Where in the World is Your Spice?
Introduction
Icebreakers: What Are They and Why Do We Do Them?
In any social situation, people need to become familiar with each other in order to communicate, learn, and work together. This is also called building rapport. Successful interactions begin with a foundation of social presence, which is established by engaging students in icebreaker activities.
Often in professional situations, such as networking, it can be challenging to begin the rapport-building process. We wonder how to begin a conversation, what to ask about and how to make an appropriate connection before jumping into a business discussion. We have found in these interactions that it is useful to find a way to establish something in common, such as hobbies, interests, etc. To help you connect/build rapport with your new colleagues – we’ve designed the introduction conversations around spices.
Building Social Presence
Global learning develops a global perspective, the ability to understand and connect diverse perspectives on the world. This begins with students feeling comfortable sharing their own points of view as members of the online community, a phenomenon known as social presence Links to an external site.. You know you’ve established social presence online when you have the sensation of ‘being with’ and interacting with someone in another place. A great way to establish social presence among strangers quickly is through icebreaker activities.
Our Icebreaker Activity: Where in the World is Your Spice?
Thinking about how the spice trade has literally impacted the entire world – through trade, travel, logistics, etc. and it is something that almost everyone has some experience with. To help you begin to build rapport with your new collaborators in this session, we have designed a “recipe” for interaction for you. This can help determine how much we know or don’t know about other countries/cultures through the lens of international spice trade? We are excited to get started…..
Engagement discussion
Description: You will submit the following assignment to the discussion board and exchange feedback.
Instructions
1. Watch this video that provides some context to the spice trade history…
2. Decide on a spice that is commonly used in your home culture.
3. Write a creative description with a photo of a unique dish/recipe using your chosen spice
4. Post it below in the Discussion
My home country is VENEZUELA
