Intercultural Development Inventory Post-test Reflection

At the beginning of the semester, prior to teaching 22 4th graders at Cleveland Elementary as a
Delivery Team member for Tiger PRIDE, I took the Intercultural Development Inventory to assess my
intercultural competence. The results of the IDI made me aware of where I was in terms of intercultural
awareness and made me conscious of cultural differences that are inherent in the community of
Stockton. After teaching 15 sessions in 8 weeks, I was allowed to take the IDI again to assess whether or
not I made any progress with furthering my intercultural knowledge and understanding. In strive of
moving from a mono-cultural mindset to a global mindset, I met with Serjio Acevado again to discuss me
post Tiger PRIDE IDI results.
The post test results were quite surprising to me because it showed how much I actually
progressed throughout the duration of teaching for Tiger PRIDE. My perceived orientation (PO) was
rated at 125.80 which was an increase from the pretest result of 120.41 but isnt above 7 points so it
isnt a significant change. I still believe that Im competent to recognize and appreciate the
commonalities and differences between my own culture and the cultures of others. My progress and
significant change occurs with my developmental orientation score that increased from 87.95 to 100.68.
The increase of 12.73 indicates that I am actually making progress towards acceptance. These results
mean that my level of Intercultural communication/awareness has increased significantly after Tiger
PRIDE. My score changed because I was made aware of my intercultural development through taking
the pretest IDI. I made my way towards acceptance and decreased the difference in my perceived
orientation score and my developmental orientation score. Results also showed that I moved away from
polarization defense and towards reversal. As I discussed with Serjio, I believe that this occurred
because I was interested in learning about my students cultures that I was more critical of my own. I
believe that in order for myself to be a better teacher, I must learn from my students about how I can
teach them. Through observing my students and trying to understand their culture, I can better adapt
to their learning style. When I got my post-Tiger PRIDE IDI results, I was surprised by the progress that I
made in such a short time. Serjio revealed that persons who take the IDI often remain in the same area
of intercultural competence and that my results were good.
This semesters Tiger PRIDE cohort was a diverse group. We consist of students from different
ethnic backgrounds and from different cultural upbringings. We have people from different cities and as
far as different countries. There is definitely a difference in culture between those born outside of the
states as the way we communicate is different. The language and sense of humor is different between Ji,
who is a Korean native as opposed to myself who is an American native. As for similarities between
cultures, most of us were raised to respect our elders and treat others the way we want to be treated.
Tyler is a Stockton-native and I am a Sacramento-native. Given that these two cities are not very far
apart, the dynamics of the two cities are very similar. After 4+ years in Stockton, I realized that there are
many cultural similarities as well as differences between the two such as crime rate, lack of educational
resources in the K-12 context, and environment. These differences affected the students learning in a
positive light. This semesters Tiger PRIDE cohort share a cohesive relationship that didnt exist with
previous Tiger PRIDE Delivery Teams and it has proven to play in the students favor. Since we were all
able to communicate effectively, we were able to plan out lessons that we can teach with efficiency and
confidence. The main domain that was affected by our cohesion was the affective domain. Our cohort

was able to provide fun and exciting lessons along with delivering the proper enthusiasm for our
students to enjoy. As for addressing cultural differences in the group, we stuck to universal themes in
our lessons and we conducted open discussions where each member was allowed to voice their opinion
on matters. The element of cultural difference that I found easy to interact with was the use of
language. Language is an easily adaptable element in which conscious thought and filtering can be used
to monitor.
Tiger PRIDE definitely helped me develop my intercultural competency skills because it placed
me directly in the middle of a diverse population that is Cleveland Elementary. Before Tiger PRIDE, I
havent had much interaction with elementary aged students so I was exposed to different attitudes and
behaviors that I was not used to encountering. Through observation and hands-on learning, I was able to
adapt to the constantly changing environment within Tiger PRIDE. I found myself surrounded by a
plethora of students from different backgrounds with one thing in common, the interest in physical
education and activity. The weakness that became a strength was my ability to effectively communicate
with my students. At first, I approached behavioral situations with the student being the sole
perpetrator and always put them in the wrong. Only after my first Tiger PRIDE debrief meeting did I
realize that I must tackle the situation from a different angle and start to give my students the benefit of
the doubt. The moment I figured out that I must try to learn from these students in order to find out
how I could help them was the moment of clarity that I needed. This weakness that became a strength
guided me to become a better teacher as my interpersonal communication skills improved which
translated to an influx of increased student participation. I believe that in order to become a better
educator, I must work on recognizing cultural differences, changing behavior when culturally
appropriate, improve on appreciating both cultural differences and commonalities between my culture
and that of others. In order to meet these goals, I must refrain from identifying between us and
them and work to shift my cultural perspective when necessary.