Global Cultural Diversity [DIVR]
Global Cultural Diversity courses introduce students to differences, similarities, and connections among cultures by exploring the multiplicity of individual and group experiences within and across historical periods, societies, and cultures in global comparative context. Courses help students engage and understand social and cultural contexts and interactions across the globe using critical thinking, information literacy, communication, self-awareness, and flexibility in perspective. Using multiple cultural or intellectual perspectives, courses prepare students to address questions about how factors such as history; politics; communication styles; economics; institutions; and/or cultural values, beliefs, and practices influence cultural variation. Courses are intended to help prepare students for lifelong constructive engagement with others in plural societies, promoting the abilities to suspend value judgment in interactions with culturally different others and/or the core beliefs of others; and to negotiate a shared understanding of what produces cultural variation and/or how culture changes across time and/or different geographic and environmental contexts.
Student Learning Outcomes
Students, regardless of major, who successfully complete a [DIVR] course should be able to:
- Understand fundamental knowledge and concepts related to cultural diversity as appropriate to the discipline. (WSU Learning Goal: Breadth of Learning)
- Recognize the complexity of elements important to members of a culture in relation to history, values, politics, communication styles, economy, or beliefs and practices. (WSU Learning Goal: Diversity)
- Recognize the sources and limits of one’s own perspective and cultural rules and limitations in relation to the perspectives of others. (WSU Learning Goal: Critical Thinking)
- Identify relevant sources of information that demonstrate ways that history, institutions, and/or ideologies shape cultural variation and/or different experiences. (WSU Learning Goal: Informational Literacy)
- Evaluate, at an appropriate level, claims or information about cultural diversity based on the sources and the methods used to generate it. (WSU Learning Goal: Information Literacy)
- Communicate about cultural diversity in written forms appropriate to the discipline. (WSU Learning Goal: Written Communication)
Revised outcomes approved Fall 2022.
Whether submitting a new course for approval for the first time or submitting an updated course as part of UCORE’s renewal process, faculty should submit a completed DIVR Learning Outcomes Grid along with the course syllabus and supporting assignment prompts/activity descriptions. This grid should clearly demonstrate the relationship among UCORE designator learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, and activities and assignments that support those outcomes.
Faculty are not required to insert this learning outcomes grid into the body of the syllabus. However, per WSU syllabus policy, all syllabi must communicate the course’s student learning outcomes to students. If the course holds a UCORE designation, then that communication should occur with in the context of the UCORE designation’s required learning outcomes (e.g. critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, understanding diversity, etc.).
All UCORE-designated courses are required to include in the syllabus a statement of how the course fulfills the specific UCORE requirement.
Please adapt this DIVR course description for use in your syllabus. If possible, integrate with course specific description.
XXXX XXX satisfies the DIVR requirement for WSU’s University Common Requirements (UCORE), which is designed to help you acquire broad understanding, develop intellectual and civic competencies, and apply knowledge and skills in real world settings. Upon completion of UCORE, you will have the tools needed to seek out information, interpret it, share it, and make reasoned and ethical judgements on a wide array of issues. With these broader goals in mind, XXXX XXX, as a Global Cultural Diversity course, will help develop skills to analyze, interpret, reflect on, and pose questions about differences, similarities, and connections among cultures.
Departments and schools should consider how UCORE student learning outcomes (skill development) map to course level (100, 200, 300, or 400) and design assignments and activities accordingly.
| Courses | Courses often taught at 100 & 200 level; some “shared” with other departments or UCORE, or community colleges (external context) | Courses generally at 300 and 400 level, often taught by the major department (or across depts, especially in interdisciplinary programs) | ||
| Introduce (I) | Practice (P) | Refine (R) | Competent (C) | |
| Levels of Program Learning Outcomes: Content, Skills, and Complexity | Introduce skills and knowledge Practice basics (methods, skills, content knowledge) Beginner, collegiate level. | Practice components to solidify foundational skills and knowledge, build comfort and proficiency (includes practice w/ feedback) | Additional development to refine skills & deepen knowledge; use in more complex, demanding contexts (includes practice w/ feedback) | Apply methods, skills, and knowledge in multiple contexts at an advanced, complex level; know when and where to apply; Graduating senior major level. |
Additional Resources
Provost Office’s Teach page
Explore this content area of the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President’s website, which contains resources, tips, tools, and techniques to support excellence and innovation in teaching.
Assignment Design Resources
Read guidance from the Office of Assessment for Curricular Effectiveness on developing powerful, clear assignments to impact teaching, learning, and assessment.
Required Learning Outcomes
Depending on the designation, your UCORE course will carry additional learning outcomes requirements.
UCORE Policy
View departmental responsibilities for class size, graduate student instructors, shared syllabi, and more.
Library Instruction
Emphasize information literacy by scheduling with a librarian a session that is specifically tailored to your course.
Syllabus Website
Use this website to confirm required syllabus elements and recommended syllabus elements before teaching a course.