COMM 280 Intercultural Communication Online Course Fall 2015 Syllabus Tiffany Park, Instructor Telephone: 434-906-4874 E-Mail: tpark@mbc.edu Course Description: This course serves as an introduction to the field of intercultural communication by looking at the practical application of theory and research. Intercultural Communication focuses on the importance of culture in our everyday lives, and the ways in which culture interrelates with and influences communication processes. The course will cover several general topics including: identity, perception, communication skills, culture, linguistic differences, stereotyping, and intercultural communication in education, medicine and business. This course is designed to help us do all these things and become better communicators through intercultural awareness. 3 Credit Hours. Course Overview: Intercultural Communication emphasizes the influence of culture on the communication process, including differences in values, message systems, nonverbal communication and communication rules. This course is designed to increase student awareness and appreciation for the complexity of intercultural communication skills in everyday situations. By studying communication principles and practicing intercultural competence, students will develop a greater tolerance and understanding of cross cultural differences in personal and professional interactions. This course will be facilitated online through Mary Baldwin s Blackboard online course management system. The course will be completed through a combination of writing projects and discussion board posts. Course Objectives: Upon completing the course, the student will be able to: 1. Define major terms and concepts related to cross-cultural communication. 2. Identify factors that can influence the cross-cultural communication process. 3. Understand how communication processes differ among cultures. 4. Identify challenges that arise from cross-cultural differences in intercultural interactions and learn ways to creatively address them. 5. Discover the importance of the roles of context and power in studying intercultural communication. 6. Acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes that increase intercultural competence. 7. Demonstrate increasing ability to communicate with non-native speakers, as well as persons who exhibit a different worldview, value system and communicative style. 8. Analyze and synthesize large amounts of information to produce relevant, insightful presentations. 9. Evaluate information gathered about a culture in light of its being valid or stereotypical in nature. 10. Recognize difference between western and non-western approaches to conflict, culture, and communication. Major Topics to be Included: 1. Cross-cultural communication theory, concepts and patterns 2. Cultural values and identities 3. Understanding cross-cultural and intercultural communication differences, challenges and opportunities 4. Ethnocentrism, bias, stereotyping, culture shock, assimilation, cultural relativism 5. Verbal and nonverbal communication as related to culture 6. Communication issues related to globalization 7. Cross-cultural, intercultural challenges in work and personal relationships 8. Ethical intercultural communication 9. Non-western forms of conflict resolution 10. Managing cross-cultural conflict using communication strategies 1
REQUIRED TEXT: Martin, Judith N., and Thomas K. Nakayama. Intercultural Communication in Contexts. 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print. ISBN# 978-0-07-803677-4 Purchase of Required Texts: You may purchase your books from any reliable source. Be sure to order using the ISBNs provided in this syllabus. Deadlines: You may proceed through this course at your own pace, reading assignments and submitting papers as you complete them. Bear in mind, however, that this course is based on a 14- week (maximum) term so, please, pace yourself accordingly! Assignment due dates are noted in the course sequence and calendar on the following page. Suggestion: On a calendar, plot your path and this semester s deadlines for completing each of the topical readings and assignments. Late Work: Projects and discussions are due on specific dates (please try to keep in mind that this is NOT a correspondence style course to be completed when convenient). Late work will NOT be accepted unless there are extenuating circumstances and it will be up to the instructor to determine whether or not to accept the assignment. Should you run into an instance where your work will be late (again, only in dire emergencies) you should contact the instructor as soon as possible to determine if the work will be accepted. MBC E-mail Requirement: You are required to keep your MBC email account active. Your account must be active by mid-august. After registering for this course, the professor will send an e-mail sent to your MBC account, welcoming you to this course. ET Policy: An extension (ET) for this course will be given only under unusual circumstances. ETs will only be granted if at least 50% of the required coursework has been submitted and received acceptable (> 70 pts per assignment) grades. In addition, students seeking ETs must have been in communication with the professor throughout the semester, indicating the nature of the challenges they may be facing. GRADING AND EVALUATION: All assignments should be typed and submitted online via Blackboard. GRADING POLICY: *Communication Analysis Project 200 *Cultural Analysis Project 200 *Subcultures, Traditions & Symbols Project 200 *Final Project Choose 1 of 2 Options 200 *Discussion Board 200 Grading Scale: Your final grade will be based on the points you ve earned through the completion of the above projects using a 1,000-point scale: A = 1,000-926; A- = 925-900; B+ = 899-876; B = 875-826; B- = 825-800; C+ = 799-776; C = 775-726; C- = 725-700; D+ = 699-676; D = 675-600; F = below 600 2
