This simulation provides participants the opportunity to develop techniques for verbal and nonverbal communication with characters with backgrounds and motives different than their own, articulate how different decision-making models within the simulation result in different experiences and end results for the simulation, practice and assess their own ability to suspend judgment and value interactions with characters with different backgrounds and motives than their own, and to explore their relationship to ambiguous contexts based on missing or unreliable information presented by their own character or other characters in the simulation.

Based on the work of Polish anthropologist Alicja Iwanska , Jones (2017) has written an interesting blog called "Scenery, Machinery, People--Rethinking our view of humans." After reading the blog, participants are asked to enter into a discussion concerning the people in their lives who fall into various categories, as well as the various categories participants fall into when looked at by other people.

Redundancia: A Foreign Language Simulation invites participants to experience the difficulty of choosing parts of speech, thinking of syntax, working through vocabulary in an unfamiliar verbal context.  Although Redundancia must be purchased, Talk-Speak--a Thiagi 'Jolt'--and Piglish provide the same experience at no cost. Both are linked above. 

According to Maureen Ryan (n.d.), "Migration: An Empathy Exercise is a multi-step reflective exercise designed to build empathy and personal insight into processes of loss, change, and reconnection associated with the disruption of personal and cultural connections to landscape. In the first step, students reflect individually on their experiences in unfamiliar landscapes and how they might feel were they to move away from a home landscape. Second, they envision personal means of building connection with new or unfamiliar landscapes. Having considered these questions at a personal level, students read or are presented with case studies of human movement and their consequences (historical or current). Finally, students reflect on new questions that arose as they considered case studies after thinking about migration or displacement at a personal level."

In this activity, participants listen to one another's stories with the purpose of discovering one another's values.

This activity asks participants how their lives would change if they belonged to a people group different their own--a different country of origin, a different sexual orientation, a different gender, a different ability/disability, etc.

"Dividing the Spoils" is a simulation which asks groups of participants to divide a certain amount of fictional money, depending on the amount of time and effort assorted characters put into a project.  Individualist and collectivist mindsets become apparent.  A more complicated version called "Alpha-Beta Partnerships" is also available.

According to the TED Talk description on YouTube, "Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding."  

According to Susewind (2012), "DIE is a shortcut for 'description, interpretation and evaluation.' The original exercise was developed as a pedagogic tool to train observation skills, help establish the difference between description and analysis, and foster reflection on the politics of fieldwork. It usually involves exposing students to an intercultural experience, and then interactively sort out description, interpretation, and evaluation of this experience."

According to Erasmus+, which provides free on-line instructions for "Building a Tower," the aims of this activity are to:

• Develop creativity
• Develop leadership qualities
• Deal with success / failure
• Develop communication
• Develop team work

Tara Harvey (2017) has written a helpful blog on the connection between mindfulness and intercultural learning.  These meditation exercises in particular are recommended by Michael Vande Berg for people seeking to develop emotional resilience.

The BEVI is an accessible, adaptable, and powerful analytic tool that may be used in a wide range of settings – from education and research to leadership and mental health – to understand and facilitate processes and outcomes of learning, growth, and transformation.

"BARNGA is a simulation game that encourages participants to critically consider normative assumptions and cross-cultural communication. It was created by Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan in 1980, while working for USAID in Gbarnga, Liberia. He and his colleagues were trying to play Euchre but all came away from the instructions with different interpretations. He had an ‘A-ha’ moment that conflict arises not (only) from major or obvious cultural differences but often from subtle, minor cues. He created the game to tease out these subtleties. In this activity, students play a card game silently, each operating with a different set of rules, unbeknownst to them."

"American Textures, a 78 minute documentary by Crossing Borders Films, follows six young Americans of Black, White and Latino origin on a road trip through the southern United States to confront race through dialogue. Their journey moves them to push through the wall of silence/fear/discomfort that surrounds race in Today’s America and face the presence of segregation, bias, and blindness, not only in US society, but also inside themselves. Their courage, vulnerability and honest interactions become emotional examples of ways to follow in their footsteps."

"Albatross," as described by Gochenour (1993), is a simulation facilitated in two parts: "The first part consists of performing a ceremonial greeting between members of an imaginary culture (Albatross) and foreigners (those participants being trained or oriented)... The second part consists of an extended discussion. Albatross is an experiential learning device of some power, but it is relatively useless unless the discussion is treated with particular thoughtfulness and attention." If you've never experienced Albatross, the introductory video gives an idea of what goes on in the first part.

The Intentional Workplace (2014) blog includes the pointed reminder:  "To Have Empathy for You, I Have to be Able to SEE You."

The Psychology Today (Segal, 2019) article was written in response to the government shutdown, but her comments about power and empathy are important for any time. She says, 

"First, those at the top do not need to attend to the behaviors of those below them, especially in the ways that those below have to attend to the behaviors of their superiors. Bosses come in, tell people what to do, and then their orders are followed.  Those below must be aware of the mood, needs, opinions of their bosses.  And the lower you are on the work or social order, the more moods, needs and opinions of people you must attend to who are above you.  So, lower hierarchy folks are better at reading others than are those at the top.  Second, getting to the top may be easier for those without empathy.  They can be laser-focused on advancement and doing what they need to do to gain power without being distracted or emotionally touched by the needs and circumstances of others.  Brain science backs this up.  Neurologically, people in power attend less to surroundings, to the behaviors of others, and have deeper brain activity for self-focus.  They don’t readily attend to others in ways that we expect to show empathy.  People in power can be empathic, but they need to work at it, to want to feel for others...."

"Rebekah Fitzsimmons, a 34-year-old English professor at Georgia Tech, is a millennial.

"So are some of her students.

"But despite being members of the same generation, there are some pretty big differences between them."  See the article for more...

Nadine Dolby's recollections of a case study called "Toys for Haiti" is an anecdote with which many of us charged with teaching empathy can relate.

The results of Twenge, Freeman, and Campbell "genearally support the 'Generation Me' view of generational differences rather than the 'generation We' or no change views."

Chris Grabau offers practical strategies for adding empathy skill-building into the university classroom

Richard Kahlenberg argues that "until we actually diversify institutions by economic status, so that peers and classmates can explain the challenges faced by working-class people, teaching empathy through role-playing may be the next best thing."

This journal article by Konrath, O-Brien, and Hsing lays out in detail the changes in dispositional empathy across the generations.  

This resource, adapted from an AFS resource, with graphics by Julien Peyre from AFS France, demonstrates the benefits and risks of each stage, as well as what is required of the study abroad student to move to the next stage in their intercultural development.

The PowerPoint accompanied a workshop facilitated by Mick Vande Berg at Purdue University on April 23-24, 2015, which enlarged Purdue's vision for providing intercultural learning to all undergraduates, especially those who choose to study abroad.

“Replace the word 'millennial' with any individual race, religion or gender and you’d rightly spark mass outrage. Somehow, though, it is okay to make sweeping generalizations about the largest and most diverse generation in American history, at 81.1 million of the population, born between 1981 and 2000."