One of the most demanding and time-consuming aspects of developing an in-class activity is fleshing out a good scenario with meaningful details. This post was originally published on in 2023 and used ChatGPT. I’ve revised and republished it using Claude, as AI can now produce much more nuanced responses, including implementation guidelines and learning outcomes. For brevity, I excluded these.
On a tangent, learning outcomes created by generative AI are unsurprisingly generic and contain many of the bad practices prevalent across the internet. For example, ‘Understand’ is not a measurable verb as it is an internal process and needs to be converted to a measurable verb that allows the student to show that they understand (i.e. explain, describe, or literally any of the higher order verbs as they require understanding to carry out more complex tasks).
Prompt
International students in Australian institutions may be reluctant to access support services. In their home countries, they may experience stigma from a perceived ‘weakness’ in accessing support services. Design a role-play activity for students to analyse the issue from the view of different professionals. List the expert roles best suited to discuss this issue. Then, act in each of those roles and provide each expert’s analysis and advice.
Cultural Perspectives on Support Services: Expert Role-Play Activity
Cultural Psychology Consultant – Dr. Sarah Chen
“From my research and clinical experience, the reluctance to seek support often stems from collective cultural values where maintaining face and family honour are paramount. In many Asian cultures, particularly, seeking help is viewed as bringing shame not just to oneself but to the entire family unit.
We need to recognise that this isn’t simply about individual choice – it’s deeply rooted in cultural frameworks where self-reliance is a core virtue and where psychological challenges are often viewed through a social or spiritual lens rather than a medical one.
My recommendations include:
- Reframing support services as ‘academic enhancement’ or ‘professional development.’
- Incorporating family-inclusive approaches when appropriate
- Using success-oriented language rather than problem-focused terminology.”
International Student Support Officer – James Rodriguez
“In my daily interactions with international students, I’ve observed that many arrive with preconceptions about support services based on their home country experiences. Often, there’s a misconception that seeking help will be noted on their academic record or reported to their scholarship providers or families.
The key issues I see are:
- Fear of judgment from their cultural community
- Concern about visa implications
- Worry about appearing ‘incompetent’ to academic staff
I recommend:
- Creating peer support networks led by senior international students
- Providing clear information about confidentiality
- Offering support services through multiple channels, including online platforms.”
Mental Health Professional – Dr. Priya Patel
“Working with international students requires understanding that mental health concepts and treatment approaches vary significantly across cultures. What we consider therapeutic in Western contexts might be viewed very differently elsewhere.
I’ve found success with:
- Using culturally appropriate metaphors and explanations
- Incorporating traditional healing concepts when relevant
- Emphasising practical problem-solving alongside emotional support
- Building trust gradually through informal interactions before formal counselling.”
Academic Advisor – Professor Michael Thompson
“From an academic perspective, we often see students struggling silently until their academic performance is severely impacted. Many international students come from educational systems where seeking help from professors is uncommon or even considered disrespectful.
My approach includes:
- Normalising help-seeking behaviour during orientation
- Incorporating support service information into regular academic communications
- Creating structured opportunities for student-faculty interaction
- Training faculty in cultural sensitivity and support referral.”
Student Success Coordinator – Ming Wei
“As someone who shares a similar cultural background with many international students, I understand the internal conflict between needing help and feeling that one should handle problems independently. The concept of ‘losing face’ is particularly significant.
I’ve successfully implemented the following:
- Cultural bridge programs connecting new students with graduates
- Workshop series on ‘Academic Excellence Strategies’ (avoiding stigmatising language)
- Regular informal social gatherings where students can build trust naturally
- Success story sharing from previous international students.”
Setting up and facilitating the role play activities
Any activity that involves students analysing a situation in which they are not experts requires a well-crafted post-activity discussion and debrief. You can also set the activity up with a scaffolded approach supporting different experience levels.
Early years
For students in the early years with little experience or knowledge, you could use all the information available so they have ideas to present. Then, the groups can negotiate several ideas for implementation. This allows them to participate with no prior knowledge, and the focus is on the selection and discussion with the group.
Entry to practice
For students in the later years or those with some experience, you could give them the quote but not the strategies and run the role play with students offering their own ideas. In this activity, the students would need to think deeper about the strengths of the expert and what strategies would look like from that expert. You could then reveal the strategies during the activity debrief and discuss those compared to the groups’ strategies.
Focus on the roles
A third option would be to deliberately exclude specific roles from the different groups to showcase the importance of each expert. For example, you could remove the student success coordinator from one group but not another and have those two groups discuss how different their strategies were and why that role would be a critical voice in the conversation. This can help to highlight what occurs when we don’t have a diverse group of people at the table when important decisions are being made.
Reflective questions to deepen student engagement and learning
Regardless of how you set up the activity, it’s important to offer a couple of prompting questions to help the students know what to discuss when they get stuck. For example:
- How might the student’s educational experience impact their inclination to access support services?
- Does the family impact a student’s choices regarding seeking support? Is this the same in all cultures?
- Do the expert’s strategies complement or conflict with each other? Why might this be?
- How might your own cultural and educational background influence your desire to seek help?
- What specific strategies could make support services more culturally accessible?
- What role can peer support play in bridging cultural gaps? How can you implement peer support safely and respectfully?
- How can confidentiality be better communicated across cultural contexts?
- What systemic changes might be needed to better support international students?
- How can success stories be effectively shared while respecting cultural sensitivities?