Communication Analysis Project: MAJOR WRITTEN ASSIG N M E N T S Students will analyze their own strengths and challenges regarding communication and culture. Each student will use the project description located in the Communication Analysis Project file in Blackboard in order to complete this activity. The project file will contain a series of short questions to answer to create a short-answer style report. Students will submit a project individually and have an option of sharing highlights in the Discussion Board. Cultural Analysis Project: Students will choose from several options for this project in order to create a brief analysis of a concept or activity related to culture. Each student will use the project description located in the Cultural Analysis Project file in Blackboard in order to complete this activity. Students will submit a project individually and also present highlights from their research findings to the class in the Discussion Board. Subcultures, Traditions, and Symbols Project: Students will have an opportunity to research a subculture, tradition, or symbol of their choosing. Students will analyze their chosen topic using concepts from the course based on a series of research questions offered in the project guidelines provided in the Subcultures, Traditions & Symbols project folder in Blackboard. Students will submit a project individually and also present highlights from their research findings to the class in the Discussion Board. Final Project Choose 1 of 2 Options: Option #1- Cultural Analysis Project Pick a second focus: If you choose to complete a second Cultural Analysis Project, you need to choose a new concept. You may repeat the same project option, but you need a brand new focus and new research. This means that you can do a second project on a Television Series, even if you chose to complete one earlier in the semester, but you need to choose a different series and different concepts for your focus. Students will choose from several options for this project in order to create a brief analysis of a concept or activity related to culture. Each student will use the project description located in the Cultural Analysis Project file in Blackboard in order to complete this activity. Students will submit a project individually and also present highlights from their research findings to the class in the Discussion Board. Option #2 - Conflict Resolution Project: The project will allow students to analyze and interpret sources of conflict and tension in a culture and offer solutions to conflict and communication challenges by evaluating a variety of solutions for conflict resolution. Students will find a specific conflict in a culture of their choice and then generate a case study that will help highlight any similarities and differences between sources of conflict and methods of conflict resolution. (Project Description Continues on next page) 3
Students will analyze their chosen topic using concepts from the course based on a series of research questions offered in the project guidelines provided in the Conflict Resolution project folder in Blackboard. Students will submit a project individually and also present highlights from their research findings to the class in the Discussion Board. Project Formatting: All assignments should be typed, double-spaced, using 12-point font and typed in Times New Roman, Arial, or Tahoma with 1 inch margins on all 4 sides. ALL in text and works cited citations should be in APA format. Assignments that do not meet these requirements will receive an automatic 20% deduction. Students are responsible for being proficient in how to use APA formatting for all citations. Frequent wording and grammatical errors will also result in deductions. Discussion Board Posts: Each week all students will be required to submit a well-thought out discussion board post containing at least 100 words. You will also be required to submit one response to a fellow classmate consisting of at least one complete sentence. If you fail to meet the minimum requirement length, you will not receive full credit for your post. Partial posts will be given 3/4 credit. This partial credit will occur if you make a post that does not meet the minimum post length or if you make an appropriate post but do not make a reply. Late posts will be given 1/2 credit. HOW TO TURN IN DISCUSSION BOARD POSTINGS AND REPLIES Submitting Posts via the Discussion Board: Click on the Discussion Board tab located in our main menu on the left-hand side of the screen Click on the appropriate forum If you are posting an original message, click on Create Thread and choose a reasonable title for your post OR If you are responding to a classmate s posting, open their message and then click on Reply within the appropriate discussion board post. Either type, as appropriate, or copy and paste your document into the message space. Guidance for how to approach Discussion Board Posts each week: You can type postings directly into the input window, but if your online time is limited, or if your connection is too slow, you may want to prepare your primary posting in MS Word, apply the spelling and grammar checkers, then copy and paste the text into the Discussion Board input window and then hit submit. This is also a nice habit to get into to ensure that you do not lose any of the work for a particular posting. Blackboard is known to freeze up or log you out, and then you will lose all of the hard work you were preparing to submit. Please get in the habit of working on these files off-line and then getting on the Internet when you are ready to submit them. 4
