she has a very different communication style. So she was raised in Somalia, and she moved from Somalia to the US. When she was about 12, she came as a refugee and did not have any Somali family, any any longer had kind of disassociated herself from that culture, but I was seeing that, you know, the she wasn’t doing the standard tell us your thesis statement. Now provide three supporting arguments, and fill in the blanks about those arguments. Now summarize your thesis statement. She was telling stories, she was going around the point, and she was never really making her point, which we had learned in the class, and I talked about with her, helped her kind of understand you’re more of a spiral communicator. You’re telling stories and putting some of the onus on the reader to, you know, understand the point, and that is one valued communication style. But in US academia, this is kind of what we teach, this is what we look for, and this is what we value, and we talked about, you know, you can obviously adapt how you’re writing in some ways, but it might also be good to to use that understanding of your communication style, talk to others about that you know, mention to your other professors that that is your style, and think about what are the strengths of somebody who tells stories like, where might those be useful? So that kind of collective reflection and inviting her to reflect collectively with others, but also then see the value in these cultural differences. I think was somewhat useful. I hope was somewhat useful to her. I know it was useful to me as a professor, just reading her papers, realizing, Oh, it’s a there’s a different way of communicating here. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 39:38
that’s such a beautiful story and the that makes me think of how different conceptions, cultural conceptions are of things like time, that there’s no such thing as being late for some, that it’s that you take the time that you need, but that could be considered very, you know, off putting and disrespectful for others. So. Um, especially if you’re late to an exam, right? That’s that’s no good. So being um appropriate for the situation, that’s intercultural learning, and so that kind of spiraling storytelling might be really good actually, for opening or closing arguments trying to set up a case as a lawyer, but it’s not at all what’s needed to write a brief that needs to be very concise and to the point and have a lot of supporting evidence. And so, yeah, there are strengths in it, but knowing like, what the context, how you have to act or change a little bit right in that particular context, knowing that it may not be your strong suit or it may not be your cultural way of doing it, but you see that the situation calls for a different way that you’re learning how to do or learning how to master, right? So it’s important to know that we honor and value these cultures, but we also need to know what’s appropriate or what’s really going to get it done in in each particular situation. So if you know, if I wear shoes in the house, and I do, which is like anathema to many people, that you take your shoes off. You have to take your shoes off. You’re waiting to get in the house. But I know that if I go to someone else’s house, I don’t want to offend them, you know, and so I’ll I see some shoes by the door. I’m taking my shoes off right to go in someone else’s house. It’s not my way of doing things, but I want to act appropriately. I don’t want to be, you know, being a jerk and making a mess in somebody else’s house, right? So I just see that as working in so many contexts, including the educational context, and that’s why we as the instructor have to be really clear and well, what is the goal? How can you meet that goal? Can you meet it if you write in this particular way, maybe not in this assignment, but Yes, over here you can and but I have to be really clear about how I set out those goals, right? So, wow, we’re really getting to, I think we’ve we started already talking about because they all overlap so much we really can’t keep them apart. But the last UDL consideration under emotional capacity is that cultivate empathy and restorative practices. That’s 9.4 and how can we relate that to pretty much all four phases, but especially that fourth phase, which is that bridging practice. What does the bridging practice mean? Let’s talk about some how that might look more because we already have talked about some of it.
Tara Harvey 42:48
Yeah. So to me, cultivate empathy and restorative practices is very much. It overlaps with phase two, phase three and phase four, really and requires phase one in order to get into. But I pulled out one quote that stood out to me from that section is additional care and awareness are required to cultivate a sense of empathy with those who may appear different or come from different backgrounds. So practicing two, three and four is really developing this capacity. In four we’re developed, or excuse me, in phase two, we’re developing the capacity to shift perspective, to see things from someone else’s point of view, to empathize in a deeper way with where they’re coming from. We continue to develop that by practicing mindfulness, by being able to respond, not just shift perspective, but then think about slowing down our response mechanism to respond in a way that is more mindful. And in Phase four is really thinking about, how do we do that in a way that bridge bridges? How do we do that in a way we’re going to be effective at what we’re trying to do appropriate to the cultural context others feel respected and engaged and authentic to who we are. We’re not just assimilating, you know? And in the example that I gave with that student, you know, it’s helping her think through like, what is my goal in this particular situation? Yeah, maybe in this situation, my goal is to get an A on the paper. But thinking about in my field, my goal is to, you know, show up as my authentic self and do this, this work and do it well, or, you know, maybe that understanding of our own communication style could effectively lead to a different goal. I want to do something different with my life that really values that ability to tell stories and engage. Age people, I’m getting a little off hand in here.
Lillian Nave 45:04
No, it’s all good.
Tara Harvey 45:07
I should say, yeah.
Lillian Nave 45:09
No, it’s all it’s all so related. I think this, I really think that this emotional capacity part of the UDL guidelines was, was needed, and thinking about the research that the UDL guidelines were founded on, on based on neuroscience and and our brains, but our learning is so very different based on our culture too, like it’s inextricable. We can’t just say that this is what brains do we have to talk about what people do.
