By Amanda Strusienski

American Workforce
Cross-Cultural Training

This program will instruct adult learners, particularly
immigrants and re-entry students, on the processes of the
American workforce. Topics covered will be gender
equality, sexual orientation, religious and cultural
differences, idioms and slang, and professional work
ethics. At the end of this course, students will gain an
understanding of the American workforce and learn
concepts for working in a diverse work environment.
These skills will improve the economic prospects for these
learners and enable them to handle diverse workforce
situations.
 Needs Assessment

The diversity of the American workforce is changing rapidly and the needs for
cross-cultural training is essential to assist re-entry students and immigrants.

There are courses for immigrants or re-entry students but many of these
involve adult literacy or how to get a job within the workforce. These courses
do not teach students how to handle the diversity within the workforce, or the
challenges for different cultures entering the current job market.

Training program(s) need to be created that cover the diversity within the
American workforce.

The gap between what is available and what should be available is a matter of
cultural competency. While the basic adult education classes for immigrants
may give them English and some social skills, the necessary skills for workforce
survival and success are lacking and would be addressed through this program.

The recommendation is to create a training program that will assist adult

learners in understanding and assimilating into a diverse workforce
environment. This will be done by teaching basic skills they will need for this
process.
 Target Audience

A community based program class with a diverse
demographic. Includes re-entry students and immigrants. This
group will vary with men and women as well as age ranges,
along with work experience and skillsets. The commonality will
be their distance from the current American workforce
environment.

Based on these characteristics the instructional plan will be

formatted to apply to a diverse demographic. This will include
content that spans individuals with little to no education, to
those with higher education degrees. This will involve learning
situations with groups and role-playing real-world scenarios so
they can fine tune the skills they learn throughout the course.
 Delivery Modality

This program will be 8 hours long and conducted
through 2 hour blocks over a period of 4 weeks.

While this program could be conducted online, it is

recommended to be a traditional classroom model as
there will be role-playing scenarios and real-life
examples to demonstrate.
 Instructional Goals:

Goal One:
Students will understand American workforce cultural
competencies
Goal Two:
Students will learn characteristics of professional
behavior in a diverse workforce environment
Goal Three:
Students will learn how to assimilate in the workforce
 Performance-Based
Objectives

Adult learners will identify patterns in cultural competencies
by observing 4 videos of workforce interactions and answering
discussion prompts. Students will achieve 80% proficiency
based on a rubric.
By the end of class, learners will demonstrate proficiency in
workforce professionalism by creating a presentation
identifying 3-5 scenarios of professionalism in workforce
situations. Students will achieve 75% proficiency based on a
rubric.
Adult learners will provide 2 personal examples of
real/potential issue(s) in the workforce and real/potential
resolution(s) to assimilate through a written component and
class discussion. Proficiency will be based on 100% completion
of assignment.
 Learning Strategy with
Rationale

Each objective addresses critical thinking skills, one
objective is project-based, and collaborative learning
touches each objective through small group activities.

Critical thinking is a basic element in the learning and

workforce environment so having this through class
discussion, assignments, and lectures is important.
Project based instruction is used so students can learn
research skills, and demonstrate proficiency with content.
Students will participate in collaborative learning through
small group discussions and learning activities.
 Instructional Strategies

The information that will be taught in this course is how
to handle a diverse workforce through examples and
scenarios. Content will be presented through lecture and
discussion, with videos and additional content.

Activities used throughout this course are group

discussion, team collaboration, and various assessments
of content.

See speaker notes for detailed explanation of instructional

strategies.
 Instructional
Technology

Instructional technologies used within the course will be
presentations such as PowerPoint, Prezi, and videos on
YouTube and Lynda.com. Students will also be
challenged to use instructional technology methods they
could use within the workforce, such as Microsoft Office
and Google Docs.

These tools will be used to aid in lecture and support

instruction and enforcement of learner content. Team
collaboration will be used with these technologies so
students can co-teach and gain experience with resources.
 Timeline

This course will be a total 8 hours and run over 4 weeks
on Saturday mornings. A sample of the class schedule is
below. See speaker notes for details on instruction.
9:00-9:15- Icebreaker/Review (this will help students feel
comfortable and transition to a classroom environment.)
9:15-9:45- Instructor lead (lecture/videos/presentation)
9:45-10:00-Groups/Teams projects (will work on projects
or discussions during this time.)
10:00-10:30- Group sharing/class discussion
10:30-11:00- Assessment and preview of next class
 Stakeholders

This course will be taught in community-based
facilities, so a classroom or recreation room setting.
The individuals involved will be the manager(s) of
the facility and appointed instructor(s) for discussion
and implementation of course. Target audience will
consist of re-entry and new-to-workforce learners.
 Instructional Resources
and Materials

Materials needed to implement the instructional plan
will be a computer with current Microsoft software
and a projector, whiteboard(or easel depending
room), notepads, pens, markers, and handouts. Some
supplemental activities will be visual aides, and
group activities to connect and help students break
barriers.
 Plan for Implementation:
8 hours of instruction

The plan will be communicated through marketing to
community-based centers, such as public libraries,
recreation centers, and community colleges.
Communication will be done through emails and in
personal promotion of the program.
This will be done through flyers, and posters within these
organizations. Along with personal interaction and word
of mouth communication.
Participants will enroll in the course at any of these
locations. Only prerequisite is they must be re-entry or
new-to-workforce adult learners
 Formative Assessment

Assessment 1: Does anyone have any questions? Do you feel comfortable
with what we discussed today?
Assessment 2: After instruction, ask students whether they understand
material-ask for specific examples to share with class.
Assessment 3:Have one group of students give examples of instructed
content on board(s). Have other group then classify/ identify content
presented. This will assess understanding on both parts.
Assessment 4: Use the K-W-L-H (this may be used each week)
Assessment 5: List 5 things that are often misunderstood about content and
why
Assessment 6: Have students write a one sentence summary on a post-it
and hand it in before they leave class.
The plan will be to scaffold these weekly until they are stronger
assessments by end of course.
 Evaluation Strategies

Students will complete end of course surveys to help measure the
instructional plan. These surveys will consist of 10 open-ended questions
inquiring about the feel of the class, suggestions for improvement, and
likes/dislikes.
The objectives of the instructional plan will be met through completion of
all assignments throughout all 4 weeks. Students must complete all
coursework with a minimum of 75% based on a rubric.
The evaluation instrument that must be created is an online survey. This
will be conducted online in order to provide privacy for students. A
program such as Survey Monkey will be used to administer this survey.
Once SEOCS and final data from completed assignments have been viewed
a meeting with faculty/management will discuss the success or failure of
plan and make recommendations for future of plan.
 Recommendations for
the Future

If the outcome of the review is positive then the
desire to move forward with plan will continue.
However, if there are issues, recommendations will
be taken into account. As an example, too much
material or not enough. Ways to restructure the
content will be considered and implemented.
If needed another pilot course will be run of
instructional plan to see if changes yielded better
results. The outcome of these results will decide
whether the plan can move forward or needs to be
fully revised.
 References

Brown, A., & Green, T. D. (2011). The essentials of
instructional design: Connecting fundamental
principles with process and practice (2nd ed.).
Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Hodell, C. (2016). ISD from the ground up: No-

nonsense approach to instructional design (4th ed.).
Alexandria, VA: ATD Press.