Regardless of your choice on this process, please be sure to use spell-check and proof read your postings to ensure that quality scholarly work has been submitted. Yes, the Discussion Board is informal, but sloppy work, egregious misspellings and punctuation errors etc. communicate a lack of respect for the readers and therefore should be avoided even in an informal setting. Please try to avoid the use of text messaging abbreviations. Please Do NOT post Discussion Board inputs as attached files Please only submit information inside the boxes offered to you. Thanks so much for this courtesy. General Assignment Submission Requirements for Major Written Projects: You can submit any non-discussion board related assignments by clicking on the Assignment Submission Links link located in the main menu section of our course. You simply click on this menu item and scroll through the project descriptions until you find the project you are ready to submit. You click on the title of the project and it will offer you a submission area where you can upload your project. Please be sure to create projects off-line in MS Word so that you do not lose any work you ve created. All assignments should be submitted via the Blackboard unless otherwise indicated. If you encounter technological difficulties, contact the instructor and continue to try to submit your materials again. Contact the College Help Desk as well. Assignments are not going to be accepted via email, so please keep this in mind. Submitting Projects via Assignment Submission Links: 1. STEP 1: Save the file either as a Word document (with a.doc or.docx extension) or as a Rich Text Format.rtf extension if you are concerned that your word processing program is old or often conflicts with most other word processing systems. Name the file: YourLastNameFirstInitialAssignmentName. For example: JonesDCommunicationAnalysisProject. 2. STEP 2: Next: Go to the Assignment Submission Links tab located in our main menu. 1. Locate the name of the project that you want to submit. 2. Click on the title of the project. 3. Once you click on the title of this project, it will take you to the internal submission area which is nearly identical to an email style interface. 4. Add comments, as needed in the comments box this is optional. Major issues you want to acknowledge need to be sent via email, so don t use the comments box for major concerns. 3. STEP 3: Click on Browse to locate and attach your file from where it is stored. 4. STEP 4: Click on Submit. 5. STEP 5: Check the My Grades area of your Blackboard account to be sure that your file was properly submitted. 1. You can see a green circle with an exclamation point (!) in the center if you have correctly submitted the file. Once the file is graded you will see a number grade in place of the amber circle. 2. File upload errors will be shown by either a dash - in the grade box or by a small sheet of paper icon that reflects that the file is in progress but not completely submitted and indicates an error that requires resubmission of your file. 5
GENERAL CLASS POLICIES: Academic Dishonesty Policy As college students, you are expected to practice intellectual honesty as it is defined in your student handbook. Please create original work for all projects and discussion board posts in this course. You are not allowed to alter old assignments for this course. Mary Baldwin College s Honor System is based on three principles: integrity of one s word, respect for the property of others, and honesty in academic work. These standards are an integral part of life at Mary Baldwin; in becoming part of the Mary Baldwin community, each student and faculty member willingly assumes an obligation and a responsibility to uphold them. The following misconduct is considered an honor offense and is subject to disciplinary action: cheating, plagiarism, knowingly furnishing false information to the college or instructors, and the forgery, alteration or use of college documents or instruments of identification with the intent to defraud. Plagiarism is the appropriation of passages, either in word or in substance, from the writings of another and the incorporation of those passages as one's own written work offered for credit. It is always assumed that the written work offered for credit is the student's own unless proper credit is given to the original author by the use of quotation marks and footnotes or explanatory inserts. Failure to submit original work will result in a zero for the project found to contain undocumented resources and cannot be resubmitted or re-written after submission. The instructor reserves the right to take any instance of academic dishonesty to the honor board. Repeated offenses of this nature can result in an automatic F for the course. Please reach out if you are confused or concerned about how to properly document any outside research. ADA Statement (American's with Disabilities Act) If you are a student with a