Central Bicol State University of Agriculture – Office of the Student Affairs and Services in cooperation with North Carolina State University spearheaded the Developing Cultural Competence Online Co-Curricular Certificate Program on March 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2021. Seven students from the Pili Campus namely: Paulo Mamansag, Jomar Buendia, Neobel Colar, Rommel Catura, Tommy Basmayor, Whendel Villaruel, and Queenie Love Belza participated in the said program.
North Carolina State University invited 20 students from Central Bicol State University of Agriculture, 7 is coming from CBSUA- Pili Campus, and other universities as well from all over the world to register and participate in one of the courses offered by their Global Training Initiative the GTI Spring 2021 Developing Cultural Competence (DCC) – Virtual Exchange.
GTI’s Developing Cultural Competence Student Certificate will be earned after learning with the other invited diverse students around the world. The training initiative used TMC/Berlitz Cultural Orientations Model as their guiding framework for teaching and discussing culture. Culture as the complex pattern of ideas, emotions and observable manifestations that tend to be expected, reinforces and rewarded by and within a particular group while Cultural competence is the on-going process for individual growth in successfully navigating culturally diverse situations and working with people of other cultures. It involves five steps: open attitude, self – awareness, other – awareness, cultural knowledge and cultural skills. Students explore self and other awareness in building their understanding of the ways in which cultural values influence behavior and perceptions.
After the DCC program is completed, the participants would be able to start identifying ways in which culture influences worldview, and their own cultural preferences and will have the tools to understand the preferences of others and also promote cultural awareness in personal and professional settings as well as implement strategies for working effectively across cultural differences.
This course is a four-week program where the participants will have to attend one session per week and will have a total of 4 classes and modules to participate, engage and complete after the course. Class one is the Orientations and Introductions where the participants will choose and use their own Self Awareness Meme as a Personal Introduction in the Discussion Forum. Class two: Foundations for Developing Cultural Competence where groups will make their own Cultural Knowledge Wiki with information to be presented in the Zoom Discussion. Class three: Developing Cultural Knowledge where different cultures from the different wikis that were made will be shared among the participants. Class four which is the last and final meeting is the discussion of all the learning all throughout the course.
