At our college, we have grants for Internationalizing the curriculum. These are mini-grants lasting a semester that pay for 3 non-instructional units (like a 3 credit course) for any faculty member that wants to modify their course and add international focus in it. I have used a grant for internationalizing College Algebra. My intention was to add international data in novel ways. For instance, instead of modelling population growth in Asia, I had assignments to calculate number of cell phones in Indonesia.
One strategy I sometimes use is to introduce a new topic with an international story. For instance, while teaching exponential functions, I tell them a folk tale from India that I heard as a kid. Once upon a time, there was a king who was generous, loved by his subjects, but he was arrogant. One day, he was pleased with a peasant and decided to give him a reward. The king told the peasant he could have gold, silver, whatever present he wished for. The peasant was a clever man. He replied, "O King, I wish for rice for a month as follows - 1st day, I would like 1 grain of rice, next day 2 grains, the third day 4 grains of rice, doubling each day, up to a month". Hearing this strange request, the king laughed, "That's all, no problem!". But to his surprise, as the month began progressing, the royal granary kept depleting and finally, it emptied before the month ended. The king couldn't keep his word. He learned his lesson. At this point, I have the students calculate the amount of rice on the 30h day. Interestingly enough, I have heard foreign students tell me that they have heard a similar folk tale in their native country.
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Manisha Ranade
Santa Fe College
Gainesville FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-19-2021 13:40
From: Barbara Leitherer
Subject: IMPACT in Action - Working Toward a Globalized Course
1. What strategies would you use (or have you used) to make an entire course more globally oriented? Please share with us your semester long projects, posters, Discussion Board topics or other venues that reflect on a deeper student engagement with our discipline and the world.
2. How would you align your syllabus with a globally oriented course?
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Barbara Leitherer
Professor of Mathematics
CC of Baltimore County - Essex
Baltimore MD
bleitherer@ccbcmd.edu
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