disability who needs classroom accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, you are required to meet with the Disability Services Counselor at Mary Baldwin to request accommodations. Mary Baldwin College is sensitive to the needs of students with disabilities who are academically qualified and is committed to providing appropriate support. The college does not waive requirements for degrees or alter admissions requirements for any student, but we make every effort to accommodate students with identified and documented disabilities. To receive academic accommodations in a timely manner for this class, please obtain the proper forms and arrange a meeting at the beginning of the semester. Once a student has the necessary documentation, he or she should contact the director of the Learning Skills Center at Mary Baldwin College, Beverly Askegaard, 540-887-7250, for a meeting. At that time, the student should be prepared to present the documentation and complete a confidential memo to define his or her request for accommodations. Academic Disaster Planning Syllabus Statement: In the event of a College-wide emergency, course requirements, classes, deadlines, and grading schemes are subject to changes that may include alternative delivery methods, alternative methods of interaction with the instructor, class materials, and/or classmates, a revised attendance policy, and a revised semester calendar and/or grading scheme. 6
Copyright : You are expected to comply with federal copyright law. The United State Copyright Law protects all copyrighted materials: printed materials such as books and journals, music, sound recordings; films, videocassettes, art works, and computer software. Most internet sites and all their contents are protected by copyright. The Copyright Act of 1976 grants copyright owners exclusive rights to publish, reproduce, perform, and display their works. Anyone publishing, reproducing, performing or displaying all or part of a copyrighted work is guilty of infringing the copyright unless the act falls within one of the fair use exceptions, or unless she or he has acquired permission to use the work from the copyright owner. Read the law at http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/ Tentative Course Schedule Week 1: Chapter 1 - Foundations of Intercultural Communication: Overview of Coursework, Questions and Concerns, and Introductions Chapter 1: Why Study Intercultural Communication? Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 2: Chapter 2 - The History of the Study of Intercultural Communication Chapter 2: The History of the Study of Intercultural Communication Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 3: Chapter 3 - Culture, Communication, Context, and Power: Chapter 3: Culture, Communication, Context and Power Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 4: Chapter 4 - History and Intercultural Communication: Chapter 4: History and Intercultural Communication Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 5: Chapter 5 - Identity and Intercultural Communication: Chapter 5: Identity and Intercultural Communication Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm 7
Week 6: Chapter 6 - Intercultural Communication Processes: Chapter 6: Language and Intercultural Communication. Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post with your project highlights and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Project Due: Submit Communication Analysis Project on Sunday by 11:59pm Week 7: Chapter 7 - Non Verbal Codes and Cultural Space: Chapter 7: Non-Verbal Codes and Cultural Space Fall Break: October 16-19 Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one post and one reply by Tuesday, Oct. 20th at 11:59pm Week 8: Chapter 8 - Understanding Intercultural Transitions: Chapter 8: Understanding Intercultural Transitions Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post with your project highlights and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Project Due: Submit Cultural Analysis Project on Sunday by 11:59pm Week 9: Chapter 9 - Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication: Chapter 9: Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 10: Chapter 10 - Culture, Communication and Intercultural Relationships: Chapter 10: Culture, Communication and Intercultural Relationships Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post with your project highlights and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 11: Chapter 11 - Culture, Communication, and Conflict: Chapter 11 Culture, Communication, and Conflict Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Project Due: Submit Subcultures, Traditions and Symbols Projects on Sunday by 11:59pm Week 12: Continue Chapter 12 Striving for Engaged and Effective Intercultural Communication: Chapter 12 Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm 8
Week 13: Special Topics: Festivals around the World Thanksgiving Break: November 25-29 Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Monday, Nov. 30th at 11:59pm Week 14: Special Topics: The Digital Planet Work on Final Project Review Supplemental Materials in Blackboard Discussion Board Posting Make one Post and one Reply by Sunday at 11:59pm Week 15: Final Project Due: Course Wrap up Last day of Class: Friday December 11th Discussion Board Posting-- Make one Post with your project highlights and one Reply by Saturday at 11:59pm Project Due: Submit Final Project (Choose 1 of 2 Options) on Friday by 11:59pm 9