IC3 Curriculum Launched

Dr. Daniel Wessner has had a busy first year as a professor at EMU, between developing a pre-law minor, creating the Foreign Film Series, planning for a cross-cultural trip to Southeast Asia this summer, and teaching his classes. But probably his biggest project is the one "going live" today.

The IC3 (inter-cultural communicative competence) curriculum that Wessner and colleagues at An Giang University in Vietnam have been developing has just reached the web. The curriculum combines learning about worldwide development topics, communicating ideas on the topic across cultures, and developing foreign language skills. It's free for students around the world to use.

"What is unique about IC3 is it's not the 'West teaches the rest' way of depositing knowledge on the other," said Wessner. "It is very intentionally a reciprocal co-mentoring between cultures."

Each chapter in the curriculum includes a lesson on one of the major development topics, a language lesson, and a guiding question that groups discuss and respond to. Students will also be reading and responding to what the students in other countries are saying about the same topics. These topics include identity, water and food security, primary and reproductive health, education, poverty reduction, economic renovation at home, regional and global trade, development partners, art and culture, and globalization.

The program is set up for English and Vietnamese language currently, but there are already people lined up to add the Spanish lessons and some in Iran are interested in adding the Farsi lessons.

While this particular IC3 curriculum is just reaching the web today, Wessner has been incorporating the concepts of this type of blended learning all year in some of his classes. Classes have taken on certain aspects of the curriculum, such as online inter-cultural discussions, and the Foreign Film Series has led to such dialogue as well. "I see this as revolutionizing what we can accomplish in undergraduate education," Wessner said. Conventional classrooms can take us so far; IC3 is meant to take us further on a lifelong learning path."

Wessner was quick to point out how the EMU community has been receptive to the program and open to helping him develop it. "At this campus, we can try these things; not every campus would allow that," he said. "The administration, the faculty, the students, the people at I.S. have all been great. The president (Swartzendruber) flew all the way to Vietnam to affirm this kind of education."

The next stage of the IC3 development for Wessner is in the area of grant writing and fundraising, seeking larger foundation support. His hope is that in the future there will be more money to spend on scholarships for students from countries like Vietnam and Iran to come to EMU and for EMU students to go there.

For more information on the IC3 curriculum or to try it out, go to www.emu.edu/IC3.