Tara Harvey 45:50
Yeah, and we’ve been talking a lot about, you know, natural cultures, but it there’s so many different cultural groups. You mentioned taking off shoes, even in the US that’s very regional. There are parts of the world I’ve lived in where that’s totally normal to take off your shoes, and others where it’s totally normal to keep them on. But things like, if you think about socioeconomic status, that really ingrains in us a certain like relationship and way of thinking about money and saving and spending. And then we make meaning of the world. We experience the world based on that kind of socialized way, way of thinking. And so when we engage with others who come from a very different space, we need to be able to see from another’s perspective, empathize with them. Think about how to bridge and so I think practicing these four phases can help somebody develop intercultural competence, but really, you know, serves the purpose of developing emotional capacity by the UDL guidelines. Following the UDL guidelines, you might not realize it, but you’re also helping people probably engage more effectively, appropriately and authentically with people from from different backgrounds.
Lillian Nave 47:05
Absolutely, it’s they. I think they go hand in hand. And the emotional, social, emotional learning, I think, is a very big topic. It’s an important part. And this is the UDL guidelines is are in the emotional capacity, part addressing that that is important every student has a relationship with a professor. It may not be a great relationship. It may be adversarial, right? In the way that it’s set up, it may be warm and very communicative, right? And and connected, but there’s a relationship in each one. And so really, being, I think, as clear as possible, to uncover whatever that hidden part is, or, or what, you know, what we want, if I’m the I’m saying we, as the instructor here, you know what I’d like to see in this classroom. This is the the things that are going to help you succeed, or this is how I see this classroom moving. You just have to make that part visible and then allow for and then and also investigate those assumptions to say, well, would it be okay if I had a student who never said a word in class? Would would I be okay with that? Well, what are the ways that that student could participate in a way that’s comfortable or that is useful, right for that student? And investigate some of my assumptions that it has to be the one who raises their hand or or is happy to be the first one to speak? Think these are all so many helpful questions that we need to ask ourselves, yeah.
Tara Harvey 48:50
And I mentioned before with intercultural competence, we have to understand what our goal is, yeah. And so in in the example you give, it’s really important for professors to understand, well, what is my goal when I put participation as 30% of the grade on on the syllabus? Why? What is my assumption about what that participation will do? The outcome of that not just what does participation mean to me, but why do I value it? Where do I think it will lead? Well, that ultimately, is really your goal. So say your goal is, you know, for students to learn these three learning objectives, yeah, then you have to really think about well, given what I understand about the diversity of my students, trying to understand where they come from their different expectations and assumptions around classroom, the classroom and learning and education. How might I adapt the way I go about my work? How might I create more inclusive options for students to fulfill those. Those learning objectives. And I think we oftentimes really overlook the importance of getting really clear about that goal, because I’ve worked with a lot of professors that say, you know, I want to increase participation. I want to make sure all of my students are comfortable participating. But is that really your goal? Like, is your goal students talk at least five minutes a day in class. Is that your ultimate goal? No, usually it’s not, but we’re making assumptions, and so getting clear about that goal, I think, then helps with everything else. Perfectly.
Lillian Nave 50:36
Said, Absolutely, we have to be clear on our goals and then investigate, yeah. Why we say that? Because you can participate and have, you know, raise your hand answer the very first question based on the first line you read, and then you’re done. You fulfilled that participation goal. But you You really gave nothing. He really didn’t understand the material, like it didn’t do what one assumed it was going to be doing. So anyway, we probably spent a long way too much time on participation, because I brought it up, but, but it’s that kind of thing. So what are those assumptions? How are we learning? Who’s what’s the best way to learn? There’s no best way. But what are the options that so that everybody can succeed? And, wow, I really appreciate you and this conversation. And thank you. We, it’s tough, though. And so, you know, we, I tried to have this conversation a couple weeks ago, and we’re like, no, no, this is a lot deeper. And so we had to have a pre conversation to talk about what exactly this conversation would be. And I so appreciate your thoughts on this and helping I think us to understand why these things, the UDL 3.0 guidelines on emotional capacity and the four phase developmental framework for intercultural learning, are so interrelated. So I just want to say thank you so much for lending your brain and your time for this conversation today. Well, thank
Tara Harvey 52:07
you, and thanks always for teaching me about UDL. I was very excited to see emotional capacity added in, and just based on my experience with Mick over the years, in refining the four phase framework, I’m excited to see how the emotional capacity aspect of UDL, perhaps, is refined over the years as as people implement it and have more experience and thoughts to to put into it moving forward. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 52:37
so we’ll put some resources for this episode on the think udl.org website, and so people can learn a little bit more about you and the four phase developmental framework, and just say thank you so much, and I really benefit. Have benefited and continue to benefit from talking to you and conversations with you and what you facilitate. So maybe other folks will also want to do that as well. But thank you so much, Tara for being on the podcast.
Tara Harvey 53:11
Thanks, Lillian,
Lillian Nave 53:15
you can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released, and also see transcripts and additional materials at the think udl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor, text help. Text help is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools, text help and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding. With over 50 million users worldwide, the text help suite of products includes read and write equatio and orbitnote, they work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite, and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Text help has changed the lives of millions worldwide and strives to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030 visit, text, dot help forward, slash, learn more. That’s L, E, A, R, N, M, O, R, E, to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Oddyssey quartet, comprised of Rex Shepard, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez and I am your host, Lillian Nave, thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast.